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Gnessin Academy Piano Concerto - Pan 3
#1
Beautiful all around from performance to hall to recording and engineering.  Superb.

Lots of ways to look at this from almost any seat in the house, such is the quality of the recording and the nature of the hall. I love the way you can hear the interplay of the performers left and right hands.

I'd love to hear your impressions of my approach.

Happy listening,
MITC

Gnessin Academy Piano Concerto - Pan 2
11/18/2017

Once I uncovered the unconventional section placement I re-approached the mix accordingly.

What began to clarify things for me, however was a nagging note in the piano.  Is it just me or is there a broken string? The right hand of this pianist is very aggressive. When listening to the spot pair I noticed is was a bit strident and lacking low end. I am guessing the hi-pass filters were on, on that pair. To tame the stridency I figured compression, which I applied sparingly. That leveled out the left hand a right hand a bit but the ping was still there. So an EQ was applied with mid-side capability.  Just switching the EQ into mid-side mode made a big change. Recognizing that the low end of the piano and the top end which was mostly to the sides was beautifully present in the three house pairs allowed me to filter lows from the sides and highs from the center and strengthen the mid section of the piano against the room mics. BAM! All of a sudden the piano began to blend properly. I had tamed the ping, enhanced the low end definition (the left hand) and got it lay mach better against the softness of the string rises.

I like to consider myself a purest, but EHHH. I guess not. I was very reticent to alter such beautiful tracks in a classical context, but it called to me that the strength of the spot pair on the piano was not the full bandwidth but the great mid-body presence and power of the instrument and the pianist.

Solidifying the piano image helped me to recognize the need for hi-passing which was done judiciously but necessarily and as a result the horn was tamable which allowed me put the woodwinds pair through a narrowing process to place it more easily in the back of the ensemble.

I'd love to know what you think of this approach and would like to hear how others approached this and what cues they listened to when making their blending and panning decisions.

Much Thanks...MITC

Gnessin Academy Piano Concerto - Pan 3
11/18/2017

What is so much fun about orchestral mixing is that it allows you to be both producer and conductor. Offered as my final take on this wonderful piece is this. Did some more low end cleaning and was generally more aggressive with tuning the individual sections with EQ and gain riding.

Gnessin Academy Piano Concerto - Pan 4
11/28/2017

A couple new approaches here. LCR panning for all sectional mics. Room mics were used more heavily and re-balanced to add the lushness and softness I was hearing in 'professional' productions. Some hi end was rolled off sectional mics to keep the softness.

Gnessin Academy Piano Concerto - Pan 6
5/9/2020

Hello. I hope everyone is doing genuinely well.

I've mixed this piece previously and have posted those mixes in another post. Typically I would add it to my exiting post but this mix is a different generation.

After watching a recent public television special documenting the life of the young Japanese piano prodigy Nobuyuki Tsujii, who achieved a gold medal at the Van Cliburn competition in 2009 and listening to this incredible pianist, it clarified an approach to this piece. That approach has been applied with this next generation mix.

Armed with new EQ plugins from the classical era allowed for liberally shaping the sonic content appropriately, bringing focus to the groups of instruments in the ensemble and how they are layered. This presented a wonderful sound stage to present a focused and very evenly tempered piano soloist. This new clarity also allowed for the house to be better encompassed around the stage which is vital to the entire soundscape. This has yielded the best rendition of the hall I've yet to realize. It also preserves the presence of the soloist, with excellent imaging of the piano, note definition and the best dynamics, so far.

There were several layers of compression on the mix as well as mastering compression/limiting. All used very sparingly and for specific need. No reverb was added to the mix. The decay and sonic density of the hall is superb. Automation was used throughout on section mics or on the 'All Sections' buss; mostly subtle changes to enhance the balance between soloist and ensemble throughout the phrases in the score. All tracks were high-passed to a degree to minimize rumble. Not noticed in previous mixes are some of the house noises audible in this one. I also think a string is gone or is going bad on the piano. Yikes! I had my suspicions of this before but something is buzzing, besides me. You tell me if you can hear it. Please!

Learning and hearing about this wonderful new performer was a treat and being able to apply that to this mix of the Concerto has a been a real pleasure.  I hope you find time to enjoy my mix.

Put on your best ears and take a listen...
Your friend, mITc

Comments are appreciated.

