Latest / 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast / Musical Solutions to Mixing Problems

Transcript

Musical Solutions to Mixing Problems · 52 Cues - A Production Music and Sync Podcast

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: The way the orchestral stage is laid out is to help with dynamic range.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: The reason there are a billion violins right up front is because violins are some of the quietest instruments.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: They need several of them.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: They need to be really close to the audience.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: The reason percussion is in the back of the stage or upstage, isn't you know?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: This is I'm a percussionist.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I can say this.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Isn't that because we're all just like knuckle dragging Neanderthals who you can't be trusted?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: No, it's because percussion is loud.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So put them in the back.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: It's going to help with that dynamic range.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: What is happening, everybody?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: This is Dave Kroff, and welcome back to another episode of the 52 Q's podcast, a weekly podcast dedicated to all things production and library music where we talk about industry topics and take deep dives into the different aspects of being a working production music composer.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: If this is your first time here, welcome, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening to the audio on the go.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I just want to thank you for spending part of your day with me.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I also want to give a huge word of thanks to the family, friends and patron subscribers of 52 Q's who help keep the podcast, the channel and everything going.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: See, we are 100% community supported, so you're not going to hear any embedded ads for meal plans, plugins or earbuds.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: But if you want to learn more about how you can support 52 Q's while also unlocking subscriber perks like live streams, workshops, zoom feedback sessions and a ton more and to be sure to click on the links in the description for more information you know, one of the things that's a real challenge for us production music composers is we have to do so much of the mixing and mastering process ourselves.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've had nearly 800 Q's published to various libraries and I can count on one hand the number of times that I've done the final mix and master myself.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And I know there are some libraries out there who will do the mix and master for you and that's really, really great.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: That's not been my experience.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: All of my placements.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I am giving them a mix and master.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Now some of them might take and do it, take the Q's and do a little sweetening or something, but in my experience, I am doing the mixing and mastering myself, which, to be honest, feels feels a little scary because I'm just a drummer, right.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I started in sixth grade band.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I never considered myself like a tweaker engineer.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I never really felt like diving into the whole back end mixing process.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I've learned everything that I know about mixing kind of on the job, kind of backed into it, which presents some challenges because I learned so much by watching YouTube videos, linda tutorials or like Mac Pro videos, and there are there are so many amazing resources out there, but it can be really overwhelming.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: At least I found that.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It's almost like you learn this one trick and you're like, okay, I've got to use that.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Then you learned another thing.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, I've got to do that.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, now you learn this.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, I've got to, I've got.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And so by the time, by the time you get a little bit down the road, you feel like every single Q, that every everything you ever write has to have all of these mixing and mastering processes and EQs and compressors and gain staging, and it can be super overwhelming.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: But I want to encourage us and what I want to talk about today is being a composer first when we are approaching our mixing and mastering process Composer first, mixing, mixing and I want to unpack three areas of the mixing process that we can approach from a technical uh, technical aspect or technical perspective with technical solutions, but provide also musical solutions, orchestration arrangement solutions, because I feel in my experience bears out that if I approach the mixing process musically first, then there's there's a lot less technical shenanigans that I have to try to pull off because because I don't have to apply everything I've ever learned on every single track, every single channel, on every single Q.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: So we're going to break down three main components First, balancing and frequency distribution, then dynamic range and compression, and then finally stereo placement and depth.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So balancing and frequencies, dynamic range and compression, spatial placement and depth, those are the three areas I want to address and we'll talk about the technical solutions.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And then I want to give you some of my musical solutions.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So first, balancing levels and frequencies, basically frequency distribution, how all of your sounds kind of fit together, how they snap together and from a technical aspect, and how we solve that technically in the mix is by the use of EQs.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: You have a marimba and a piano on top of each other playing the same type of pattern in the same frequency spectrum and you apply EQs to each.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: You give this part to this, this, this channel, this part to this channel, complimentary EQ curves, so that everything kind of fits together and that's all well and good.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that's the most musical solution.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: You can also, technically, you can also use a sidechain, sidechain compression, sidechain EQ.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: So when this sound hits, if you have a kick and a bass, when the kick hits, the bass compressor engages on the bass, pushes it out of the way.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So you can kind of have your cake and eat it too.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Again, perfectly fine.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: But what if?
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: What if we approach the frequency distribution and balancing musically first, what does that look like?
