Dubstepforum.com

Hey everybody, working on this new little tune and was wondering what everyone else is doing as far as layering their track to make it sound bigger, i almost feel like if you layer one thing, you gotta layer everything else. Im just wondering what people are doing as far as this goes

I find that layering is really important for a professional sounding track. People who disagree may tend to use heavily processed samples that have already been layered quite a bit, but I prefer to work more from the ground up with basic elements.

The main things that I use several layers of are snares/claps, kick drums, and lead lines and pads. Whenever I've been making melodic hook type sections recently i've copied and pasted the whole channel strip a couple of times, changed the patch being used slightly and panned the different versions around. With kick drums I'll use a basic synthesized subby kick layered with a highpassed kick sample or a suitable synthesized click sound, as well as a subtle hi-hat type sample, maybe even just highpassed white noise. I find that you can control the elements of your mix much better this way, avoiding too much colouration from EQ

1point5 wrote:. People who disagree may tend to use heavily processed samples that have already been layered quite a bit, but I prefer to work more from the ground up with basic elements.

Q

woooo. Thats a steaming pile of a statement.

i do find it true that if you start layering some sounds that its hard to get other sounds to stand out in the mix with out adding layers to them to. But plenty of artists get professional sounding, punchy, hard hitting sounds without layering. If the sounds are picked, eq'ed, compressed to fit in the right spot of the mix you dont really have to layer.....but its easier just to slap some more tone and texture.

layering is something I don't do enough of.

efence wrote:

1point5 wrote:. People who disagree may tend to use heavily processed samples that have already been layered quite a bit, but I prefer to work more from the ground up with basic elements.

Q

woooo. Thats a steaming pile of a statement.

hmm, perhaps I worded that a little strongly, didn't mean it to be such a bold statement. What I should have said is that most people who have rich, hard-hitting drums who don't layer their samples at all tend to (in my experience) use samples that have been heavily processed and layered to begin with. Of course there will be some producers who can pull it off, but it's usually near impossible to tell what has and hasn't been layered. The snare, kick and various melodic elements of the track in my sig for example all have several layers but I don't think it's very obvious when listening to it

Ok basically the reason your other things are sounding lots less present in the mix than your layered tracks is not only because they have less d.b but also because layering causes a big change to the dynamics of a sound. Once you start layering things your going to need to start learning how to use spreading and reverb appropriately for dynamics, get a dynamic analyser as well. You shouldn't feel the need to layer everything, one good sample with some good EQ is usually going to be better and sound tighter than 6 samples with some EQ. Hope that clears some things up

If you make everything sound big, nothing will sound big.

It's all about balance, so light sounds contrasting with big sounds, in context with the rest of the track. Sometimes you need big drums, sometimes you need light drums. Sometimes you want the bassline big and heavy and in your face, sometimes you want the bassline to support a big melody, so even a bare sawtooth or pulse could get the job done.

By all means: do not layer everything. Make a clear choice what the main element of your track is, and work from that

I never really felt the need to layer anything in my track...I feel that the time it takes to layer correctly (making sure nothing is phasing, etc.) takes way longer than just effecting/EQing/compressing a single sample properly. Also, with synths, I never felt that layering helped much...if I couldn't get the sound I wanted with effects, it was probably out of my reach at my current skill level.

Then again, I use lost of simple sine wave sounds, so I'm probably not the best to ask.

Interesting to read all this, i was just wondering what everyone else was doing. I'll do some experimenting! see what suites me best

i tend to think layering in EDM is not as big of a advantage as layering live instrumentation is, in other genres can be. IF im doing guitar tracks i lvoe to layer the fudge out fo them to get a more full sound.

But edm i layer pads sometimes just o make a more deep sound with unique movement because of the different layers. I really dont like to laryer in EDM to get "bigger" sounding basses and stuff. Its just my two cents though as i know other producers do layer but usually jsut to add extra "grit" to a top end bassline part stuff like that.

blinx wrote:i tend to think layering in EDM is not as big of a advantage as layering live instrumentation is, in other genres can be. IF im doing guitar tracks i lvoe to layer the fudge out fo them to get a more full sound.

Yeah i could totally see layering live instruments more

Also don't forget that instead of layering you can just resampling and add different processes to the bass such as different types of compression which will give much the same effect, and will probably sound a lot tighter in the mix