All language subtitles for 3 Key Takeaways from Award-Winning Mixer on Mixing Soundtracks and Orchestral Elements

hi this is justin colletti of sonic

scoop thanks for joining me for this

week's episode of the sonic scoop

podcast and today i'm going to be giving

you my three big

key takeaways from a awesome mixcon

masterclass that just went down

with two dudes who are major forces in

the world of film score composing

and composing for games and tv shows

jake jackson award-winning film score

mixer and christian henson

who is an award-winning film score

composer they've worked on

major games tv shows movies things like

star wars loki black mirror

doctor who they've worked with a bunch

of artists as well i believe jake has

worked with the likes of

boney bear nick cave laura pussini

christians worked with

artists from bands like massive attack

and blur and the list just goes on and

on

but the master class they gave us was

really about

working with sample libraries and

working with live recorded instruments

and kind of making those two things

blend together so for anyone out there

who's either

working in the scoring world or relies

heavily on orchestral sample libraries

or just

occasionally uses them in their work i

think there's some great insights in

this one that we're going to go into in

some detail today

of course for the long version we've got

an hour plus mixed mixcon presentation

definitely want to check that out right

here on our youtube channel

but if you want the quick cliff notes

version you're going to get right now in

podcast format

from me i was able to kind of go in

there and distill quickly down

some of i think the core takeaways big

quick shout out and thanks to our

sponsors spitfire audio both christian

and jake

have made sample libraries for those

guys you gotta check out them at

spitfireaudio.com making some of the

best libraries out there

also a big shout out and thanks to

soundtoys one of my favorite makers of

creative

mixing effects and you'll see jake

jackson use some of their stuff on the

mix

even their crystallizer and some

interesting effects that you might not

expect

to see in an orchestral mix as well as

fabfilter also

sponsoring this month and fabfilter

again shows up in jake jackson's mixes

is actually probably

the primary eq i saw him use and i want

to

give you some of the insights i got

about using eq in the orchestral

and film score context from jake jackson

and watching the way he works

all right let's dive right into it so

big takeaway

number one that came up more than once

is that jake has worked with bands

mixing for bands and like conventional

pop rock

idiom right and he's also done extensive

work in the film score world

and he'd be one of the first to tell you

that these are two entirely different

animals

and the mix approach and mix process is

very much different

one of the things that came up is a lot

of the kind of mixing tricks that we're

aware of and used to and know in the

context of

working with traditional pop and rock

and hip hop whatever

electronic multi-tracks don't apply

to film score mixing and orchestral

mixing

a lot of the things you might expect to

do to really kind of

go in and carve out areas so you can fit

all these puzzle pieces together doesn't

or at least shouldn't happen

in the orchestral scoring and film score

world

most of the time and we'll talk about

some key exceptions to that

but the eq that jake is doing is pretty

minimal

the biggest thing is they're selecting

the right sounds

from the instrument libraries to begin

with and then once they've created

a full demo that honestly christian's

demo that he created just by himself

using nothing but like the spitfire

audio libraries to compose the track

sounded pretty darn good and sounded

better than a lot of scores right off

the bat

but then they went to famous air studios

in london

and tracked a multi-piece orchestra to

go over that demo

and basically blended that demo together

with the new

string sections they captured and in

that context

you're getting great sounds in a great

space recorded going in

and you're selecting the right sample

sounds for the mood you want to evoke

and you're not necessarily going in and

doing the

puzzle pieces of eq to reshape things

you're not going in and doing

radical compression the most common

effect that's used there

is something like reverb and we'll talk

about jake's approach to reverb

but for jake the mix in this context is

a lot more

about just balancing things the mixing

part of mixing

becomes the most essential and important

part

and a lot of what he's dealing with is

what should be featured and when

which elements should be brought forward

a little closer to the listener and

sound a little bit more edgy

which one should be pushed a little

further back in the soundscape

how can we get the thing to sound wide

without losing focus

so so much of what he's doing is with

level

balance pan and then

reverb sends and there's just a couple

of reverbs in here i mean there's

actually 24 reverbs but they're the same

two or so reverbs again and again and

we'll get into that in a little bit

in just a second some more detail there

but

his use of eq really speaks to this

approach where

a lot of the time he's going in there

and trying to make things

just sound a little prettier a little

bit more impressive a little bit

better using eq and he'll often do

one or two bell cuts or boost and you

see this happen again

and again and again he grabs his

fabfilter pro-q

eq and he finds a spot

say in the upper mid-range on strings

that might need to be softened

he remarked that in a lot of sample

libraries there's a little bit of extra

brightness in strings in the

2 to 3k region that gives them a little

bit more edge than you might

want if you compare that to real

finished film scores that are

recorded on the scoring stage so often

go in some of those sounds and dip

in that area say 2 or 3k

and then there might be a corresponding

boost down lower in the frequency

spectrum

so he might have a little cut between 1

and 3 db and a little boost down bottom

