Mixing Techiniques for those with SE VSL Vsti

[Phillip]

Im using FL Studio for my DAW. I have some projects that are finished and im curious about mixing techniques. I raised the lows of the cello to make the sound fuller and upfront however this drowns out the rest of the characters of the entire sound. Though im still experimenting with different mixes but i prefer the cello to have a bass hollow sound, as if the mic was inside the belly of the beast. as for the rest of the instruments ie: raising the lows of a violin in portamento has no effect. all tracks are equipped with reverb in my programming. most likely venue or if im using fruity reverb 2, some many sided cylinder, though the depth is kept short; the cylnder is tilted at a slight angle. What is the general db and reverb numbers and decimals to working on a non vienna library daw? based on my method, disregarding the daw, what am i doing wrong?

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hi Phillip

Two solutions for getting an instrument close...

1. "Blowing up" instruments with an EQ for getting them as a soloist might be an idea but this "trick" most time doesn't work in a complex mix.

Better would be the opposit: Make all the rest of the orchestra "darker" so that the only instrument with all the highest frequencies (overtones) must be the closest.

Observe the mix here:

(Celtic Woman, use 720pHD)

While the rest of the Orchestra has not the ultimate brilliance the soloists all got their frequencies until the highest of them.

So there is no question who stays closest to the listener... the celtic girls.

2. To have lose soloists an orchestra player is a question of creating different depths for an orchestra mix.

The closest instruments should be routed through the depth which generates a close depth and so on. A possibility is to creat such depths within different groupe channels.

2 - 4 depths are enough for most cases.

How do we get depths?

There are probably hundreds of youtube videos which try to tell you the solution. Maybe its true that you can get some different depths by turning reverb parameters such as Predelays, Sizes Diffusion etc. but really impressive and different depth you get by using the method which also happens in a real room.

When we listen to a violinist in a church for example (3m away) we get as the first signal the direct sound, followed by the first reflections (called ER = early Reflections). Later on we will get a sum of all reflections of the church - in reverbs often called TAIL.

Now Important to know: Our Brain is used to "read" the roomsize and the distance of the musician with the Early Reflections. The Tail can extremly support this fist impression. But with good ERs you normally don't use a lot of tail for good depths.

If the violonist plays farther away the direct sound will decrease and also the ERs a bit. The volume of the tail will be constant even if the player is close to us or not.

When the violonist plays at the opposit to us in the church the direct signal is nearly 0 also the ERs are lower there is mainly left the TAIL-Signal.

So a certain depth you get by balancing the 3 signals "D i r e c t - E R - T a i l".

I'm currently writing a Tutorial about such things so I can show my text above with a sound example:

You hear a Marimba as a soloist which moves far and farther away only by decreasing the direct signal and the ER-Signal. The Tail signal stays constant.

Listen to http://www.musik-produktion-createc.ch/Tut_FX_Rev_Dif_Depth_Signal.mp3

(For ERs I used the Schumann-Saal of the convolution Reverb VSL-SUITE (first 30ms), for the Tail I used the Roomwarks-Reverb of Cubase (Church-Preset))

Now, the situation for soloists: They are so close that their direct signal is far louder than those of the Early Reflections. You will recognize some tail but also not very strong.

So for your Cello: Route it through a reverb which doesn't create any ERs just the tail which you use for the rest of the orchestra as well.

BTW: Listen to this example and the solo violin which is mixed as I wrote above (at around 2:55)

All the best

Beat

[Steve Martin]

Hi Beat,

that's very interesting. I'd just like to say I appreciate the information you shared here. Thank you kindly for sharing with us.

best regards,

Steve[:D]

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hi Steve

Nice to meet you here [Y]. Thanks as well.

Beat