Orchestral Intransparency

Orchestral Intransparency It is in the nature of orchestral music to not be able to hear every instrument clearly in the mix. Some instruments like woodwinds even regularly “drown” in tuttis and their only purpose is to add to the ensemble sound. This is actually a...

Safety Takes

Safety Takes Whenever you record live instruments, no matter if it is just a soloist or a whole orchestra, always go for “safety takes” if time allows. Those are takes that you do after the point where you are happy with a take. It can and will happen that you don’t...

Remote Music Mixing

Remote Music Mixing Being present on the music mix is obviously the best situation but sometimes due to budget or location issues, it is not possible to be there. Unless you’re mixing the music yourself, you need to have quite a bit of trust in your mixing engineer....

Click Track and Gradual Tempo Changes

Click Track and Gradual Tempo Changes Ritardandos and accelerandos are very tricky to do with a click track that live players need to record to later. Especially the standard tempo changes that DAW’s offer with a constant slowdown or speedup usually feel very...

Small Ensemble Seating

Small Ensemble Seating When recording or overseeing the recording of a small ensemble of musicians, pay attention to a few seating issues. If you’re not depending on a specific seating of the musicians for other reasons, you might want to go for the following option:...