Intro
As usual, I started with a quick listen to the organ / choir pieces mix I've done during last session. On speakers, it sounded a bit flat and without space, so I switched off all the automation from the Wesley track and increased reverb volume for this one up to -3.8. With that, solos gained some depth without really loosing any clarity.
'In the box' adjustments
Without any EQ applied, the recording is a bit flat on bottom side. When the choir goes fortissimo, it sounds metallic. I decided to correct that with valves. I also noticed some noises made by bored choir members (I'm obviously joking, there is no way they were bored!) flipping through pages and moving around, so I applied some more EQ on solo track - gentle (12 dB/oct) top cut at 16.8 kHz and -9 dB on top shelf at 10 kHz.
EQ on solo track
Mixer window for the Wesley track
After this little adjustment, all things that I wanted to have done 'in the box' were finished, so I started with valves.
Valve EQ and compressor
I sent both organ tracks to the same stereo valve configuration: compressor and EQ. I needed to re-patch cabling as by default the signal goes to EQ first and then to compressor, but remembering that EQ is a bit noisy, I wanted to feed it good signal, and then adjust the output levels with master gain on EQ.
Remembering that I was working on classical piece of music, I made the compressor to act only on very loud bits. Ratio was set to 1:5 with fast attack and slow release. I had to lift the gain make-up quite high to drive EQ well, and with that I achieved good signal to noise ratio in the EQ.
Valve compressor settings
To deal with the sound issues I mentioned above, I used following settings:
Bottom shelf up below 300Hz up - to bring the bassy organ sounds up and make the mix warmer.
Mids around 600 Hz down just a bit - to get rid of unwanted resonances.
3kHz down quite a lot and wide - this is where most of the metallic sounds was.
Top shelf above 8kHz up - to add some air.
Low and high cuts on - from 40 Hz to about 18kHz to get rid of unwanted noises.
Low- and high-passes and bottom shelf on valve EQ
Two middle bands, high shelf and master volume on valve EQ
Result: Clearer, warmer sound.
With settings as above, I recorded both tracks back to Logic.
Valve-processed sound comes back to Logic
Levels comparison between sound coming out (top one - it is above 0 because the meter is pre-fader) and coming back from valves (bottom)
Spectrum analysers for the sound coming out (right) and back in from valves (left).
