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Mixing Orchestra with Death Metal

Lesson 14 from: GearGods Presents: Mastering Metal Mixing: Fundamentals

Eyal Levi

Mixing Orchestra with Death Metal

Lesson 14 from: GearGods Presents: Mastering Metal Mixing: Fundamentals

Eyal Levi

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Lesson Info

14. Mixing Orchestra with Death Metal

Lesson Info

Mixing Orchestra with Death Metal

When you're working with a fake orchestra the I hate to say but in general it's going to sound like crap unless you do something good to it or unless if you have some master orchestrator who knows everything about this virtual instrument tweaking it but in general uh you're if you're the guy mixing and you get it from a band you're going to be getting so that sounds like it came off of ah plastic like a like a plastic or fister casio or something so your job is tio try first inform like first for anything is trying to make the stuff soundless cheesy and if you're the one creating it try to make the stuff soundless cheesy before you get to the mixer so let's start just hunting around the tracks like the sea so in this chelsea grand so we've got this uh drum right here it's pretty cool you want to hear what it sounded like before was he queued now I will say I've heard worse than that I have heard a lot worse than that, but still that wouldn't really fly like uh I can't go back to the vi...

deo real quick listen to that drum again listen to the drum again in the video just causes mastered um and try to imagine without that you try to imagine that drawing something like this a supposed to that ok here I need you all right I would have no power was sound stupid uh so and that you know that applies to all of these instruments is first you make sure they don't sound stupid because in all likelihood they will so that could not stand whatthe away like that naughty cute sounds like a dryer like a broken yeah and then the other way it's got you know it's got it's got balls the war drum it moves yeah ninety so that's I mean and you got to do that with every single track with some will come out fine but on dh what's going on there just uh boosting stop boosting some stuff cutting some stuff boosting some stuff just to make you um I guess I did a boost it around nine and then it around for ish and then I cut the mids a lot like a tom look, a this is a lot like uh like tall on a drum set um e q is actually not that different so that's one thing let's look at some other instruments it's look att siri or whatever hernandez janice so I can find her or is where you janice? Well, what we said about labeling tracks all right, so that actually kind of kind of has like a nice little river to it on it already let's see what sounds like without the queue so sometimes you look out and someone sends you something cool if they're talented, all I did there was try to tuck it in a little bit, you know, cut unnecessary lows and some unnecessary highs and boosted the mids a little like in a vocal uh and that's it and by itself it sounds better without the q, but when the band is in, it makes more sense. One of the things that's important about this is not only ok sometimes these will sound cool sometimes that sound terrible and got to fix him, but what you've got to do is you've got to get rid of everything that doesn't need to be there because you're trying to combine it with metal so typically yeah, you will get rid of all the low end it's got a lot more low end without the cube, so and it just looked through a few more tracks and just kind of see what's going on what's this no there's not much wrong with that again. Most of these tracks are good because he's good he's a good orchestrator but that's just a little too tubby and again, you just you just have to kind of remove all that extra stuff that you don't need and also another thing that helps is to try and try and boost things that will help this cut through a wall of amplified instruments so and see on that I cut out like one fifty and below it gonna shelved down I did boost the highs and I did cut some meds and it sounds less messy remember, not only does it have to fit with metal butts got to fit with a bunch more capital tracks now if you notice though for these tracks it's pretty much all just e q you know like the for these air customer tracks uh since they already sound pretty good they're all I'm doing all I really did was work on making them fit together that's it I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel and use like all kinds of crazy compression and effects. Now if you get some casio shit you might need to see here here's a good example cut the low end out completely on this I get a lot of tracks like this from bands this low and rumbled kind of stuff I get it it makes your stuff sound creepy but when you add it with everything else it's just starts adding way too much rumble so you want to address those tracks too cut out all the unnecessary low so I think I think that the main thing here before we really have to break and like continue this tomorrow is step one is get rid of the crap you don't need with orchestral instruments there's always a lot and what you'll find is neutering them doesn't always mean neutering them because they're so full frequency it's not like if you cut out all the lows from a guitar so he sounds like paper but you cut the lows out of this still sounds creepy maybe even creepier so I think you got to be selective about this stuff is your are you can make some pretty extreme moves um in your mission to clean this stuff up and do too much there any questions cool there all the future danny elfman's it's pretty cool honored honored to meet them telling my like beetlejuice soundtrack see it now see, that sounds good by itself but like when you start adding it over everything else it was just starting to sound tubby and like too much what is going over now that's what you were talking about so now here's the thing though that's a good sounding orchestra to begin with if that was some casio shit and wasn't done so well it would not work and also it's pretty buried and I neutered it and that's why I knew did it um because originally it was originally it was this that's not gonna work so this is going to completely hidden by the guitars and base so you can take that stuff away then you basically have some meds or some highs that you could just get it up just enough to you kind of hear some something something but back to middle ground background foreground that's gotta be background total background it is going to be in there it's got to be neutered and it's got to be background where it's going to totally get in the way it's got to be exactly like you said just something where you kind of hear something get a little bit of texture in there but that's it me that that would be in there I'm not going to like argue with him and say no it can't be there but realistically like if that thing's muted I don't think anyone's going to notice you know like that that comes down to arrangement things of course you know we're just really prioritizing like, you know why is this element in the mix what is it? What does it bring to it? You know this is you know you made it work just little bit of the q but it is very much a background thing it's not a make or break element of the of the section right here yeah and maybe the and I've done this with my own band maybe the idea is to have the rhythm guitar tone just be slightly enhanced by a texture it doesn't normally have so adding a synth in but but treating it like that toe where you get rid of all competing frequencies and you turn it way down you know the problem is when a band rights. Things like this, and then expect it to be as loud as the guitars, but then be able to hear the guitars perfectly and orchestra for you, don't work. If you wanted that on the composition level to come out of the background, you'd have to change its voicing. You'd have to absolute come up in octave or something, or ditch the guitars or or that, absolutely, yeah, no, and I think that's something people should should be conscious of and think about all the time, especially from the very beginning in the writing stage. You know, where where does this belong, or why? Why should this even be here? Yeah, exactly like this doesn't. You can't just hand this stuff off to a mixer and think that you're gonna, you know, that you're going to be the danny elfman house band or something like this stuff needs to be really planned out well.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Bonus - 1-on-1 Mix Critique with Eyal Levi.pdf
Eyal Levi - Mastering Metal Mixing - Mix Fundamental Slides.pdf
Eyal Levi - Mix Template Routed.ptx
Eyal Levi - Mix Template Routed.ptxt

bonus material with enrollment

Eyal Levi - Syllabus.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Jorjhan Castro
 

It is great, I have learned a lot, thanks,...greetings from Colombia

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