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Tips for the final checks of a mix and a better use of delay effects for more clarity in the mix --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good news. My Crisis Core - Final Fantasy 7 remix is finally finished. In terms of composition and mixing, I had already finished the remix according to my plan shortly after Christmas. I've also uploaded the finished remix to various streaming platforms a few weeks ago. But before I share it with you here on OC Remix, I would like to spread the following information and tips on the subject of final checks of a mix and setting delay parameters for a cleaner mix in addition to a further, somewhat more in-depth sound experiment on working with mono and stereo sound sources for the sake of cleaner mixing (this will be in my next post within this mixing thread, because this already quite long, comprehensive post would otherwise go massively beyond the scope here). I also found a really good solution for the remaining electric guitar track I wanted to compose in line with my vision of the soundscape and the mixing in the song "Everytime We Touch" sung by Maggie Reilly. This one got an incredible vibe and radically elevates the entire electric guitar section in my Crisis Core remix once again. I have also greatly increased the MIDI velocity dynamics at suitable points in the soundtrack once more. The whole composition and mix is really good now and I'm absolutely satisfied and confident with it. Even a friend of mine, who is by far the most critical listener of my tracks in my circle of friends, told me that he now likes my new remix version even better than the original track "The Price of Freedom" - and that really says a lot, especially for someone who nearly always finds original soundtracks better than most remixes of them. ... The bad news is that the final checks, where I actually checked each of the 45 tracks (23 instrument tracks and 22 aux send tracks) in detail and sometimes changed and adjusted minor things until I was absolutely satisfied, took much longer than expected (ranging from a few minutes to over an hour per track). Then, after Christmas, I also met up again with a good friend, gamer buddy and passionate fan of the Japanese culture from my student days, who I hadn't met for a good 2 years because he had quit his really good job in the civil service due to some serious upheavals with a superior, moved back near his relaxed home village and this year, after several applications, found a job in the civil service again with apparently much more pleasant and far-sighted superiors. I was really looking forward to finally continuing to watch the legendary martial arts anime "Fist of the North Star" with him after all this time. In addition, another friend asked me the days after Christmas if it would be possible to have a few gaming days. And together we played through Crisis Core - Final Fantasy 7 Reunion right into the new year and, after several attempts, even managed to defeat the hardest secret boss in the whole game. The really funny thing after waking up on the first day of the new year was that my mailbox showed exactly 777 unread emails (mostly DAW, VSTi and synthesizer news, which I often skip because I'm pretty happy with the stuff I own, want to use it better before buying new stuff and prefer to radically improve my composing skills these days). When the number 777 shows up during the modulation phase in Crisis Core - Final Fantasy 7 (Reunion), it means a level-up for the main character Zack. But I've really gotten used to such mystical numbers in my life. There have been far more gnarly cases, starting with some rather trivial-looking shopping receipts with a bill of exactly 7.77 euros, plus the number 777, which I once drew at the citizens' office for the waiting list, then when I googled the world population in 2020 and it was apparently exactly 7,77 billion people or when I was on the search engine Ecosia (a rather idealistic company that uses most of its income for ecological projects such as tree planting and growing organic food in the world) and this page showed exactly 7777777 planted trees that had been planted with the help of Ecosia. Maybe I'll start a special thread someday, a thread with the title "Haunted by numbers" (especially since I've collected the relevant papers, receipts, movie tickets with such numbers or made screenshots of the relevant numbers over the years). If I wasn't so happy with my working income and down-to-earth lifestyle (I don't even bother with tax refunds - but more because I don't want all this paperwork and prefer to spend my free time doing more joyful things like making music), I could really go to the casino and try to hit a few jackpots with my Lucky 7 mode activated. ... In the last few days of my vacation, I also wanted to finish the final checks of my Crisis Core remix to make a fitting transition with some finished content for the start of the new year. But just then winter set in and I had to do winter maintenance on both weekend days, followed by the working week and then winter maintenance again on the following weekend (similar to these days, where I was supposed to chop up frozen earth and gravel with a pickaxe or do a lot of earthworks with a wheelbarrow, shovel and rake this week due to an official ban on the use of certain machines, I was eagerly looking forward to a quiet weekend and was then greeted with a full onset of winter and 2 large winter service missions just in time for the end of the week - not exactly the most favorable conditions to focus my thoughts on creative, time-consuming music projects). After that, things slowly calmed down again. When the order situation at my company slowed down a bit, I was finally able to take off a lot of accumulated overtime and take a few days off to do the final checks on my remix during this time. ... Since the final checks of a mix can be very time-consuming, but definitely