Balancing Percussion

Don't think of it like that, just pick a recording you like and mimic that.
I'd say check classical recordings rather than film scores, cause the balances and positioning tend to be all over the place in those (and indeed instrument are more often favoured/solo'ed),
unless that's the sound you're going for (if so, do that..)

The actual answer is difficult because the instruments are so difference in character and roles they play, also our ears are more sensitive to high frequencies so are we talking absolute loudness?

p.s. Triangles are the most obnoxiously loud things ever -this can be used to great effect- but they can drown out an entire freaking orchestra when they want to
If you insist on making a list they are right up there with the piatti

 

I usually rely on a percussion library like Hollywood Percussion, which I find well balanced, to start with. Then, if I want to swap out an instrument from another library, I'll tweak the replacement instrument to match the first. If you start with a library that has room-mic options, you've got samples of each instrument from soft to loud from the same vantage point. As long as you perceive the replacement instrument to be as loud/soft, and in the same space/placement as the original, you're good to go.

 

By inputting some scores into your template and see if they behave like the recordings, otherwise you're just shooting in the dark imo
It's one thing to balance the articulations for one instrument (and yes the HW strings are ridiculous sometimes),
and in the case of strings* you can even balance the section against each other quite easily because they are so homogeneous in color but percussion is not like that.
*Edit: and you're also used to hearing them play together all the time

I really recommend doing it this way cause it simulates real life, and takes the guess work out of it.
I know what you're trying to do and that it seems logical, but I think you'll spend a lot of time chasing your tail when you could make it much easier for yourself.

For recordings that have a lot of small percussion I'd recommend the 'spanish flavored' pieces by Ravel (Alborada del gracioso, Rapsodie espagnole, Bolero).

 

I agree, mocking up an existing piece and comparing it to a good recording is a great way to get your template balanced. I try emulating live recording processes in my virtual productions as much as possible. Along those lines, my main mic choices for HO are the mains and the surrounds. In a live recording, the most basic mix is the Decca tree + surrounds + reverb to extend the tail. There's usually more depending on the cue, but that's the usual starting place. For film, the Decca gets sent to L-C-R and the surrounds to LsRs. When I would produce a score for a soundtrack release, I'd collapse those stems to stereo with this formula (pretty standard, give or take a dB): L: 0, C: -3, R: O, Ls: -6, Rs: -6, Sub: -9. So, correlating that to what we have to work with in Play (and I'll leave the sub out, cuz that's mainly for fx), the mains are already a collapsed version of the Decca tree, so that leaves the surrounds. If I were to stick to the live model, I'd lower the surrounds by -6 dB but I like the sound of the surrounds at unity gain. Perhaps they've already been lowered -6 dB from what would have been a film mix. I don't know. But the main and the surrounds give me the sound similar to what I'd hear on a soundtrack release. It just needs a bit of algorithmic reverb for the tail. I tend to use Valhalla Vintage (which is very affordable as well as good-sounding) because the CPU hit is low. When I deliver in stems, I need to replicate the reverb patch on each stem, so that could mean 8-12 instances, which adds up. That's my basic starting mix. You could also explore some of the techniques I've seen on this board, like feeding ER's of one family to another family's mics. I haven't done that yet, but it sounds cool, and it's also based on what actually happens in a live recording session.

 

I'm really curious as to what Mike's opinion on SFP redux is in terms of balance out of the box, being been a percussionist for a while himself.

 

I use SFP. It's a versatile library. I also have HZ Drums and Albion (OMG, that's a lot of Spitfire). What I like is that I can get a variety of feels without having to mess with EQ of compression to much. Just careful use of velocity and faders and I'm good to go.

Energetic action piece where I want to shock the listener real quick, SFP Bass Drum layered with the HZ will knock the wind out of you in an artificial but pleasing way.

SFP can also sit back in more traditional sounding concert or live room intimate setting (like a documentary film) by just using more close mics.

One thing I've never been able to get to sit right in any setting is my mallets, mainly glockenspiel. Maybe I just don't know how to write effectively for glock yet.

 

Oh no...... look what you have started.

On a slightly more serious note, I too would echo that the premise is mis-guided. The timbre of the metallic instruments cut through more regardless of volume, and that percussion has so much variety that the list only shows a surface level view anyway. For example the type of mallets/sticks etc.
Using brushes on cymbals, or bows on the vibes, will of course make them softer for example. Listen to some percussion music

 

it's not that I dislike Spitfire, but it feels very inconsistent in terms of volumes from what I'd expect

7 things like the snares seem like they are not only too loud but physically really close

I like the sound, admittedly I basically never use the bass drum, but I would definitely only wanted an orchestral setting

If I ever had the urge to do more epic stuff I've got Drums to the deep in Drums of the deep 2 and those things have some absolutely disgusting lows.

