Dubstepforum.com

Hey guys, me again picking your brains. As I'm learning about electronic music and the creation of it, I am noticing the one thing all of the tracks that I try and make are missing: depth. As I've said before, I've been a die-hard metal head and rock guitarist for years, and this transition is keeping me interested. I adore music, and having a completely new realm to step into is a beautiful thing. That being said, I've been analyzing different tunes of varying electronic genres, and they all have this vastness in their songs that I cannot achieve. My ears are telling me a few things that I could add, but the main thing that I am always seeming to hear popping in and out of tunes is the ambiance. This is especially noticeable in the dub/dubstep/psy/trance stuff, at least from my experience thus far. So, how do you cats get your songs to really pop? What devices (especially plugins and such) do you use to help build ambiance or some largeness to your tracks? I can make decent leads and basslines and such from playing guitar, but getting that roll going on behind everything is tough for me. Keep on being awesome, guys.

Massive drum layers, with some reverb and timestretched samples are good

The first bit of advice I have done myself already I have been in school for some audio programs, and immediately noticed the crazy reverb in a lot of tracks. But time stretched samples? x) Got me there. What exactly do you mean? Have any examples of a well-used sample like you're referring to? Any and all help is appreciated. Love to learn

i think he means using time stretched samples for texture to add depth. its trial and error really, find a sample and stretch the shit out of it and artifacts start coming out and even reverse it sometimes. after that little bit of eq and you got some nice texture. but id also like to hear an example of something he's done as well

also i think the mix has to be good in the song for it to have depth. every sound should have its own space to come through and also avoid compressing the shit out of your sounds.

macro: great arrangement that lets each part shine at the right time.

micro: specificity for each sound. space, freq range, dynamic range. some things cohesive, some thing opposing.

filters, short delays, and really aggressive compressors are your friends in this situation.

Stereo Enhancing to give depth and range of where the sounds hit
Panning
Reverb ALL the things.
Atmospheric pads in the background (can be extremely quiet, like -50db, but can still enhance a track by adding something to the negative space.)
Compression doesnt really add depth, but it makes elements come alive and sound less flat, which always helps.
make sure to have sounds that hit every frequency between 30 and 18k, this way it feels full and not lacking.

Yeah, by timestretched samples I mean that you take some random samples, stretch them out like 4 times or something, and mess about. I've built whole tracks on this, and filled out tracks with it
And stereo goodness on the highs will help

To me it's about trying to capture a certain atmosphere, put together with a certain groove, is a fine recipe. There is no exact way to add depth to a track.

yeah ^ this really.

even a tune that hasn't been mixed or mastered can have depth depending on its choice of sounds and arrangement and then theres the production side of things as mentioned above.

Ahh these forums can be sketchy sometimes when loading comments. Not sure if my post went through or not, so I'll sum it up here: You guys freaking rule. Keep it coming, this has ALREADY been an asset to my music. I love seeing the production side from all of you. Making music sound good is such a fun task. Very cool! Keep it going!