worthwhile, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with a small checklist with useful tips on what you should pay particular attention to in the final production phase of the mix, including exporting the final audio file. So, let's start right away with... The final checks: ----------------------------- 1) I assume that you already have a reasonable folder structure for your music projects, something like this: >>> "Folder for music projects" >>>>>> "Subfolder for a specific music project" >>>>>>>>> all music project files, audio files, text files (for a description of the remix, soundtrack or audio program or for a description of all the changes made in the latest updates of the work) as well as image, video and video project files (if you want to add some atmospheric visual content to your audio work and upload it as a video file) that belong to this specific music project... If not, I would go for it in this or a similar way in the long term. ... 2) Before you start the final checks, open the most advanced version of the music project file for your DAW in which you have already finished the composition and mixing. Save this version as another version of the music project file under a different name (perhaps something like "Your Music Project File - Final Checks"). If any serious mistakes happen in this new music project file during the final checks (e.g. unintentional, irreversible deletion of objects or MIDI data), then you still have at least one or more back-up versions of your music project. ... 3) Check all the details in a track according to a defined scheme with a corresponding sequence that seems reasonable to you. In my case, the order of the final checks was something like this: A) source signal track (track 1 with the piano intro, for example): panning >>> VSTi settings >>> settings of the direct plugin insert effects including settings of the EQ plugin >>> aux send feedback B) aux send track related to the source signal track (track 24 with the reverb for the piano in this case): panning >>> settings of the plugin effects including settings of the EQ plugin C) checking the audio and MIDI objects in the source signal track (especially position and content) as well as the automations (especially position and intensity) in the source signal track and its associated aux send tracks D) final listening (both of the individual track with all effects in solo mode and then again as a complete soundtrack from beginning to end with a good focus on the individual source signal track) The procedure is then repeated with the following source signal track (track 2 with the acoustic guitar chords in my case) and all the associated things mentioned - and so on until you have checked all the tracks in detail at the end. When I had finished checking a source signal track and the associated effects, the audio and MIDI data as well as the final listening of a specific track, I used to mark the next source signal track with the solo button for orientation and saved the project again (especially after minor or major changes and adjustments). This way, when I continued the final checks at a later point in time, I always knew which track I had stopped at last and that I had really saved again before starting the next track. ... 4) Yeah, you should really save your music project regularly during the final checks, perhaps also on another project file for the final checks ( "Your Music Project File - Final Checks 2", for example), and then always save your progress on both final check project files alternately, so that the loss of time in the event of possible errors or unintentional deletion of audio or MIDI data during the final checks is always kept to a minimum. ... 5) When checking the panning of a source signal track, also make sure that the panning of the track is in the correct or desired relationship with the corresponding aux effect sends (same panning or rather opposite panning, for example). For the sake of a clean mix and with the help of your DAW's display and metering functions, make sure that only a few source signals with the instruments, synths, etc. (especially bass, kick drum, snare drum, toms and cymbals) affect the center area in the mix, while the other source signals (guitars, pianos, lead synths, chords and pad sounds, for example) completely ignore the center area in the mix and only play on the sides (for example, a piano that plays with -15 dB on the left side and with -20 dB on the right side without any center involvement). To ensure a clean mix, also make sure that all aux reverb sends are always panned to the sides and never involve the center area (regardless of whether this is the reverb of a violin or the reverb of a kick drum), as reverb in the center area can quickly make the soundtrack sound muddy and washed out. ... 6) When you check the VSTi settings, the plugin effects and aux send feeds of the source signal tracks as well as the plugin effects of the aux tracks, not only make sure that they are all set correctly, but above all that they are activated at all (in the arranger matrix as well as in all subordinate settings). If you still have deactivated plugins and effects in a track that you may have used to experiment with sound design, I would delete them completely at this point - not primarily for the sake of better computing power in your DAW, but above all for more clarity in your mixer and arranger view and a better overview in your music project. In this step, make sure that the plugin effects are arranged in the correct or desired order along the signal processing chain. ... 