In this case I just don't trust Spitfire as far as I can throw them for internally balancing a library, and maybe I'm crazy, but the percussion doesn't seem balanced very naturally

 

I threw out my tv probably 10 years ago now, but boy.. this one feels like a reach even by those standards.

Having bought SF Percussion during the recent sale I'd agree, but then again I've never ran into any library that was balanced right from the start.
Volume-wise It's not that big a deal but there are a couple instruments that are off in the stereo field (and depth) as well, making it more of a hassle than it needs to be.
Overall I really dig it though..

@Doug Gibson
Fantastic references.

 

Agreed. It takes a lot of fine tuning in the midi to get something close to right with SF.

 

woodwinds are way worse of course

just odd that they would produce a line in sutti with the appeal to create something authentic and homogenous and totally screw it up.

it's like they had snares standing where the first chair 2nd violin would be.

and low winds are all equipped with megaphones seems like.

I'm convinced it's because it's ran buy a guy who doesn't care about anything but reducing an instrument to a keyboard patch

 

Hours of my life.......gone...... balancing Berlin Woodwinds.

 

really? that's odd... I guess I didn't own the library - but it seemed like it was decently balanced when I heard demos...

I thought they said specifically they didn't even mess with the levels of articulations or anything... maybe that was just the brass/percussion libraries - but all in all - it's still odd

 

Orchestral Tools talks about their CAPSULE engine balancing articulations when you use it to keyswitch but I use an individual articulation on individual midi tracks workflow so I have to go and balance each articulation separately. In that instance, they are all over the map.

Now that you mention it, I would be courious to hear if any of the users here are capsule keyswitchers.

 

Interesting, I wouldn't know I bought one of the Berlin brass expansions just to kind of see if I would like Berlin brass and it's pretty awful to me

It took me awhile to even figure out which hard drive I had put it on because I can't think of a use for it

To each his own I guess, I also own adventure brass but don't think it sounds very good or convincing, nor significantly more playable than samplemodeling if at all

I'll admit there's every chance in the world that I just have poor taste but even now after all the brass libraries I own I'm still on a quest for good trombones to layer with samplemodeling

 

Same boat, the sound of brass can depend so much on individual sensibilities and context. There are pieces where where AB sounds great and other's where it sounds like "My First Casio". For trumpets I use a combination of AB and Sample Modeling (Spitfire's stuff can be out of tune). For horns I use a combination of SM and SF. For Trombones I use SF and some AB. Tuba is SF and SM. That's exhausting.

I'd love to see what Cinematic Studio Brass will be like but at this point I'm not spending another dime on libraries.

G

 

I don't even know what to do, if I layer samplemodeling it sounds like crazy large brass sections gamma he's libraries all seems so unusable exposed unless you write to the library

One of the more recent casualties impulse was getting Spitfire brass

So if you think you're dissatisfied now, imagine having Caspian brass, Adventure brass, cinebrass, and spitfire brass

I was really hoping least one of these would have a solid playable legado... could all of them seem more like using a sustain patch makes more sense, but they all have these really long Tails, so it's weird

, I have not had anytime really to play with Spitfire brass since I got it, trying to set them up has crashed me twice, so last night I started on a blank project but I was falling asleep by the time I got off of work, so I worked at about a snail pace

There's some things I like about it so far my fairy cursory tab through some of the different sounds, one of which is actually that's out of tune inconsistency.

Surprisingly I actually like the trumpets more than I thought I would, but the bone section isn't grabbing me like I was hoping it would

The two major things that are really bugging me though is how unbelievably flat the stereo field is, to the point that I feel like these are more or less Center pant then Spitfire woodwinds, even though I know they're not seated that way

The other major thing bugging me is the separation of cuivre from sustains

the sustain patches don't have enough punch at full gas but cuivre are unusable it feels like

Maybe the only real option is to stack the two patches and create some kind of crazy custom Dynamics curve for both of them that crossfades between them

And of course the mostly odd section sizes make it extremely frustrating, but I already knew that going into it.

Even though I haven't tried it, I can almost guess the best companion for this Library would maybe be Caspian brass

I think the easiest to blend is cinesamples and samplemodeling

Adventure brass feels flat and weird to me... It honestly just doesn't sound like brass to me