I do tons of Volume Automation in my orchestral mixes. For every track, I'll ride the faders, bringing them up and down in volume throughout each song.

This helps my orchestral songs be more realistic, dynamic and exciting.

I want to share another useful tip. About 8 years ago I started diving into mixing orchestral stuff and didn't really have a clue what I was doing. I had dozens of tracks, and the were all competing for space within the mix. I foolishly had the volume faders of them all way to high/hot, and so for example if I ever wanted to bring the volume of a brief percussion part up more, it would cause my master output to clip/distort.

So what I did (and still do to this today, when I start my mixing for a song with tons of tracks) was start by bring the volume faders of all the tracks down, like 15 or 20 dB. So that way, while mixing, I could comfortably ride the faders of everything, bring tracks up and down in volume however I wanted, without ever having to worry about the master output clipping.

And then after getting my mix 95% done, I'd worry about the final mix/master process of getting the entire song volume-appropriate/competitive.

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