7) When you examine the audio and MIDI objects within a track, check the position of the start and end points of all objects within a track with maximum zoom to make sure that they are correctly positioned in time and that you have not inadvertently moved an object slightly. Ideally, you should make sure right from the start that objects are only moved to the defined points in a timing pattern (and not at arbitrary small intervals) - there should be a special function for this in every common DAW. Once this has been done, you can take another look at the content of the objects, especially the content of the MIDI objects. For example, it may be the case that a starting note is displayed but not played if the MIDI object is subsequently edited and the note would actually start before the MIDI object. The last note in the object should also be checked again to ensure that it is still safely within the MIDI object and will not be chopped off prematurely. In such cases, you can also extend the MIDI object by one bar forwards or backwards. Also make sure that there is no unwanted overlapping of consecutive MIDI notes of the same pitch or even accidental doubling of MIDI notes (especially if you draw the MIDI notes with the mouse). I would also pay particular attention to any keyswitch notes, which are used to change the way the instruments are played. It can happen that you accidentally set a keyswitch note outside the available keyswitch "pitch" and therefore either no change in the playing style is triggered at all or, in the worst case, an unwanted noise is heard, which may be somewhat lost in the overall soundtrack, but is still audible. Again, make sure that the keyswitch notes are also in the correct position in terms of time so that always the right notes are triggered by a change in playing style (place the keyswitch notes temporally slightly before the actual notes with the desired playing style). This is why, when composing via MIDI, you should always completely quantize and humanize the notes before placing the keyswitch notes, so that there are no subsequent shifts with undesired articulations or strangely played notes. In this step of the final checks, it also makes sense to double-check all automations in the source signal track and its associated aux send tracks, in particular whether the exact time position and intensity of the automations are still correct. To avoid unnecessary confusion or unwanted shifts between objects (audio or MIDI objects) and automations, I would recommend object automations rather than track automations, for example via object fade-ins and fade-outs, or in a more detailed way by using the MIDI Control Change parameters (such as "Volume" - or "MIDI CC 7" in this case) and the MIDI Learn function of your DAW, which can also be used to implement automations in real time via the buttons, switches, knobs and sliders of your MIDI keyboard or other MIDI controllers. With object automations, you can move all objects anywhere in the music project (even between different tracks or between different music projects) and the automations within the object always remain at the specified position in the object, whereas with track automations, the automations always remain at the specified position within a track and the automation does not move with the objects when objects are moved within this track. ... 8) At the end of the final checks of a single track, listen to this track again - first in solo mode including all objects within this track and then again from beginning to end as an entire soundtrack with a precise focus on the individual track. If it is a pure MIDI track, I would also run the MIDI editor again while playing all MIDI objects and check whether any missing or incorrect notes and inappropriate articulations can be identified, whether the MIDI velocity dynamics should perhaps be reduced or increased in suitable places or whether the MIDI velocity, loudness and articulation of the virtual instruments and synths should generally be varied a little more. ... 9) When you have finished all this, check all tracks and the master track again to make sure that the volume is still correct everywhere and that the level peaks do not exceed the 0 dB mark at any point in the soundtrack, someting that would lead to unwanted clipping or a technically unclean production. With my own mixing system, I always mix the individual tracks in a very relaxed and forward-looking way, whereby even the level peaks of the loudest track in the entire soundtrack often just level out at around -10 dB. This means you don't always have to keep such an anxious eye on the level peaks in the tracks, because you always have enough headroom for subsequent dynamic changes in the composition or mix, which can be accompanied by a change in loudness and level peaks, without having to completely reset the mix and readjust the volume of each track in a time-consuming manner after every major change. The loudness and level peaks of the individual tracks in the mixer should mainly describe a relation between these tracks and not primarily generate a final volume for the soundtrack. You rather set the final volume or the target loudness of the whole soundtrack via the master track, for which I usually add a volume helper plugin to the master track in order to be able to set the desired target loudness in dB precisely to the first decimal place. If you check the level peaks of the individual tracks again, pay attention not only to the values displayed by your arranger or mixer, but also to what the integrated metering functions in the used samplers, amplifiers and other sound design plugins show you. Even if a completely safe level peak value is displayed in the arranger or mixer, it is quite possible that the peaks of the input level in the sampler plugin or guitar amplifier plugin in this track is sometimes slightly exceeded at some points in the soundtrack, which can already happen if you have only switched a signal source from stereo to mono in between (despite subsequently adjusting the loudness), which I experienced once during my final sound experiment that I am still preparing these days. When checking the level peaks, it's also worth taking another look at the spectroscope or the spectrum analyzer tool in your DAW to find any excessive level peaks that might be only in certain