Pokémon Red & Blue - Final Battle! (Rival) [Revision]

Made it just in time before June ended! I hope you all can excuse the lateness, this track is... a lot:

@0:00 - This arrangement very clearly takes inspiration from the FireRed/LeafGreen version of the tune.  I've always loved how "maximalist" those arrangements felt, and I tried my best to carry that energy into my own cover.

This "hugeness" always creates a challenge when it comes to balance and mixing. How do you create a track with intense guitars, drums, and bass while still highlighting an intricate orchestra part? I'm not asking because I know the answer yet, but here are some helpful tips I've picked up along the way:

• Prioritize the tone of front-and-center band instruments: It may be obvious, but even though there's an orchestra in there you still want your song to hold up when compared to other mixes in your target genre. Mix your band pieces like you would normally and blend your orchestra tracks into the frequency gaps left behind. 
• Carve out redundant frequencies in your orchestra parts: This is much, much easier said than done, but any frequencies dominated by your guitars and bass can usually be safely attenuated. The lower frequencies of instruments like cello, contrabass, and others end up leaving behind a "bloated" feeling when stacked behind your guitars, and higher-frequency instruments can be just as grating if overly saturated. All of this is much more challenging than it sounds, as the entire identity of an instrument can be changed if you EQ them poorly. Good luck. 
• Break the rules a little, as a treat: Distorted Guitars are huge mountains other instruments must climb over to be heard, and sometimes we must do unspeakable things to get there. When mixing orchestras on their own, you usually want to do as little processing as you can. However, when you need that lead string line to shine through a cacophony of other instruments, the occasional bit of compression or distortion is fine. Just remember that for orchestral instruments: less is more.

This is where I put my bi-monthly "I actually don't have any formal training when it comes to mixing" disclaimer, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt. 

@0:06 - Anyway, onto the actual song. The bass in this piece is crazy, and I tried my best to make it audible in this dense arrangement. Usually I break my bass audio into two sections: High (~250hz High Pass) and Low (~250hz Low Pass), though occasionally when I want the track to stand out I have another High track with some medium distortion. Try it sometime if you're having  trouble hearing your bass' high end. 

@0:08 - Pokémon Synths almost have their own flavor, so when selecting them I try to find something that is clean, bright, and has a bit of legato glide. On the flip side, for melodies I like Trance-y semi-distorted leads. (Apologies, my synth patch terminology is bad).

@0:14 - I took a bit of inspiration from Verdi's Messa da Requiem for this little break. Whenever a piece is chromatically descending that's where my brain goes. 

Also, dispersed throughout this cover are little xylophone stabs. Despite the ferocity of this piece, I wanted to make sure it still felt like it was tied to Pokémon by adding a bit of subtle cartoonishness to the texture. 

@0:24 - the Timpani here is a mixture of a modern sample and a 90's sample. I wanted to highlight this part and 90's samples just cut through walls of sound really well!

@0:40 - This section is arguably the most important part of the song, so I wanted to use a lot of moving parts to stick the landing into the broader section. Also just to draw attention to it! 

@1:00 - That's me playing rhythm guitar!! I just started learning a few weeks ago, but I figured I'd throw in a few simple power chords there to beef up this sparser section. I'm hoping that as I improve I'm able to play more in my tracks!

That about wraps up my breakdown! This piece was so tough, I hope it shows! As always, I'm happy to answer any additional questions about this track down in the comments. Thanks for listening! <3