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Well, the first thing we can do is our instrument choices.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: If you have a piano and an electric piano in your mix and they're right on top of each other, then maybe we change those instruments out, maybe find instruments that complement each other, not instruments which are in the same frequency range.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It's going to help minimize masking issues and make it significantly easier to balance.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: If you're giving a melodic part to the strings in your mix, then your high strings, let's say, and you want an accompanying figure.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Don't put the accompanying figure in the violas or the second violins or create another violin part.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It's going to step on each other, it's going to clash.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: You're not going to be able to really hear either one.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So, changing instruments that complement each other so that they don't automatically step on each other.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: If you have a guitar part, don't have a competing part like on a harp.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: If you have an 808, bass probably don't want a big, dense, low end kick.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And, yes, you could go in and adjust the EQs so that they're all chopped up.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: But what if you just pick a different kick sound?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: What if you use a kick that has a higher pitch?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Just to begin with, find instrument groupings that fill out the frequency spectrum that complement each other, before you even touch the EQs.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: As far as, if we have the MIDI, if you have notes that are on top of each other, you have a marimba and a piano that are right on top of each other.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Well, the composer, first way of looking at that is just move some of the notes up the octave, simple as that.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be wholesale.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: You don't have to move the entire piano part up, but just move some of the notes up the octave so that they're not stepping on each other.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: See, as composers, if I am in front of an orchestra, I'm creating these mixes and balancing and frequency distribution across the orchestral stage, and this isn't going to be the last time we talk about the orchestral stage and how it accomplishes essentially mixing technique just in a concert hall.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: But if I have my instruments spread out and they're not all playing the same thing all the time, then it's going to blend together and you're not going to have frequencies clashing with one another.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Don't give the low octave French horn part or horn in F part and trombones the same part, in the same range, at the same time.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: You're going to have a shaker playing a part which is sonically right on top of what a stutter hat might be playing, like if it were a hip hop track or something.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And if you have a clap, don't find a snare which is the exact same sound, the exact same texture and just layer it on top of each other.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: You're going to create mixing issues, balancing issues, masking problems.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So if you have access to the MIDI, just spread the MIDI out.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Also, if you have access to the MIDI and let's say you have the, an electric piano and a piano and you want it, then spread out some of the notes, spread out some of the chords.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I see this quite a lot with students.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: They will write a progression like on the strings and then they will take wholesale that entire MIDI region and copy and paste it to like the brass, and then maybe a choir, and then maybe the piano, and so it's track after track after track of really dense orchestration.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: We're talking five, six, seven note voicings across two or three octaves, just copied and pasted.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: But what if you give the low strings, the low notes, the middle part to the piano, the high notes of that same chord or that same voicing to the brass?
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Just spread things out, don't have them all be ganged up right on top of each other.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And if you do these things before you EQ, what you're going to find is that the EQing process itself goes really, really smooth.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: That's been my experience.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I think we get so trapped into.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: These are the parts we've written them and I know from watching over here that if I have a kick and a bass on top of each other, I should EQ them.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Complimentary EQ curves, I should automatically go to a side chain.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: But if we can take a musical approach, do some some some different instrument choices, make our arrangement itself so that they're not playing at the same time, and spread out the voicings of competing frequencies, the mix almost takes care of itself.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: If you've ever watched any of my live streams or seen any of my my breakdown videos, you'll see I use very little.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: You know compressors, very little in terms of like EQing.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's one EQ.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe if I need to get surgical I'll use like the stock logic plus the fab filter Pro Q3, maybe some side chaining.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: But that's after I've done these musical solutions first.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: So think, think back to the last time you had a mixing problem and ask yourself what would a musical solution to that have looked like?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Chances are one exists, especially, especially if you're dealing with MIDI.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Midi Instruments has composers, that's.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: We have that freedom.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: We have the freedom to move things up the octave.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: But even if you have audio, you could still.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: You could still do some of that, like with pitch shifting and all of that.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: So that's how I solve balancing and EQ issues with instrument choices, arrangements, harmonic spreading, yep, that takes care of those.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So now let's talk about dynamics and compression.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And the first, the first technical responses, is right there, using a compressor or a limiter.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: You have a cello part that's too loud, just throw a compressor on there.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: You have a snare transient popping out of the mix and throw a limiter on there.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: No problem, and that does solve that problem.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It will.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: You have a section where the, the piano, gets too loud, just a fader automation.