Mixing Orchestral Music: 7 Epic Techniques for Beginners

[@zaharishtonov]

Fantastic content! Not many (free) videos show these techniques! Thanks for going over your process! I personally would suggest using more reverbs for better separation and also if you have to deliver stems (eg. Strings short, strings long, brass, woodwinds, percussion, etc.). Nowadays plugins do all the work and they are not that CPU taxing anymore. Loved every bit of your walkthrough and composition! Cheers from LA! 👍🏻

[@corrosive135]

New to this channel and this was very helpful. Thank you

[@kubapianoYT]

Hi Samuel, thank you so much for all tutorials and knowledge you are sharing with us here! This is unbelievably helpful especially I am using Studio One aswell 😊 I have one question - because I see you are using a lot of automation of the volume for example on horns. Do I have to use automation on every track even if I play with the Expression and Dynamics when I am composing the piece of music? Maybe it is necessary in order to put some important melody ahead of the mix? Thank you for your answer😊

[@SamuFL]

Hi. There is no "you must do this " in my experience. It all comes down to: what works for your work flow and style. Personally, I use expression and modulation extensively when I play in the midi. Once I leave the composing and arranging stage, however, I export everything to audio and change my mindset. For me, it's easier to work with the audio in the mixing stage. And there, if I take my track seriously, I will revisit all levels. This will make me want to use volume automation on almost everything, eventually. For me, this works. I know of other producers who have similar and better results than me and master out of their midi session. So... 🤷‍♂️

[@kubapianoYT]

@SamuFL thank you so much! 😊 have a good day!

[@axelmenningen]

Hi Samuel, thank you very much for the valuable tips. In my orchestral productions I often have the feeling that the instruments sound too "scratchy" and I would like them to be "softer". But I have no idea how to achieve this. Do you have any ideas?

[@SamuFL]

That's hard to tell as I don't know exactly what you mean. I do have a tutorial on mixing orchestral mockups. In my experience midi-strings in particular have a tendency to sound harsh in the higher frequencies. But I fear I cannot give you a general advice without actually hearing what the problem might be.

[@spokansas]

Wonderful piece. Valuable mixing workflow tips. But you forgot to mention the Ottakringer step of saturation and decompression. 😂

[@SamuFL]

OMG! Yes, that one is absolutely essential! Here, we call it "16er Blech". And it only works straight out of the can.

[@gianni1646]

Hi Samuel! Your heading says “…. 7 Techniques for Beginners” but you glossed over stems, exporting them and having a dedicated “Mix Project”. I had hoped you would have delved into that in greater detail since you mentioned its importance. Thanks, Gianni❤

[@SamuFL]

Hi Gianni. I am sorry, you are perfectly right. See - the video was intended to be 18 minutes long, whch - as my pretty useless yet expensive KZbin tooling tells me - is the optimal watch time for my audience to go "oh, that looks like a cool video". And then, it ended up being, like, 30 minutes long. And the same tool tells me that 25 minutes is the threshold for "oh, that's long, I might watch it later". So... instead of adhering to my own quality standards, I decided to cut out some content. And - well, you pointed out one of the obvious victims of that. Just to mention it: The reason THIS specific aspect didn't make the cut is because it is Studio One specific and might not apply equally to any other DAW. And as I have learned, too many people still rely on the second best option for a DAW.

[@CraigRodmellMusic]

Thanks Samuel. All useful information. Where did you get the visuals from?

[@SamuFL]

As usual, the visuals are from artlist.io - awesome library of stock footage. Way too expensive for recreational use. Pexels.com has some good royalty free video content which I used, e.g., for my OG LABS uilleann pipes video.

[@CraigRodmellMusic]

@@SamuFL You're not wrong about the "expensive" part! That $29.99 per month would translate to NZ$49.42 by the time it arrived on my credit card bill! Ouch! For my Murihiku video, it was WAY cheaper for me just to drive out to McLean Falls and Curio Bay and do my own filming!