Hi Tim,

I would like to comment on the use of headphones for mixing.

When I began studying about mixing and mastering, I always came across comments from almost all the studio professionals; and they said "never, never, never use headphones for mixing or mastering !" Now, I am old school ( I am 63) and I did understand their reasoning behind their almost ranting about this. But maybe todays headphones are of much better quaility that 30 or even 20 years ago. It is my opinion though that their opinion is still correct.

Apparently, our ears have a hard time determining the tone (or timbre) of particular instruments, when the source of the sound is so close to our ears, as in the case of the headphones.  Once again, most of those professionals said they use headphones exclusively for checking the balance of the instruments (left, right or center in the stereo field) but always relied on the studio monitors for tone and which instruments were too loud or too soft in the mix.

To make a long story short (maybe too late already) I usually wind up mixing 119 or so tracks with the way I mix.  That sounds like alot I know but every one has different ways of getting the results.  It drives me a little crazy at times but I have the luxury of time on my hands.

I am certainly not an expert on this but if you have any questions, I would love to chat about it.

John Minardi

https://www.broadjam.com/songs/johnminardi/composition-24/Play

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Hello Tim
Earlier, I recommended that you should remove all effects from your strings, because the sound sounded quite far from "natural". Example 3 now may sound different (I did not compare again with 1) but still pretty far from "natural".

I repeat myself again:
With the VSL samples you have a great sounding library. People of VSL took great pains to record the samples, edit and publish them. So you get a great sound without doing anything.

What is/was your mixing goal?
I do not know what you wanted to achieve with all the effect you used for your mix. A more pleasant sound?
Whatever you use to judge the sound is obviously anything but neutral. You probably adjusted the sound so that it sounded great with your "reference". To me it sounds quite discolored frankly. If you have the chance, play your mix in your car, or on your hi-fi system...

A possible help
I allowed myself to play BWV 727 with a Midifile - without big sample optimization. It was all about the sound. I chose Chamber-, Appassionata- and Orchestral strings to get an average string sound. Except for a bit of compression and reverb, I did not use any other effect - so no EQ as well! Then I switched between my sound and your sound. The example starts with VSL-pur...

http://www.musik-produktion-createc.ch/BWV727-Ref.wav (23MB)

Do you hear the difference? That's what I mean by "compare to a reference". Reference here is the "original VSL recording sound". If you compare your sound with an analyzer, it looks like this:

http://www.musik-produktion-createc.ch/Teclark7.jpg

Green means original - VSL strings / White is your BWV 727.
Incidentally, you also see that you probably used a stereo widener tool. Especially in the lowest frequencies and from 2kHz above "stereo has become a bit too much" or you used a reverb that makes a bit too much stereo here.

Summarized:
With samples you usually get good results, when you take care of correct volume ratios between the instruments and when you manage the left and right things. Finally a bit of a concert hall at the output and that's it. Such a mini mix often sounds better than a lot of what you can hear in the net, which was "treated with effects" for weeks...
I can only recommend again: Try to use less effects (until you know them better), check your listening situation, use reference sounds and try to hear your own mixes more often on other systems (car, hi-fi, etc.).

---------------------------------------

Sorry I was very direct. That might hurt a little. But keep in mind: I would not have taken all the effort if I did not really want to help you. I hope you can see that positively.

I wish you success
With kind regards
Beat

Beat

Thanks for your honest constructive feedback. The sample WAV file you did showed remarkably what you mean by the "tone" not being good.

I am going to go back to just the samples and MIR PRO and see what I can do with careful programming.

I will also, as you suggest, try using the car and my hifi system to listen to my mixes to see how the tone sounds in different listening contexts.

Thanks

Tim

@teclark7 said:

Beat

Thanks for your honest constructive feedback. The sample WAV file you did showed remarkably what you mean by the "tone" not being good...

Tim

Hi Tim

The example shows how important it is to always work with references. Our ears (brain) get used to new conditions within a short time. When you are working on a mix for a long time, you usually do not realize that you are completely wrong with the sound. In this situation, only a comparison with a good reference helps.

When you work with MIR: Keep in mind that there are a lot of parameters that can affect the sound: venue selection, microphone method, microphone positions, number of microphones, EQ, amount of "wet" ... even though the tool makes you believe it is customer-friendly in everything (which it is), you can do a lot wrong as well. The recipe also applies in this case: "Less is more." - means: If you do not know exactly what you do, do as little as possible,  ... Then also: Again and again compare with a reference.

Beat

@Beat Kaufmann said:

Hi Tim

The example shows how important it is to always work with references. Our ears (brain) get used to new conditions within a short time. When you are working on a mix for a long time, you usually do not realize that you are completely wrong with the sound. In this situation, only a comparison with a good reference helps.

When you work with MIR: Keep in mind that there are a lot of parameters that can affect the sound: venue selection, microphone method, microphone positions, number of microphones, EQ, amount of "wet" ... even though the tool makes you believe it is customer-friendly in everything (which it is), you can do a lot wrong as well. The recipe also applies in this case: "Less is more." - means: If you do not know exactly what you do, do as little as possible,  ... Then also: Again and again compare with a reference.

Beat

Beat your advice in this instance is also much appreciated by me. Thank you for being so helpful!

Paul McGraw

Hi Paul

Thanks for your kind words. Good luck until next time.

Beat

Beat Kaufmann is correct to point this out.  With MIR you have such a great sound out of the box, you must have a real reason to alter it fundamentally.  I think a lot of people can't believe that they can just use it because they are used to traditional mixing techniques that require massive labor and great expertise.   With MIR the expertise is programmed in.  It is still a revolutionary approach to mixing that can create a beautiful mix with minimal changes.   

Dear all

Here is my latest attempt at this piece. I have gone back to basics as suggested by Beat and gone for a simpler mix with more attention on the MIDI programming:

JS Bach BWV 727 arranged for strings and organ (Nov 2019 mix)

Since my earlier attempts, I have added Synchron Strings to this mix and used MIR PRO with Synchron Stage for the VIPro instruments.

I welcome any comments to help with my learning.

Thanks

Tim

Hi Tim,

I took a listen and I think it sounds extremely better than when I first heard the recording.  

John Minardi

Thanks John for the encouraging words.