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: No problem, that's a technical response to a dynamic problem, but that's not the most musical response.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Most MIDI instruments will respond to MIDI program changes, midi, midi commands and I'm talking commands that you know, commands like velocity, commands like modulation, expression, because something happens with good MIDI instruments, like, let's say, our cello example.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Something happens when we adjust the velocity of a cello.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Because let's actually back up, if I have a cello part that's too loud, do I want that performance just quieter or do I want an actual quiet performance?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: You kind of follow the difference, like if this were a live cellist in my studio and in bar five, you're too loud, am I just saying I'll just turn it down, or do I say you know what, instead of a fortissimo performance, I want a mezzo forte performance?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Well, the musician, the musician composer in me, wants a mezzo forte performance, not just a fortissimo performance at a lower volume, because something happens when you play an acoustic instrument at a lower volume.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: It's not just the gain reduction which is kind of a byproduct.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: What happens is that in a cello the bow moves slower and the sound physically changes.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: A cello played in fortissimo is going to be brighter, the bow is moving faster.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: All of these overtones and harmonics just kind of explode out of the frequency spectrum.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: You could pull that up and look at it on a frequency analyzer.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: You can see all the upper partials and harmonics bloom out of the sound Because of the way the string physically reacts to being played with more intensity and our ears are used to hearing that.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: We know what that should sound like.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So we hear a fortissimo performance.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It conjures an emotional response.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But when a cello is played quieter, the bow is moving more slowly, it's played with less friction across the bow, the frequency sounds darker and the sound physically changes.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And good string libraries will put that in.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: It'll respond to the velocity.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Some libraries will respond to the mod wheel.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Some libraries are programmed to respond to the expression.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is changing.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: That input will fire up different samples from the multisamples and so you're not just getting a fortissimo performance played at a quieter volume, you're actually getting a mezzo forte performance out of your samples Because the sample engine pulls from the mezzo forte bank of sounds instead of the fortissimo bank of sounds.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It's even more pronounced if you go very, very quiet pianissimo.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: So if I want a quieter performance, less velocities or lower velocities, less mod wheel, adjust the expression tool.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Yep, that will solve the need for putting a compressor onto my cello because the compressor is getting too loud, or automating my volume.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Another example let's go to our snare transient In bar five.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: The snare transient is too loud.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: The technical solution throw a limiter on there so that the transient doesn't peak and everything sounds nice and smooth.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: And if you have recorded audio, then those are really your only options Throw a compressor, throw a limiter, or go in and adjust the gain or do some kind of technical fiddling to smooth that volume out.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: If I were recording a live drummer in my studio, I would say let's take this again in bar five, make sure not to hit as loud.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: The drummer hits quieter, get a quiet performance.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: How do we do that?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: With MIDI instruments we adjust the velocities, because the answer to if the snare drum is playing loud, always do this isn't consistent, especially if you have MIDI instruments.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: You don't always have to side chain, kick and bass.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: You don't always have to throw a limiter onto a snare drum because that's what you do.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: No, the limiter is there to solve an acoustic sound problem.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Likewise like putting a gate on your tom, a noise gate on your toms.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: You do that to help contain any sympathetic vibrations.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I guess you would put the noise gate on the snare so if you hit the toms it vibrates, the snares on the snare drum and you could get sympathetic vibrations.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: The snare buzzes when you hit the toms.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: The solution isn't always put a noise gate on your snare.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: That is solving an acoustic problem.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But with MIDI instruments we often don't have Now parenthetically a lot of high end drum set libraries like Superior Drummer.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: They'll actually bake in the sympathetic vibrations to the snare sounds.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: At that point maybe you would need to put a gate on there which kind of yeah, anyway.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That's too much work for me.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It's a bridge too far.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: If I'm going to go through the headache of applying all of the processes onto a MIDI instrument, then I might as well just mic up my drums and play on myself.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: But that's just me.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons that I have a hard time using Superior Drummer.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: It's fine library, amazing sounds, but it's just a little too fiddly and I don't have the bandwidth to fiddle with a drum mix that well Like that or for that long.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: So adjusting the velocities, adjusting the mod wheel, adjusting how the instrument responds on a MIDI level will adjust the performance of that virtual instrument from your virtual musician.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: It's going to sound more natural, give a more realistic dynamic range, taking care of the need for a compressor or for volume automation.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And another thing to help rein in dynamics and compression or just your overall dynamics, sometimes you just need less parts.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: One of the byproducts of taking one, you know, seven note voiced MIDI region and just wholesale copying and pasted to all these other instruments is just sounds freaking loud.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to rein in all of those things.