How many times could you layer something and what with?

[JamesHanvey]

Lately I've been having alot of sounds in my mix not quite as fat as i had wanted. Usually all that it's been layered with is a bit of reverb, sometimes sidechained so it doesn't get in the way and that doesn't really seem to do it, it does make it abit wider and airy but not really "fat". I understand that after a while there could be maybe some phase problems if you play with the delay, so is it best to avoid that or?

Does anyone have any layering techniques they'd like to share which just give added fattness?

[Crimsonghost]

Gotta fatten your sausage bro...

Seriously though, what are you trying to fatten up? Drums? Synths? Got a sound sample we can hear?

[_Agu_]

I aim for flatness instead of fatness. If something sounds fat on my headphones (can't say anything for the monitors, because of the shitty room acoustics), I'm 90% sure it sounds bad on something else.

[JamesHanvey]

Pretty much everything. The main things i struggle with are vocals, pianos and pluck basses (like a deep house bass) etc.

[Crimsonghost]

That still didn't help. There's way to many things involved with fixing any of those problems to adress as a whole.

Like I said, post an idea and you might have better luck getting help, otherwise you just sound like someone who wants us to fix his mistakes.

[zosomagik]

Drums I usually fatten up with saturation and some parallel compression. Pads I just layer a different pad maybe an octave up or down depending on why it's thin, and then process it however I see fit. Melodies I just copy the midi pattern and layer another synth or instrument over it and compress the two.

[fragments]

If I had to just throw a guess out and hope it sticks, I'd say frequency masking. Too much going on and overlapping. This will actually take power out of your mix. Try soloing different elements you don't think are "fat" enough and then listen to them in the context of the mix. Use a spectrum analyzer to try and see where there is a lot of frequency overlap. Remember lower frequency sounds are going to eat up head room faster than higher frequency sounds.

If I am having trouble getting a "fat", punchy mix I will try EQing aggressively then using saturation on the master bus. Usually U-he Satin these days. Also, sometimes I will run the stems through the channels on my SoundCraft mixer, maybe boost a little here and there and record the 2-track back into the box. Or multi track. Depending on where I am in the process.

[_Agu_]

"How many times could you layer something and what with?"

^Also to answer this, I think in general it depends on you going in with creative mindset, or objective/technical one(like which you have when doing the final mixdown).

I for one think layering more as a mixing tool than creative part of the process. What works for me especially on leads and drums, is to make the "root" sound, first kick for example good as possible on it's own. After that I start filling empty spots in the box which "should" be full. Sometimes I might have one half-decent sounding "root" snare and 7 layers of smaller sounds which none alone make any sense to be used in the track, but they just make the first snare to sound bigger. If I do something like make the first kick, and then just throw in random weird sounds, or do something abstract that comes in mind like layer huge piano melodies with midrange growls, I never end up with anything good.

[pulsewaves4stopsines]

Been getting into layering synths with reverb, like recording a track twice, once without reverb, and again with it, throwing the tracks in audacity, inverting the reverberated track followed by a slight delay 100% wet to nudge the waveform, to align the phases to taste, then turning that inverted/delayed track way down and bringing it up to the point where the reverb is barely noticeable on the tail end and the overall sound has changed just a bit because of slight phasing.