suggested levels for all MIDI volumes in a Virtual Instrument.

[aeide]

hey everyone, I have been searching for weeks now and have not found the exact answers I am looking for.
My question is, what is a good rule of thumb for setting levels at the bigining of a mixing session for a MIDI orchestral mock up?
There are a few question that I have that will answer the larger question.

1: what should i set my volume at for for headphones when mixing? Should i set the volume i am listening to 100% or 80%?

2: at the start of the mixing process, I pull all faders of individual tracks down to -10 at the recommendation of an engineer friend. Is there any other recomendations on how to "balance" monitor volume and track volumes?

3: there are a few other ways to control volume in an instrument track, such as MIDI vol, CC11 expression, and CC1 Mod wheel.
I know that different virtual instruments utilize different CC to control the instrument, for instance Spit Fire libraries rely on expression and dynamics fairly heavily (CC11 and CC1 respectively i believe) so what is the best "starting position" for each of these other controllers in conjunction with the channel strip fader to give me room to work with dynamics, and pop an individual instrument's line out over the rest of the orchestra?

I keep running into situations where an instrument, say the basses, are too quiet i can barely hear them, and other situations where I am maxed out and cant bring a violin line up out of the orchestra.

So i am just looking for a "best practices" starting point; where should my faders be, where should CC1, CC11 ect be for a piece starting mezzo forte and such.
Any thoughts and suggestions would be supper appreciated!

Thanks!

[DonaldM]

I would highly recommend that you convert all your VI's to audio tracks once you've got the individual parts the way you want them. This makes mixing much easier. Use the MIDI volumes and controls on your VI to get a good audio level, and than commit to audio.

I use East-West orchestral instruments a lot. I use the MIDI to compose the part. But once I have what I want, I convert that part to audio, then hide and make inactive the VI and the MIDI track, and just work with the audio. This will save a lot on your CPU enabling you to have more CPU power available for any plugins you want to use in the mix processing.

If you only have a few VIs, you can get away with mixing off the MIDI instruments, but you're still mixing audio levels, not MIDI levels.

By hiding and inactivating, I can always bring a VI and MIDI track back if I decide later I want to make some change in the part. Meanwhile, I've freed up all that CPU.

I think you'll find that's what most pros do.

Good luck!

[musicman691]

Keep in mind that it's not only MIDI cc7 and cc11 messages that have an effect on volume but also velocity. Changing velocity levels (low velocity will give a lower audio level) will have a two-fold effect - the first being the level of the instrument and if it's a sampler like the aforementioned East/West instruments the timbre of the sound will be affected by way of playing different samples.

[aeide]

Many (but not all) of the samples i use are not midi dependent, and the spitfire that I use, utilizes velocity to trigger different things such as legato or portamento. After importing MIDI from Finale, i always have to go and set velocity levels so the sounds I want are triggered. But you are right, its important to keep velocity in mind so the inner voicing do not overtake the melody, on a piano track for example.

DonaldM, thank you for your suggestion. I tried what you recommended today and had a much better time mixing my orchestra. Instead of mixing the virrual instrument tracks and stressing over the many ways of controlling volume, i committed them and needed only to play with audio track automation. And i especially like that the VI tracks are still there in case i need to make any changes at any time.

Thanks for the help guys! Really appreciate it!

[DonaldM]

Glad it helped. It really makes mixing easier to commit to audio first.

[LightWing]

Donald is the man. :)

[chrisdee]

Originally Posted by aeide

1: what should i set my volume at for for headphones when mixing? Should i set the volume i am listening to 100% or 80%?

I personally try to aim for around 85db or lower whether mixing or listening to music for longer periods of time. Anything above that probably will give you ear fatigue or worse.

Originally Posted by aeide

2: at the start of the mixing process, I pull all faders of individual tracks down to -10 at the recommendation of an engineer friend.

Why?

Originally Posted by aeide

Is there any other recomendations on how to "balance" monitor volume and track volumes?

I keep all faders at the default position 0dB and try to keep all meters on each channel (whether audio or midi) at around -18dB . Peaks can be above. This gives me a pretty balanced starting point and 5-6 dB headroom on my mixbus.

Originally Posted by aeide

I keep running into situations where an instrument, say the basses, are too quiet i can barely hear them, and other situations where I am maxed out and cant bring a violin line up out of the orchestra.

As mentioned above to to aim for -18dB on each channel.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by chrisdee

Originally Posted by aeide
I keep running into situations where an instrument, say the basses, are too quiet i can barely hear them, and other situations where I am maxed out and cant bring a violin line up out of the orchestra.

As mentioned above to to aim for -18dB on each channel.

I wonder if this might be frequency masking at work?