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So say nothing about EQing and side chaining and complimentary eat.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Forget all of that, it's just going to get loud.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So removing notes will help with your runaway volume issues.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll help.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: You don't need a MIDI region with seven notes across four or five different tracks.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: That's going to help with that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Use layering to create a more natural dynamic contrast.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: If you're writing a trailer track, the end is just going to sound denser and should sound denser due to more layers than just volume increasing.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: See, I do very, very little volume automation.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I do all of my volume swells, all of my intensity builds, not with a technical response, through volume automation or compressor automation or whatever.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: No, it's through orchestration.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: That's what's happening when you see a conductor conducting an orchestra live.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: That's what's going on.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: They're waving their arms and they might be conducting yes, they're helping keep time.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: But the conductor is really there to communicate the emotion that the players should be giving back, they should be projecting.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So when you see a conductor stand upright and go, you know that there's an emotional aspect to that, where if the conductor is like one, two, three, four, then the musicians playing will respond to that emotional energy that the conductor is projecting through the way they're waving their arms.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: But if you've ever watched an orchestra and you've seen the conductor kind of do that, look off Well, well, well, well, well.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: What they're doing is mixing.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: They're mixing in real time, right before your eyes.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: In fact, the way the orchestral stage is laid out is to help with dynamic range.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: The reason there are a billion violins right up front is because violins are some of the quietest instruments.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: They need several of them.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: They need to be really close to the audience.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: The reason percussion is in the back of the stage or upstage isn't, you know?
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: This is why I'm a percussionist I can say this Isn't that because we're all just like knuckle dragging Neanderthals who you can't be trusted?
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: No, it's because percussion is loud, so put them in the back.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: It's going to help with that dynamic range 100%.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: That's why the orchestral stage is laid out the way.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: It is One of the big reasons.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Talk about another reason here in a second Kind of following me, how we should think about musical solutions to mixing problems.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: If we start there, then the mix itself I have found is really easy to do Normal EQing because I've done the work of instrument choices, arrangement, harmonic spread, very light compression because I've done a lot of the things a compressor needs to do.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I've done that with velocities and modulation.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Now, that's not to say that we shouldn't put EQs.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: We're just not depending on EQs to solve mixing problems or to or to solve all the mixing problems.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: We should have compressors in our mix.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying we shouldn't.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: We're just not depending on compressors to solve mixing issues, to solve all of our dynamic problems.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I use compressors really to kind of tie everything together.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I use compressors pretty religiously in two cases.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: One is on the master chain.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: It's part of my ozone.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I use a compressor, I use an actual multi-band compressor alongside a limiter I think ozone calls it a maximizer Gives you that final loudness.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Those are two compression stages.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: The other aspect, or the other time I use a compressor, is if I have recorded audio, because it's easier to throw a compressor to kind of smooth things out, smooth out the transients, than to go in and surgically isolate every transient which might be over a certain threshold.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: It's just easier to throw a compressor on there, kind of glue everything together.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Just smooth out the transients makes it easier to mix.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Those are the times I pretty faithfully will use a compressor.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: One other time where I will use side chaining to solve a problem is in a mix where I will have like trailer tracks that have an impact like a big sonic boom.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I will side chain that sonic boom to the low end of whatever my lowest sound is, like a bass or the percussion or something, so that when the sonic boom hits it pushes the low end out of the way of the competing sound, the sound which is going to create a masking problem.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So the sonic boom hits, I feel the low end from that sonic boom.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: The sonic boom releases and it disengages either a side chain compression or, more often than not a side chain EQ on the other sound.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I use those pretty consistently.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Otherwise I'm solving mixing issues musically.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And then finally, spatial placement and depth, where things are feeling on the orchestral stage or your sound stage.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be orchestral.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I mean things like panning.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: There's your technical solution.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Things like stereo imaging plugins.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I do this all the time I have.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I do this in my hip hop tracks, where I will have two hi-hat patterns like right on top of each other, finding splice loops, and I don't want to trigger any content ID.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I'll cut them up, overlap them, pitch them down and have one straight down the center and then the other one.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I will put a stereo spread on, usually a sample delay, and I'll delay the left side by like 15 milliseconds so it sounds nice, nice and wide.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: They fit together in the stereo image and that's fine, that's great.