between

1 and 3 db and he's looking to

enhance the overall sound and this is

very different

advice than you'll likely be given from

advanced mixers

in the pop and rock world and the hip

hop world in the edm world where it's

like hey sometimes you need to reshape

things dramatically

and don't even listen to these things in

solo and if you do boost some cuts of

5 and 6 db that could be okay

it's not always necessary sometimes you

don't want to touch anything with eq but

it could potentially be okay

to make the puzzle pieces fit together

to give everything the separation it

needs

but here in the orchestral context the

goal is not

necessarily separation the goal

again and again christian brings up is

to make all these players

sound like they're in the same room

together that's the aesthetic that

christian

the composer is going for and that's the

aesthetic that jake is looking for in

the mix

and that's what you'll hear in a lot of

really impressive film

scores how to make these people feel

like they're in the same

room together acting almost as a

singular instrument with lots of

different parts within its personality

so it's a little bit different than

the traditional rock and pop context

that a lot of

new mixers might be used to so

the eq often gentle and often two

corresponding boosts and cuts i talked

about

him often using bells fairly wide

and it could be the opposite what i just

said so in another

particular instrument he dipped that

same 2 to 3k area

but then above it lifted up the high

frequency

kind of reshaping that area in

yet another sound he found a little bit

of a high mid-range boost to bring out

and then did a corresponding little cut

in the low end

using the frequency analyzer in the

pro-q exactly the way it recommended to

first

by ear say which area do i want to cut

oh it's probably somewhere

here between 100 and 200 and now i'm

just going to double check my frequency

analyzer so i can zero in on the exact

frequency

again doing fairly broad boosts and cuts

bell filter fairly wide and you just saw

that approach come up again and again

and only on a very very

minor group of things like mandolin here

and there you'd see

extreme low frequency roll-offs but

often that kind of thing wasn't

happening

now another thing that's a little bit

different is the use of reverb here

there were something like you know close

to 100 or so ish

tracks on this session and there ended

up being 24 different reverbs that

sounds like a lot right

but those 24 reverbs are actually there

just so he can more easily

make stems in the mix because they

ultimately want to send stemmed out

versions to the

final mix for the the final

film mix so that in case there's a line

of dialogue that's getting lost they

could just pull down the percussion or

just pull down the strings

or whatever it is rather than

necessarily having to pull up and down

all the music

so they're sending a final mix of stems

it has the

reverb baked into them so really for

convenience more than anything

there's 20 something different reverb

tracks

but they're really relying on

predominantly two reverbs

that are stacked together there

is a convolutional reverb in this case

is the altiverb reverb

and there is also an algorithmic reverb

and those two reverbs layered together

both christian and jake found that they

sound a little bit more

natural to them in the respect that you

don't hear the specific character

of either one of these reverbs and

basically everything in the entire mix

was sent to those

two reverbs so that they could feel like

they're in the same room together

there was also one third reverb that was

crazy long and had about a 10 second

tail on it

and that was really used more for

special effects and special instances

sparingly here and there so your primary

stack of two reverbs that were filling

in each other's holes the convolutional

reverb

and the algorithmic reverb stacked on

top of each other

kind of medium longish and then a super

long

effective reverb that was used for

particular

specific elements and

that gets me into yet another big idea

from this which is that

there are certain elements where

all the things i just said go out the

window a little bit

so in this particular mix there was like

a prepared piano

where i think christian had molested and

destroyed mutilated

some poor old piano that's about to be

thrown away with you know nails and

screws and saw blades and things

and for an instrument like that they

weren't afraid to use things like delays

like the super long reverb maybe doing a

little bit more eq and a little bit more

processing than you'd otherwise see

there was a synth in there where jake

wasn't afraid to go in and add a chorus

pedal to it

so there are more synthetic elements

even in this

context where you can take a more

synthetic approach

and then there's the more natural

sounding elements where they took

a very very natural sounding approach so

i think we've gotten to a bunch of ideas

that are ready that's kind of almost

three and the last big thing that was an

interesting

takeaway here is just the way they work

as far as

client revisions and mixing with or

without the client

and both christian and jake prefer to

mix

without the client there in the room in

this case i'm referring to

christian the composer as the client

even though they

both of them had yet another client the

end director

but you know in the jake christian

relationship the composer christian is

kind of the client to jake the mixer

and christian really prefer to

start off in the morning listening to

some stuff and going over notes with

jake and then letting jake do his thing

and then coming back later for the same

kind of process rather than

being there with him the whole time and

i've got to say

i would generally agree that this is a

better approach to

having the client in the chair in the

room with you all the time

unless they're someone who's really

super interested in mixing themselves

but honestly sometimes those are the

worst people to have in the room with

you

and sometimes the biggest benefit that

