I haven't intervened until now because I preferred to see the opinions of other friends first.
I am pleased to observe that despite having compressed so many notions into a hyper-accelerated course, the results are visible in terms of feedback from other members, but above all, they can be felt! Most importantly...
In reality, we would have had much more to observe, and there would have been much to deepen regarding the things we discussed. At least now you have a general overview of the problems encountered in the studio and you have well learned the steps to take during the mixing phase and those to take during the mastering phase.
The result seems more than good to me, considering that it is all the product of libraries.
When working with libraries, I like to appeal to a rhetorical phrase that fits perfectly in this context: "The whole is not equal to the sum of its parts". Having to record note by note, many "frequency events" are lost which, conversely, occur at the moment when the full orchestra is recorded. Furthermore, we must remember that the choices made by companies producing these libraries are aimed more towards increasing monetary revenue; therefore, even the recording choices for the samples (analog outboard gear, microphones, positioning, room acoustics) are made to create general-purpose products, meaning they can be decently applied to various musical contexts: film music, classical music, light music, pop, rock, etc.
I recall, in fact, that every musical style requires different outboard gear, microphones, and positioning. If I were to record a Jazz group, I would never dream of recording a piano with a preamp that is too crystalline and two Shoeps positioned very far from the piano. The point is that changing recording techniques and positioning changes the sound immensely.
Why does Vienna sound good with classical music? Because the developers thought to create a library to be used for an orchestra (typically classical). For a rock track, I wouldn't use the Vienna violins; they would seem significantly better to me if I used East West in this particular context.
All this to say that starting from libraries, one cannot expect to properly re-simulate the recording of a real orchestra; there will always be instruments we don't like, on whose sound we can certainly work, but if they do not possess certain frequencies, they simply do not have them, and we cannot invent them ourselves. By equalizing instruments, we increase or decrease the contribution of certain frequencies in the spectrum that contribute to the sound, but you understand well that even with the best equalizer, we could not reproduce the sound of a Stradivari with a 100-euro violin! Timbral differences depend on all the harmonics in the Fourier spectrum, which is continuous, and also on those components in the frequency spectrum that constitute noise (for example, the friction of the bow hair on the strings produces other frequency components) which contribute to the realization of the instrument's timbre. From here, it becomes easy to intuit that with an equalizer that has even 6 bands, we cannot have control over an infinite number of individual frequency components, and therefore we must settle for modifying the content of a certain range of frequencies, a range that on parametric equalizers is defined by the selectivity of the Q value. Then we should also spend a few words on dynamic capture and bit depth. In this case too, we would have to talk about the "conveniences" of using a higher number of bits, provided that the preamps were calibrated to be able to capture the maximum possible dynamics at the maximum number of bits, which is by no means a given.
The considerations we could make could go on for hours, but I will stop here.
Instead, I will move on to give my impressions of this master.
Yes, perhaps a little mid-heavy; not a big deal, in these cases EQs do their job excellently, that is not the problem.
I would have worked a little more on the MIDI for the expressiveness of the instruments, automating the value relative to expression in the strings, as in the winds, and in all other orchestral instruments. We must simulate attacks and ensure they don't sound blatantly fake. Fakeness in these contexts is felt especially during the attack and sustain phases; especially for strings, one can do a lot.
As far as releases are concerned, normally all samples are good enough and do not require further manipulation.
For other instruments, the fakeness seems evident regarding the sound. The snare drum, as someone else was writing, is just fake. In this extreme case, I fear there is nothing better to do than change the sample. One must always keep in mind during mixing, the"}
frequency bands in which individual instruments operate, and avoid these frequencies from compromising the bands in which other instruments operate. In this way, at the end of the mix, a complete spectrum filled with all frequencies will be guaranteed. At the time of the mix bounce, we must have a division of the spatial zones where the instruments are located and a division of their frequency tasks (this ensures that all instruments are intelligible); it will then be the mastering phase that glues and uniformizes these divisions, recreating a realistic environment.
In any case, I listened again to the file from the previous version and it is evident that there were a large number of problems that you seem to have solved very well, having a albeit summary awareness of the phenomena that acoustically occur within an orchestra and more generally in an environment, so as to be able to recreate them thanks to the use of audio technology. What matters most to me, in fact, is not putting a person in a position to perform a mix or mastering by mechanically applying plugins in a row, but putting them in a position to examine the problems, understand their causes, and remedy them by applying the solutions we have seen.
I was pleased to have been useful to you and it gratifies me greatly to have been able to listen to how much difference there is between a pre- and post-'course' mix.
Congratulations again on the result...
