Pre-works
In this session, I finished cutting the concert into regions. After that, I had a good listen to tenor solos, and decided to stick to the solo mic even though they were moving. Even with that the solo microphone sounded better than any other one.
First mix
To keep the whole mix consistent, I decided to sort tracks by instruments (choir only, choir with organ, organ solos, vocal solos etc.) and then mix all pieces in groups together.
After I had them put next to each other, I started mixing the simplest material - choral pieces. First, I switched off all of the compressors I used before and applied gain plug-ins instead to keep the peaking parts close to 0. I found the loudest part of all the choral pieces and set the gain on choir pair and reverb pair so that both of them would jump right up to 0.
Gain plug-ins used
I didn't use any other tracks. I panned reverb hard left and right and choir pair only by +9 and -9 (on a scale from -63 to 64), which underlined and clarified direct sound from the choir, but preserved space of the venue. Having these levels set up, I sent the mix into valve processors (first compressor and then EQ).
Mixer set-up for choral pieces
On valves, I set the levels up with mono signal so that left & right were the same back in Logic. I adjusted compressor to act in loudest parts only, and even then not to compress too much. EQ settings were: shelf below 200 Hz up a bit, band just below 3k down a bit, shelf above 6k up, high cut around 20k. All settings on both compressor and EQ were the same for both channels (I used 'Stereo' button).
Valve compressor settings
Valve EQ settings - first two modules
Valve EQ settings - last three modules
After setting all this up, I adjusted the level of the reverb so that it would add some space, but leave the main microphone pair clearly on the front.
Level meters measuring levels of signal coming in and out of the valves during bounce-down.
Result
Dynamics stayed virtually unchanged, but lifted up a little. Sound clearer, sort of closer, beautifully warmed up by valves.
Session 3 (in iMacs room on headphones)
First, I had a listen to mixed choral parts and decided that they sound great, and found that valves did good job. Then I went onto organ / choir tracks. During first listen, I had a closer look on the clipping on the organ channel during "Like as the Hart". At close examination it didn't show very severe, and was apparently inaudible, as it had only a couple of clipped peaks in area shorter than 1 second.
Close-up of one of the clipped peaks
Clipping affected area. Note that only some of the peaks are 'touching' the edges.
The balance and pan set up for choral pieces worked quite well with organ track switched on as well, and the only thing that should be done with those pieces is just to fine-tune the level on organ channel and then valve processing.
Mixer set-up for choir / organ tracks
None of that could be done using headphones, so I will have to take this to the Mastering Suite.
More mixing work was possible to be done on the Wesley track though - there is a soloist there, but not by the microphone, picked up quite well by the choir pair. She only sings alone, and never together witch the rest of the choir. To make her sound clearer, I decided to mix down the choir microphones into a mono track, increase its volume for the solo parts and then crossfade it with the choral pair.
Arrange view of the Wesley track
To increase the difference between choral and solo parts, I widened pan on the choir and turned the volume of the reverb down.
Automation on Wesley track
The solo mixdown came out with plenty of organ, so I EQed it to cut off most of it (low cut below 186 Hz (24db/oct) and low shelf below 590 Hz (-15 dB)) - this made solo on the middle, much louder than the rest. Thanks to EQ, the organ loudness doesn't jump.
EQ applied to solo track
Finally, I adjusted gain on choir (this time up by 1.3) using automation for both organ / choir tracks.
Gain plug-ins for organ tracks