Thanks,
MITC


.mp3    Gnessin Academy Piano Concerto.mp3 --  (Download: 23.85 MB)


.mp3    Gnessin Acadamy Piano Concerto Pan 2.mp3 --  (Download: 23.85 MB)


.mp3    Gnessin Acadamy Piano Concerto Master 3.mp3 --  (Download: 23.85 MB)


.mp3    Gnessin Acadamy Piano Concerto Pan 4.mp3 --  (Download: 23.85 MB)


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#2
Hi Mitc,

I always feel a little uneasy and uncomfortable critiquing this style of music. Although I enjoy this genre immensely and appreciated it more as I get older, I definitely wasn't born with the classical music gene. A purist, not by a long shot. So take my comments with a grain of salt.Huh

It's interesting listening to your mix having seen the photos Mike has posted. Your mixes represent the recorded space well. I like the natural sound and the captured ambience. This is where I get a bit confused as to how one should approach this captured space and represent it in the mixing stage. With this genre, there is as much room sound in the recording as the performance itself. Is it therefore best to present the music within it's natural environment or do we try make it sound like it was performed in the Musikverein in Vienna with some added artificial input. This is where referencing becomes an issue also. Concert halls all sound different.

Your reasoning and approach is interesting and by all means, and a lot more articulate and thought out than that of my workings. I found after basic room balance and gentle re-enforcement with the close mics that any track eq moves thereafter were very reactive and I didn't like what was happening to the overall sound, so I kept this processing very minimal.

Back to your mix, for me and my ears I am wondering if there is too much detail coming through in the close mic's and not enough room sound? Also I feel I'm missing that lovely warm sustained bottom end that extends the bass notes into the room that I hear in a lot of recordings. I guess it would take some additional reverb to introduce this. In saying that, the third mix does seem to be better in this regard as opposed to the first mix which sounds very tight. Otherwise Mitc, I like what I am hearing. Your natural and conservative approach has paid off.

I would love to see how a pro would mix and present this piece, especially in regards to reverbs and space.

Dave




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#3
(21-11-2017, 12:06 PM)Dangerous Wrote: Hi Mitc,

I always feel a little uneasy and uncomfortable critiquing this style of music. Although I enjoy this genre immensely and appreciated it more as I get older, I definitely wasn't born with the classical music gene. A purist, not by a long shot. So take my comments with a grain of salt.Huh

It's interesting listening to your mix having seen the photos Mike has posted. Your mixes represent the recorded space well. I like the natural sound and the captured ambience. This is where I get a bit confused as to how one should approach this captured space and represent it in the mixing stage. With this genre, there is as much room sound in the recording as the performance itself. Is it therefore best to present the music within it's natural environment or do we try make it sound like it was performed in the Musikverein in Vienna with some added artificial input. This is where referencing becomes an issue also. Concert halls all sound different.

Your reasoning and approach is interesting and by all means, and a lot more articulate and thought out than that of my workings. I found after basic room balance and gentle re-enforcement with the close mics that any track eq moves thereafter were very reactive and I didn't like what was happening to the overall sound, so I kept this processing very minimal.

Back to your mix, for me and my ears I am wondering if there is too much detail coming through in the close mic's and not enough room sound? Also I feel I'm missing that lovely warm sustained bottom end that extends the bass notes into the room that I hear in a lot of recordings. I guess it would take some additional reverb to introduce this. In saying that, the third mix does seem to be better in this regard as opposed to the first mix which sounds very tight. Otherwise Mitc, I like what I am hearing. Your natural and conservative approach has paid off.

I would love to see how a pro would mix and present this piece, especially in regards to reverbs and space.

Dave

Dave,
I too had and have trepidation about using my known skills at mixing popular music and reconciling that with classical. Two quite discreet approaches, I would think. That being said and since this is a piano concerto, I felt it was important to try and present the instrument and the artist playing it like I was sitting in the hall enjoying the performance. With so many excellent sources to choose from in this recording there are serious decisions to make about how both the piano and the orchestra are presented. What I was hearing was to get the orchestra to sound bigger and more lush was to maximize the hall mics. But that approach washed out the piano, which after all is the main focus of the performance. Now I could have added artificial reverb, but that just didn't seem to make sense considering the well recorded hall ambience. Adding artificial reverb would have taken the performance out of this hall and into something imaginary and I really wanted to capture the performance in this hall. With that decision made, I then had to balance the piano and the hall and pretty much let the orchestra fall where it would accordingly and that did not present any real problems for me. I picked a spot in the hall I wanted to listen from essentially and built the mix around that. What I did do was boost the hall some during the overture and the exit but drawing the room back during the piano performance. Subtle, but if you listen closely you can sense the perspective of the orchestra change when the piano begins.

