Tim Johnson is a mix engineer specialising in cinematic music for film, television, and games. His work has been featured on the BBC, Netflix, Amazon, PBS, PlayStation, Xbox, and many other platforms.
He teaches orchestral mixing in our best-selling Mastering Orchestral Composition course (which now covers Spitfire Symphony Orchestra and BBCSO) and foundational techniques for all genres in his dedicated mixing course, Introduction to Mixing.
You can currently save on both courses in our Black Friday Sale.
We all have the same tools available to us for mixing music and, on the surface, the techniques seem universal, but in practice the approach to mixing orchestral music is quite different.
The problem is that most mixing education, and almost every tutorial on your favoured social media platform, comes from the world of pop, rock, or EDM. So when composers try to apply those methods to mixing an orchestra, things tend to go sideways fast.
In other words, it may be good advice, but used in the wrong context it can devastate an orchestral mix.
Here is some of the most common mixing advice you will come across, and why it doesn’t apply to orchestral music.
Myth 1: “Never listen in isolation”
In most genres, you’ll hear people say “never solo anything, always mix in context.”
I’ve never been much of a fan of this advice in any context, as I believe in making every track sound as good as it possibly can before joining the rest of the ensemble… but that’s just me and I can see why one might stand by this advice for mixing other genres, but for orchestral mixing, it misses half the story.
When you’re working with sampled instruments, soloing isn’t optional, it’s essential. You need to listen in isolation to make sure every instrument behaves like a real performance. That means using clip gain, volume automation and clever editing to shape phrases naturally. I find that even when working on sampled mock-ups from seasoned professionals that have carefully crafted their MIDI velocities and expression, there will still be instruments coming in late, a gong swell finishing early, two articulations for the same instrument that aren’t fitting together as well as they could, and so on.
If you’re mixing a live recording, soloing lets you catch all the small but important imperfections, clicks, pops, page turns, chair squeaks, and stray coughs before they become embedded in the full mix.
So yes, listen in isolation. Just do it with the right goal in mind: to make every track sound believable and musical on its own terms.
Once you’ve done that housekeeping, mix in context. Even then, soloing sections to make sure they balance well internally before adding them to the full mix is totally acceptable, encouraged even. Overall balance and tonal shaping decisions should happen with the whole orchestra playing. Remember, an orchestra isn’t 80 soloists. It’s one giant, breathing organism.
Myth 2: “Always phase-align microphones”
Another classic “engineer’s rule” that doesn’t translate.
In pop and rock sessions, you might phase-align multi-mic drum kits or guitar cabs to tighten up the sound, preserve transients and avoid comb filtering. But try that on orchestral recordings and you’ll destroy everything that makes them sound alive.
Those tiny phase differences are part of the orchestra. They’re the spatial cues your brain uses to perceive depth and dimension. It is the reason you can hear that the brass are sitting behind the strings, and that the room extends 40 feet beyond the conductor. For example, the fact that the sound of the Double Basses reaches the left decca tree mic a fraction of a second after it meets the right one is what tells you they are sat on the right. If you phase align those microphones, you will lose that positioning.
Leave natural phase relationships intact. If something truly sounds hollow or smeared, investigate, but tread lightly. Phase relationships are the threads that hold the space together.
Myth 3: “Ensure mono compatibility”
Now, I’m not saying mono compatibility doesn’t matter. If you know your mix is primarily going to be played on a mono phone speaker, such as a mobile game, it’s still worth checking, but this isn’t such a big issue as it might be for other genres.
Orchestral music rarely lives in the mono world. It lives in stereo, or surround, where width, depth, and space are every bit as important as the music itself. If you chase mono compatibility to the point of collapsing your stereo image, you’re robbing the listener of a vital element of orchestral music: immersion.
Check your mix in mono occasionally to catch glaring problems (like polarity flips), but don’t let it dictate your decisions. Orchestral music should sound great in stereo first.
Myth 4: “Carve out space for every instrument”
Here’s a phrase that gets repeated endlessly: “Use EQ to carve out space so every instrument has its own frequency range.”
Makes perfect sense in a pop mix, but an orchestra? Not so much.
Orchestral music thrives on overlap. The richness comes from instruments sharing frequencies, from violas blending with clarinets, from cellos supporting the horns, from the entire ensemble merging into a cohesive texture. If you carve space for every instrument, you’re dismantling that natural blend.
Think of balance before EQ. I spend more time adjusting faders, clip gain and automation than anything else. If something’s muddy, it’s probably an arrangement or balance issue, not a frequency one. EQ should be gentle and broad, subtle tonal shaping, not frequency surgery.
Myth 5: “How to get your mix LOUD…”
… is the title of a million youtube videos. The “loudness wars” have infected even the most refined genres. It’s tempting to push your limiter a bit harder so your score “competes” with top 10 commercial releases. The problem with that is that loud orchestral mixes sound small.
An orchestra’s power doesn’t come from it being loud across the board. It comes from contrast. The whisper before the roar. The hush before the explosion. That’s what gives it scale.
The dynamic range is every bit as important as the melody and rhythm. Don’t take that away to try and compete with the latest Taylor Swift track at -6 LUFS.
To conclude…
The orchestra has its own rules because it has its own physics; real air, real distance, real players. We can learn a lot from mixing techniques borrowed from other genres, but we need to appreciate when they work and when they don’t.
Yes, there are universal mixing principles, but how you apply them matters. The more you understand the purpose of the ensemble, the more you can break the “rules” intelligently.
Want to learn more from Tim?
He teaches orchestral mixing in our best-selling Mastering Orchestral Composition course (which now covers Spitfire Symphony Orchestra and BBCSO) and foundational techniques for all genres in his dedicated mixing course, Introduction to Mixing.
You can currently save on both courses in our Black Friday Sale.
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