Working with strings, piano, orchestral sounds etc

[Demonstealer]

Hey,
I'm just curious to know how many of you guys work with bands that use keyboard and symphonic sounds and if so how do you generally work with them.

Piano Tracks, what kind of eq, effects do you use?

String Tracks?

Violins, cellos, horns??

Arpeggiators, pads, lead and synth patches?

I've never gone into great details with these and I want to learn more about how to make the keyboards stand out more, sound grander and just generally overall fit into a mix without being over bearing but at the same time sounding powerful.

If anyone has any recommended reference reading as well I'd be grateful.

 

[Erlend_]

Depends on the source, but I really like the UAD Fairchild and the Pultec on most orchestral sources.

 

[Demonstealer]

I'm using a Triton LE and a Yamaha Motif XS6 for now. Because while a lot of metal bands use keyboards and orchestral sounds I rarely see any discussion it. Its always guitars, drums, bass and vocals

 

[Matthias King]

I want to learn more about how to make the keyboards stand out more, sound grander and just generally overall fit into a mix without being over bearing but at the same time sounding powerful.

An effective arrangement will do a lot of this job for you right off the bat.

 

[vespiz]

+1 on the arrangement.

Layering sounds can be effective to make a more massive sound and especially if they're from different synths.
Watch out if they have different reverbs on them (as is usually the case with synth presets). If they clash, record them dry and add reverb later.
Sometimes the fx are part of the sound so you just have to deal with it!

 

[Erlend_]

Of course, arrangement counts.

One thing: Even though strings and synth pad patches sound really cool and massive when using "double octaves"
in solo it might be too much for a busy metal mix. The low-end of your mix will become very "un-defined" very fast.
As always, you just gotta try and see what happens and adjust to taste.
Use high-pass filters to remove as much low end as you can when the synth is not in solo.
If your mix is still cluttered, try some dips with an eq in the mids.

If you work in midi and adjust velocity to get a more consistent performance you can often do without using
a compressor. Sometimes you might wanna use one for a special effect though.

Watch out for synth patches that use alot of modulation or other kinds of weirdness in the low end. Again its the thing about patches sounding
cool in solo but will completely clutter your dense metal mix.
As vespiz mentioned above, be careful about reverbs and delay too.

If you use alot of real orchestra or sampled orchestra sounds you can generally compress them alot more when in a metal mix
than what you would ever do in a purely orchestral piece. Go nuts with the eq too and cut out everything you possibly can.
You need all the sonic space you can get.

 

[Demonstealer]

Cutting lows is something I've had to do to make space for it to fit in a mix always.

But what I'm referring to is something more than the very basic stuff we do.... I'm not sure how to put it. Anyway maybe I'll upload some clips when I have something that can be referred too.

 

[Jind]

+1 on the arrangement.

Make that +2

I recently purchased "The Guide To MIDI Orchestration" by Paul Gilreath and I have to say it is a great read and it has helped me to grasp how you can make what ultimately are electronic instruments sound less electronic.

There are so many books on just orchestration with real instrumentation, but as most of us don't have a symphony orchestra readily available, making one electronically is how we must do it and this book is about doing just that.

It does help to have a little bit of keyboard experience as the book assumes you at least have that, but it is a great book and it came highly recommended and I have to agree it is a great resource.