frequency areas (mostly in the lower frequency area). With many remixes on OC Remix, but also with numerous remasters of official soundtracks and modern audio productions, I accidentally noticed that there is often blatant clipping in the bass range (in some cases around 10 dB above the 0 dB limit!) or in the lower mid-range. Even if slight clipping in the bass range should hardly have any effect on the sound, it is still somehow a technical flaw in the mix. However, this phenomenon is most likely a direct consequence of the decades-long loudness war in the era of digital music production, in which the increasing use of compressors and limiters led to soundtracks being mastered closer and closer to the 0 dB limit with ever decreasing signal peaks, causing certain frequency ranges to exceed the limit - all because of a trend that was once set in motion to surpass the musical "competitors" in terms of loudness, according to the unwritten, pretty small-minded and tone-deaf adman motto: "Whoever is louder gets more attention, more listeners and more record sales." But it may also have been partly due to the fact that appropriate loudness measurement methods, metering instruments as well as pioneering loudness guidelines were only developed and increasingly established many years or several decades after the beginning of the digital music production era. ... 10) Before you export your music project as a final audio file, restart your computer again (preferably offline) to clear your RAM and have the maximum system resources available for exporting the audio file, whereby no other programs that are not relevant to the system should be opened or started after the restart. This reduces the likelihood of any unwanted sound artefacts (such as small crackling sounds, individual, slightly blurred sound events or other errors) creeping into the exported audio file. After exporting the audio file, I would listen to it at least twice from start to finish with good studio headphones before processing it further or uploading it directly to an appropriate platform. The same goes for exporting videos with appropriate video editing software (whereby you should not only pay attention to the sound in the exported video file, but also in particular to the transition animations between images and video material). ... 11) After you have exported your final audio file, listen to it again on as many different audio playback systems as possible for comparison (for example on different studio monitor speakers of different sizes, via different studio headphones as well as via less professional headphones, on ordinary hi-fi systems, kitchen radio, TV speakers, car radio, smartphone speakers or via the in-ear headphones of your HD MP3 player). If the audio file sounds really good on all systems, you have obviously made really good mixing decisions, so you can upload the file to a streaming platform or process it in another way with an easy conscience (in both cases, make sure to use an uncompressed audio format such as WAV, AIFF or FLAC in order to preserve as much audio quality as possible in subsequent conversions). If the audio file doesn't sound really good on any or hardly any systems, you obviously have a lot of work to do in terms of mixing, or you might want to consider changing your primary studio monitor speakers or studio headphones for your studio environment if your sense of hearing and room acoustics are okay so far. If, on the other hand, the audio file does not come across perfectly on just a few audio playback systems, it may also be due to the playback system itself (for example, if it generally reproduces the bass in a somewhat muffled and less defined way). In such a case, you should definitely also listen to a professionally mixed official soundtrack on such audio devices to check whether this soundtrack shows similar weaknesses in sound reproduction on the respective audio playback device as your mix. ... 12) Always keep your music project files and generally save all your important data every year on an external hard disk or comparable data carrier! In particular, this also includes all your custom presets for software instruments, synths, plugins and DAW settings. Especially with music project files, you never quite know whether you might need them again in the future, even if it's just to export an additional version of the track in a certain audio bitrate or because you might have noticed an unwanted sound artefact in the exported MP3 years later. But if you need all those music project files and presets and still have them, it can save a lot of time and maybe even lives. I usually keep several music project files for each soundtrack or remix project (the current and best version as well as various alternative versions that went in a different musical direction or that I simply used for saving and overwriting). My Crisis Core remix resulted in around 15 music project files (might be reduced to around 7 or 8 music project files afterwards), which contain a few versions at different stages of development of the remix (I usually keep all those), several project files for saving and overwriting the current remix project version and a few other music project files for a stereo width experiment that I will be presenting soon. As I can also open several music project files simultaneously in my DAW, I like to use this feature to directly compare different mixing and composition ideas in a remix or soundtrack project and to see which approach I will pursue in the further course of the music project. … The last thing I want to mention in this almost book-length text is an experience I had some time ago with stereo delay in the context of better clarity in the mix, and I'll directly copy some of the text from my post within another thread where I recently wrote on this topic. Better use of delay effects for more clarity in the mix: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I came across a very interesting