My random note composition on Saturday became “Snow at 2 am”. I worked at the piano for an hour, then took the composition to the computer and worked in FL Studio and Audacity for several more hours — 5 hrs in total.

I wanted the piece to sound like one of those schmaltzy Hollywood arrangements with a piano and a string section. In FL Studio I had a piano part and a string part in separate stems, and varied the relative volume. Bring up the strings here, back them off there.

However, when I brought it over to Audacity, I wasn’t happy with the way the instruments came forward / receded backwards, and I re-sculpted the volume

I was happy with that, put it away, then listened to it later and didn’t like it at all! I guess the lesson is to keep the stems separate, and do the dynamics later, at the end? That way if I want to undo / redo, I can make the changes in one location. The way I have it now, I would have to make changes in both FL Studio AND Audacity.

What about like this? Say for solo piano with a string section.
Record the piano in FL Studio, “flat”
Record the piano in FL Studio with the kind of expressive dynamics I imagine
Record the strings in FL Studio “flat”
Record the strings with expression and dynamics
Give Neal the “flat” threads in Ableton
Give Neal my attempt at a mix, and a verbal description