Mixing Orchestral Stuff

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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by Len911 » Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:26 pm

https://youtu.be/K9xtzJYhcGg?t=28m18s

you can see here that there are 5 double basses, 2 @ 11 o'clock, 3 @ 1 o'clock, in the back of the orchestra.
https://youtu.be/K9xtzJYhcGg?t=35m18s

The interesting thing is, you can see all the various mic'ings, some drop down from the ceiling, the rca ribbon mic in the front, etc., however, this series was made for television which was mono.
Sporadic network transmission of stereo audio began on NBC on July 26, 1984, with The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, although at the time only the network's New York City flagship station, WNBC, had stereo broadcast capability;[1] regular stereo transmission of NBC programs began during early 1985. ABC and CBS followed suit in 1986 and 1987, respectively. FOX was the last network to join around 1990, with the four networks having their entire prime-time schedules in stereo by late 1994 (The WB and UPN, launched the following season with their entire line-ups in stereo). One of the first television receiving systems to include BTSC capability was the RCA Dimensia, released in 1984.[2]
From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s and also in the 2000s, the networks would display the disclaimer "In stereo (where available)" at the beginning of stereo programming.
So from a technical and historical perspective in terms of mixing, panning didn't matter as much as the blending of the different mics with possible panning to arrive at the best mono sound. I suppose one advantage might have been that whatever was mixed had cohesion, and with today's stereo possibilities, it's possible to put a solo or section way out in left or right field, taking away some of the cohesiveness. Something maybe worth considering.
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by Lipskimusic » Mon Feb 27, 2017 10:11 am

Hi Mojobone,

The linear panning issue is an interesting one. I started reading the book you recommended (Mike Senior) and he also highlighted the issue in a different context. I am still not sure I understand it correctly. Does it - in simple terms - mean that the perception of stuff mixed in mono will be always "inaccurate" in terms of everything that is panned off center (i.e. by max. +/- 3db if panned hard left or right)? In other words, which perception should prevail? The mono one or the stereo one? Or is this simply something we need to compromise on?

I hope that makes sense.
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Matt

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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by Len911 » Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:26 am

It's called the pan law. A common setting is -3db. Remember that if two signals are in-phase, they combine and increase amplitude, just like when two signals are out of phase and cancel each other. Probably a better name is the Pan-Phase law.
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by MattCurious » Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:30 am

I'm pretty new to orchestral VI mixing and have mainly played in the sorts of large ensembles that don't feature strings, but my understanding and I think Ern can back me here, is that a visiting conductor wouldn't use the same seating chart for Mahler as for Wagner or for Italian operas of the baroque period.
I think this is the nub of it - it needs to be authentic to what you're doing, or at least not so jarring that it's noticeable.
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by mojobone » Fri Mar 03, 2017 8:23 am

MattCurious wrote:
I'm pretty new to orchestral VI mixing and have mainly played in the sorts of large ensembles that don't feature strings, but my understanding and I think Ern can back me here, is that a visiting conductor wouldn't use the same seating chart for Mahler as for Wagner or for Italian operas of the baroque period.
I think this is the nub of it - it needs to be authentic to what you're doing, or at least not so jarring that it's noticeable.
Right and, as was mentioned upthread, any extreme panning puts the listener where the conductor should normally be.
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by mojobone » Fri Mar 03, 2017 8:47 am

Lipskimusic wrote:Hi Mojobone,

The linear panning issue is an interesting one. I started reading the book you recommended (Mike Senior) and he also highlighted the issue in a different context. I am still not sure I understand it correctly. Does it - in simple terms - mean that the perception of stuff mixed in mono will be always "inaccurate" in terms of everything that is panned off center (i.e. by max. +/- 3db if panned hard left or right)? In other words, which perception should prevail? The mono one or the stereo one? Or is this simply something we need to compromise on?