that end

client or producer or decider is going

to offer

is the benefit of them coming in with

fresh ears listening to things from a

big picture perspective

and talking about the few basic core

important things that need to change

instead of getting in there and

micromanaging

so you can have one person who's kind of

zoomed out and one person who's kind of

zoomed in and jake also talks about how

having christian the composer

come in on occasion and listen to the

stuff

with him and just give notes helps him

zoom out

and christian really recommends doing

this in

this context i believe he's talking

about you know maybe once a day

first thing in the morning to kind of

check in on the latest batch of mixes

rather than having jake go through the

entire mix

the entire you know two hours worth of

score material

mix all of that and then give it back to

christian for notes

they took a different approach which was

let's mix the first

handful of cues i'll just mix them to

the best of my ability me jake the mixer

and now that i'm done with that

christian come on in give me your

feedback

tell me for going in the right direction

with this give me your notes on it

let's perfect these first few cues great

now i can use that as an overall

template and idea for

your taste where we want to go and now

i'll go through the next

you know half dozen or so cues and we'll

check back on that one

and hopefully as the process goes on

there's fewer and fewer notes

and i found a process like that to work

exceptionally well for me these days in

mastering

where when i'm mastering a album for a

client

sometimes i really love if we have the

time to just work on one track together

really get that one shining very well

kind of go back and forth a little bit

on it and let that track then set the

template for the rest of the record

and that can be a decent way to work

when time allows for it

and in mixing in standard context

of more popular music that same kind of

approach can work really well

rather than mixing the entire album and

then getting feedback starting with a

track or two

getting the feedback on those and then

using that feedback to fold into the

rest of the mix process

well i hope those were some decent

insights for you i really implore you if

you have the

hour to check it out the full length

mixcon masterclass from these two it's

an

absolutely beautiful and a little bit

kind of terrifying suspenseful

score from christian hanson and a great

mix from

jake jackson you'll hear the before and

after and although

i'm a big proponent of you know it not

all being about little choices and

mixing and sometimes you got to look for

the big wins and the big changes that

are really going to make a difference

man i've got to say jake in this mix

does so many

little things that really do add up over

time to a kind of final layer of polish

without

any one of those changes he's making

really being a big win

this is one of those things where it's

that final

painstaking sanding of just smoothing

out an edge here and enhancing a detail

there

and really great to see him work in that

style and it really did turn into

a stunning thing one last thing i'd say

is that

in this particular cinematic mix jake

wasn't afraid to lean a little bit hard

on the

close mics there were close mics on each

one of

the live recorded instruments and he

actually leaned a little bit heavier

into those to give things a little bit

more of an

up front and maybe slightly aggressive

feel i guess you'd say because of the

suspenseful nature of this particular

score

and he wasn't afraid to pan pretty wide

on those strings

either and it really brings out a lot of

beautiful detail

into it i hope you enjoy this one

definitely check it out in full length

over at the sonic scoop youtube channel

that sonicscoop.com youtube video or if

you're here on the youtube channel

already it's probably just going to be

up

somewhere on the screen you can click on

all that good stuff remember to enter

for your chance to win

thousands of dollars worth of free gear

over at the mixcon mega giveaway

you can check that out at sonicscoop.com

slash mixcon giveaway thesonicsgroup.com

mixcon giveaway where you can enter for

three chances to win

thousands of dollars worth of free gear

big shout out and thanks to our sponsors

this week we got spitfire audio makers

of some of the best

sample libraries virtual instruments out

there for film score composing

and of course a lot of people use them

across genres but definitely check them

out

at spitfireaudio.com big thanks also to

sound toys making some of my favorite

creative mixing effects in the known

universe try out anything they make for

free over at soundtoys.com

and big thanks to fabfilter sponsoring

the podcast this month

making really great both creative and

utility mixing effects you see the pro-q

plug-in everywhere on jake jackson's mix

check them out over at fabfilter.com

last but not least if you want some free

stuff you got it i've got a workshop for

you called the five habits of every

great

mixer if you want to tie together the

common threads that you're going to find

in all of the mixcon presentations from

this year and the past

seven years of mixcon you definitely

want to check out that presentation

these are the things that tie the

approach in the process of all the

amazing mixtures we've studied on this

channel together

get that for free over at sonicsgoop.com

mixhabits that sonicsgoop.com

mixhabits for the five habits of every

great mixer

or if you want a primer on mastering you

can check out my

intro to mastering workshop at

sonicscoop.com mastering 101

sonicscoop.com101 for those of you ready

to go deeper

of course we got the full-length courses

that come with a money-back guarantee

people love them you got to check out

mixing breakthroughs now and it's 2.0

iteration and

mastering demystified where i tell you

everything that i know about mastering

to get you started

and mastering yourself all right thanks

again for hanging out with me this has

been justin clitty of sonic scoop

see you next time