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: But it's just not the only solution I look for, especially when you're dealing with recorded stereo sampled instruments.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: You have violin samples which are already placed on the stereo field where they would be sitting on an orchestral stage.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to pan, just use instruments that are already placed.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: You don't have to exaggerate it.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: You have cellos which are going to be staged left or the right side, lovely.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Start with understanding where things are sitting in the mix and not necessarily depending on exaggerating them.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: If you need more low end or let me say this another way, sorry If you need more left side energy, then maybe adjust the velocities of a piano performance so that the left side is a little bit louder, which is going to help offset, because if it's a stereo recorded piano then that left hand is going to sound louder than the right hand.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Many times I will have parts like Maremba libraries or like Choleste gets like this, glockenspiel gets like this, where it gets really plinky and really really high on the left hand or on the right hand side, because it's a stereo recorded instrument.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: To balance things out, I will lower the velocities as it goes up higher so it doesn't get out of balance.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: But before I go further into that, the other spatial placement and depth solution from a technical solution is reverbs, reverbs, and I use the same reverbs for nearly everything.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: It's from east-west spaces to, specifically, the Reynolds Hall presets, because there are multiple reverbs all recorded in the same concert hall.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's Reynolds Hall in Las Vegas actually, and so they've taken impulse samples or is it convolution impulses from all over the concert hall so that I know that if I want something to sound kind of front and a little bit to the left, then I will use the high strings reverb.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: If I want something close and a little to the right I mean it's subtle I'll use the low strings reverb.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: If I want something kind of middle-centered, I will use the woodwinds.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: If I want something far back and to the right, I will use the low brass.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: If I want something far and to the left, I will use the percussion.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Again, they're all subtle, but I use those same reverbs for nearly everything and the reason they work so well is not just because of the spatial placement but since they're all recorded in the same space, they all work together.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: They blend seamlessly.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: No phasing issues, they all just work.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So even though I might be using a synth patch or I might have some kind of arpeggiated ostinato which isn't made with a real instrument right, it's not a sample instrument I will think, huh, do I want it near or far, center or back?
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: And I will mentally place it on the stage, on my sound stage, using that reverb which mimics the orchestral placement.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: So I love doing that and I find technical solutions to those things all the time, between using sample delays for stereo width, using reverbs, yes.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: However, there are some ways that we can solve spatial issues musically.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: One of them is a little bit related to what we've already talked about, which is your parts.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Making sure that your parts fit together and aren't too far one side or too far the other.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: If you have way too much right hand, right side energy, then maybe don't give the double bases which are already placed on the stereo image on the concert stage.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Give them the heaviest melody or adjust the velocities.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: If you have a heavy left side mix, then maybe put something in the low brass to balance it out.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Basic techniques like counterpoint, so that the parts fit together and the parts are spread across the stereo image because of their natural recorded sounds, and it helps with that problem.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Yep, it's very straightforward, but it's a musical approach using orchestration, arrangement, composing concepts to solve mixing issues.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: It's not a one size fits all and not every single compositional thing is going to work.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's a mixture.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: You're bringing these things together.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: What I'm hoping to encourage you to do is to explore both compositional solutions and technical solutions and by bringing them together, the mix is going to sound better, you're going to have an easier time of it and it's more sustainable and, I think, more rewarding.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Coming from the musician side of things the composer and me I don't feel a lot of fulfillment from just just technical responses.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: That's just me.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: That's just me.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: But I always search for musical solutions first and I would encourage you to do the same thing.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: But what about you?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Are there any mixing problems that you've run across that you have found musical solutions for?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Let me know in the comments below.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I do read all of those and I would love to hear from you.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that is going to do it for me this week.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: You definitely want to tune in next week where I will be joined by composer and author Dean Cropane.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about his journey and talk about his books write, submit, forget, repeat, demystifying the cue and demystifying the genre.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: So you definitely want to tune in for that and if you haven't already, please won't you join us over at 52qscom?
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: We would love to have you.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: And again, a huge word of thanks to the family, friends and patrons subscribers of 52Qs who really make all of this possible.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: So I hope you've had a fantastic week and I know.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Remember that the universe has amazing plans just for you.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Until next time, peace.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: The 52Qs podcast is copyright 2023 at 18 studios, all rights reserved.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: The music played on the podcast is copyright of their respective owners and is used with permission and for educational purposes only.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: For more information and including joining the community and submitting your cue for consideration on the podcast, head over to 52qscom.