I hope that makes sense.
Cheers,
Matt
Collapsing to mono can cause phase issues, in some circumstances; stereo reverbs are an example, cuz the return is gonna feature some out-of-phase reflections that differ between channels. Those differences when played back in mono will cancel each other. (phase shift and phase cancellation, BTW can be used creatively, as Mike Senior outlines a little later in his excellent book) The same thing can happen with stereo miking in a given room, but panned stereo is not true stereo. The way some analog pan knobs are designed, they're like inductance EQs and introduce phase shift of their own. Digital panning shouldn't induce anything; basically, digitally panning a mono track involves two copies of the same track with a balance knob; if the pan law is linear, the acoustic energy doubles when the track is panned center and being produced by two speakers, whereas if some one walked across a stereo miked soundstage, the footsteps would not get louder in the middle. Make sense?

Edit: I'd better re-phrase that; if you mount the mics too close to the stage, it will get louder in the middle, as the footsteps approach the mics. This is something you should remember about the mic's perspective; sampled orchestral ensembles are often miked at two or three different distances, and the closest mics will have the widest perspective, the distant mics, less so.


This is why I try to use LCR mixing when I'm blending sample libraries; most were recorded in true stereo so anything added will produce the fewest artifacts if it's panned left, center, right or L+R, but you seldom wanna pan all the way left or right, see my comments above about the conductor's perspective. Hm, come to think, a lot of classical fans might actually prefer to hear an orchestra from the conductor's position, despite the fact that she's conducting for the audience's position...
Last edited by mojobone on Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by KylePreston » Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:20 pm

This is a great question – one I've thought a lot about.

I have a hard time believing any music supervisors will listen to a track they like but then think "oh, well this isn't panned or mixed the way a real orchestra is, so I don't like it now". For the most part, in my experience only us nerdy musicians actually care about these wonderful nuances.

The song should really dictate your mix, especially if your adding non-traditional instruments. Also, some of the newer string libraries pre-pan the instruments (in the samples themselves, not it Kontakt or whatever sampler you're using), so keep this in mind while you're mixing. I would encourage you to do what sounds good for the song first, then concentrate on the 'authentic' aspects of the mix :)

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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by mojobone » Sat Mar 04, 2017 9:33 pm

Uh, this thread done turned the corner; I theenk 'compelling' trumps 'believable', and "accurate" can go whistle "Dixie". In other words, if you didn't hear anything that took you out of the music, my job is done. If the music is compelling and the performance is believable, who's gonna argue with that?
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by mojobone » Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:31 am

Yeah, I was just reading this wonderful thread on the VI Control forum and no two composers seem able to agree on what 'realistic' strings sound like. You could spend your whole life just learning to write for strings, let alone the rest of the orchestra, but unlike 'real' composers whomever they are, we don't get a bunch of dedicated lifelong musicians to help us interpret our work; it takes a lot of very detailed imagination and often quite a bit of massaging the samples to get a believable performance. And then, you gotta mix...but live musicians mix themselves.

I recently recorded a rather large Latin Jazz ensemble in a small theater and I remember thinking not 'where does everybody sit', but 'where do I put the mics?' Meaning where, ideally, cuz I'd only brought a handy recorder and I was at the mercy of the Front Of House mixer, and worse yet in the balcony, but I could see how the stage was miked, and there were twenty-odd horn players, scads of congas, timbales and shakers and and well over a dozen open mics, essentially controlled chaos with a Latin beat. I probably should post some of it...think about how often you've heard/seen that many live players at once, lately. Coulda been a disaster, but it sounded amazing.

My longwinded way of saying, yeah, I just try to make it sound amazing. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Mixing Orchestral Stuff

Post by Len911 » Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:32 pm

This is a little off the beaten path,lol, but what might be very well part of the orchestral sound is that it tends to sound somewhat dated. :o If you grew up listening on an old radio, an old record player, or even old tv shows and old movies, it's possible that sound is in your mind. When I first bought Speakerphone, I would put audio through various old record players and radios, and it really does sound like it's from another era.
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