EQ Magazine - July 2008 - (Page 38)

MIX BUS MAKING STRING SAMPLES MORE MUSICAL Christine Wu. by Greg Reynolds Feeling a bit strung out on all those phony strings from your sample library? Sorry—can’t help you there. We suggest you make a friend with a violinist or three. But if you are having difficulties fitting strings into your mix, we suggest you keep reading. Meet producer/mixer Rob Chiarelli (Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson, Pink) and violinist/arranger Christine Wu (American Idol, Justin Timberlake, Celine Dion). Their names consistently appear on albums and film scores for a reason—they understand that music is supposed to be, well, musical. “A string instrument is a piece of wood—sometimes, hundreds of years old—that resonates,” says Wu. “It’s a very natural and beautiful sound, and you must preserve that sound as much as possible.” Once you have all your string tracks recorded, then what? Wu: One of the most important things about mixing the strings is that they should be there where they need to be, but they should not take attention away from anything else. Chiarelli: I listen to each track individually so I know what I have to work with. Once I get a picture of what the parts are, and how they work within the song, I draw some conclusions. The first consideration is the sound, or the balance of the orchestra or string section. If the dynamic range is too wide for a pop record, then I’m going to have to compress it somewhat. With strings I try to use gentle compression. I don’t want to be too heavy-handed. Specifically, what do you mean by “gentle” compression? Chiarelli: With strings, I tend to like a real low ratio—1.5:1, 2:1, or maybe 3:1. I don’t think a ratio of 10:1 sounds musical. If I need more gain reduction, rather than asking one compressor to do a ton of work with Rob Chiarelli. a high compression setting, I might ask two compressors to do a little bit of work—each with lighter settings. That way, they’re just gently riding the gain. If your attack and your release are set properly, the compression should sound pretty transparent. So how do you determine your attack and release settings? Chiarelli: The string envelope is pretty slow, so you don’t want to have too quick of an attack. Depending upon whether it’s an individual instrument or an orchestra, your attack is going to be in the range of 10ms to 30ms, and the release will probably be somewhere between 80ms and 160ms. However, you may have a staccato section that requires a faster release, and if a section has a ton of long notes, you may even need a release time as long as a second. Which compressor plug-in do you like to use? Chiarelli: I think the Waves C4 is probably the most musical compressor. Do you find yourself using EQ? Chiarelli: If something is recorded correctly, you don’t usually need a whole heck of a lot of EQ. Wu: From time to time, Rob will ask me to use a different microphone to get a sound that will pop in the track more. We try to anticipate mixing problems when we record, so we don’t have to use EQ later on. Chiarelli: However, we have found that strings recorded in a small room tend to produce undesirable frequencies if the track is heavily layered. So, on a pop record, I might use a highpass filter to roll off an 18dB slope starting somewhere between 60Hz and 80Hz. That’s the area where you’re not really affecting the fundamental sound of strings, you’re just cleaning up some bottom end that might conflict with, say, an electric bass. What are your go-to reverb plugins, and how do you apply them? Chiarelli: I like Digidesign Revibe 38 EQ JULY 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - July 2008

EQ Magazine - July 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Louis XIV, Four TET and Steve Reid, Can Your Record Go Gold in the Digital Age Tool Box Death Cab For Cutie Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Propellerhead Reason 4 Sony Acid Pro 6 EDAX Audio Labs VTP-100 M-Audio Profire 2626 Tape Simulator Shootout Tape Simulators Sounds Room With a VU: Infrasonic Sound Recording Company, Los Angeles, CA.

EQ Magazine - July 2008

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