I did listen to other performances of this and found most recordings were very room heavy. However, these were performances in much larger halls and with larger orchestras. Let's not forget this is really a chamber orchestra in a smaller hall and with an unconventional sectional layout. These are the characters that make the performance and the recording unique and I feel it is my responsibility as the mixer to represent both the performance and the place accurately. This is a purely subjective process.

I would also like to hear from an experienced professional orchestral mixer and discuss approaches and philosophies.
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#4
It's certainly a humbling experience working with such a calibre of performance and recording. In some respects for me, it can be somewhat intimidating working with such material. What would I know about mixing classical music. One things for sure though, it's great to listen to all the different mixes presented here and to hear the personally of each and generally all with the same objective, to present the music the best one can. Ultimately, how lucky are we.Big Grin
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#5
I believe that everyone's work is good, both professional and non-professional, since each one puts his or her best to make it sound like one would really want. We will find a thousand versions and mixtures, or important of all this is that this is an art and as in the painting each one puts subtle colors on the same painting that make them different. In my case I took everything into consideration and filtered some frequencies that in my opinion "dirtied" the result, and then I was carried away by the orchestra and the piano with their own imprints. The orchestra manages the environment and the plans, there is not much to do, just enjoy the moment and try to make it sound as decent as possible.The dynamics alone leads to good results, no compressors in anything, letting everything sound dynamic for me is the key
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#6
(22-11-2017, 12:38 PM)Dangerous Wrote: It's certainly a humbling experience working with such a calibre of performance and recording. In some respects for me, it can be somewhat intimidating working with such material. What would I know about mixing classical music. One things for sure though, it's great to listen to all the different mixes presented here and to hear the personally of each and generally all with the same objective, to present the music the best one can. Ultimately, how lucky are we.Big Grin

Very grateful to be able to access music like this.
PreSonus Studio One DAW
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#7
(22-11-2017, 01:12 PM)flyrecords Wrote: I believe that everyone's work is good, both professional and non-professional, since each one puts his or her best to make it sound like one would really want. We will find a thousand versions and mixtures, or important of all this is that this is an art and as in the painting each one puts subtle colors on the same painting that make them different. In my case I took everything into consideration and filtered some frequencies that in my opinion "dirtied" the result, and then I was carried away by the orchestra and the piano with their own imprints. The orchestra manages the environment and the plans, there is not much to do, just enjoy the moment and try to make it sound as decent as possible.The dynamics alone leads to good results, no compressors in anything, letting everything sound dynamic for me is the key

No right, no wrong, on this process for those taking an earnest approach. And I can't imagine technical audio engineering needs to be different with this genre as opposed to any other. What may change is the understanding of this type of presentation as opposed to an electric source with no native ambience. Having been an orchestra member but only in my youth, I remember it being drilled into me to always watch the conductor. Why? Because the conductor manages the dynamics of the performance. Sounds easy. It is not. It sounds easy to hit a golf ball. It is not. You must master hitting the golf ball before you really ever begin to play a golf course as it was designed. You must master your instrument before you can be held as an instrument in the hands of your conductor. Ideally a conductor will be able to inflect his ideas for dynamics and intensity with a wave of his hand or the flip of his baton or a glaring gaze. He also has a libretto, so to speak, in his score. Now we, as mixers, take over for the conductor without a score. If you have seen any film on classical production you will often see the engineers and producers are reading right along with the score using it to make notes on mixing cues, often assisted by the conductor. After all, it is his or her presentation. I do not know how to step into those shoes. All I have are my ears and my limited understanding of the craft from what scant things I have seen. I did go to youth concerts at the Academy in Philadelphia when I was a child, and it included workshops about conducting and orchestral presentation. But I was like 8 and would have much rather been out playing baseball or football. However, some of it sunk in, I guess and I give thanks to my parents for helping me appreciate all kinds of music and the commitment it takes to truly bring it to life.
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#8
This sound like a good old classical music to me. I like the dark or "not overbright" tone of this mix.
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