thing with the delay effect that could be more relevant for mixing and clarity in the mix. I found this out the other days during the rather lengthy final checks of my Crisis Core remix. For example, in certain parts of the soundtrack there were tracks with instruments that were opposite each other in the panorama and both had a delay effect. And I tweaked the delay parameters until I found the best possible settings in terms of clarity in the mix in line with my sound design intentions, which resulted in a primarily more mirror-symmetrical arrangement of the delay parameters and another specific setting for delay times of the left and right side in a stereo delay plugin. In this experiment I found out that I achieved the best clarity in the mix if I make the delay settings like this: 1) For the instrument that is panned more to the right side: - put the longer delay time of the stereo delay (let's say 310 ms) on the right side (so you won't clutter the side of the instrument with too many echos or too fast repetitions of the source signal) - put the shorter delay time of the stereo delay (let's say 200 ms) on the opposing left side (so you also get some sort of a more frequented impression of the instrument's delay on the opposing side) 2) For the instrument that is panned more to the left side: - put the longer delay time of the stereo delay (let's say 310 ms, or maybe 330 ms this time) on the left side (same purpose like in the first example above - you won't clutter the side of the instrument with too many echos or too fast repetitions of the source signal) - put the shorter delay time of the stereo delay (let's say 200 ms, or maybe only 190 ms this time) on the opposing right side (same purpose like in the first example above - you also get some sort of a more frequented impression of the instrument's delay on the opposing side) Here is a small picture to give you a better idea of delay settings like these: On the left side of the picture you can see the stereo delay settings of an electric guitar that is panned hard to the left side (stereo delay left side: 253 ms, stereo delay right side: 203 ms) - and on the right side of the picture you can see the stereo delay settings of an electric guitar that is panned hard to the right side (stereo delay left side: 203 ms, stereo delay right side: 253 ms). ... Nevertheless, if you really want to have a rather chorus-like short delay with only 50 ms on the right side where also the instrument is located in the panorama (and with the longer delay time on the other side) according to your own sound design vision, then you should rather go for this setting (maybe you can turn down the feedback of the delay for the other side a bit or reduce the delay time for this side in this case). But if some delay effects don't follow a more specific purpose in your sound design vision and are only supposed to add a greater feeling of distance for your instrument, voice, synth or other audio sources, then try at least to balance out delay effects against each other in the panorama if at least two instruments with delay effects play simultaneously at some points in your soundtrack. And sometimes, a little bit less of overwhelming effects can be the greater blessing for the clarity in the mix. Especially in terms of a clean mix, it is crucial to know exactly what a certain plugin effect does to the output signal, how it affects the panning or depth gradation and how it interacts with the whole soundscape of the mix. ... Take special care with delay effects that they are not active during tempo automation, as this can lead to unpleasant clicking and crackling noises - because this would obviously create a kind of digital time paradox if the spreading sound wave, which later becomes the echo of a preceding signal source, were subjected to a tempo change in the middle of its sound path. Since the signal source takes place before the echo, the temporal relationship between the signal source and the echo is likely to become inconsistent during tempo automation, which would then seem to produce such strange sound artefacts. ... That's it for now with the rather comprehensive content on the topic of this post. In my next post, I will present a more in-depth sound experiment on the extended use of the stereo width of the tracks for the sake of a cleaner mix. I will also include numerous audio samples in this sound experiment. It will mainly focus on four roughly categorized variants for a specific and meaningful part in my Crisis Core remix, which contain stereo and mono sources in different combinations, in order to then examine the effect on the clarity and spatiality of the mix. I also want to compare the different versions on as many different playback systems as possible. The four versions will contain: 1) A mix of stereo and mono signal sources + stereo aux reverb sends (my preferred option so far) 2) Mono signal sources + stereo aux reverb sends 3) Mono signal sources + mono aux reverb sends 4) A mix of stereo and mono signal sources + mono aux reverb sends The sound experiment will also include a mono compatibility check of the master track for each version with additional audio samples. To do this, I have to set up the entire remix four times, realigning the panning and readjusting the loudness of the individual tracks to each other, in order to create the corresponding, hopefully significant audio material for a comprehensive comparison. But don't worry. After many hours and really tedious days, I have already put a good 75% of it into practice. However, as I don't know what's coming up soon in terms of work, winter maintenance or private stuff, I can't say exactly how many days, weeks or months it will take before I can present the sound experiment. However, I'll keep at it and try to make the best possible use of free hours. ))

Thank you for the wonderful remix comments as of late! It's made my day more than once to read your thoughts on my tracks and others too 😄