Layering Tips & Tricks

Prosthetic

Prosthetic

The One-Armed Bastard
Anybody have any tips to share when layering sounds? What types of instruments do you usually like layering together? What kind of effects do you use? Etc etc etc
 
- Layering drums makes them faaaatt
- If your layering drums, experiment and shift some of the notes around very slightly, creates an interesting sound.
- Find samples that compliment each other when layering them, like, get a kick with a lot of low bass but no mids and then find another kick with a lot of mids but little bass, etc etc.
- EQ the layers individually as well as together in one channel
- Don't use low shelfs/high shelfs unless you have to until your eqing them all in one channel
- When you layer drums, duplicate each sample so you have two sets of them, compress the **** out of one set of samples in a layer, but not the other, then mix the compressed layer with the uncompressed layer for a really fat sound.
 
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Sometimes I'll layer software instruments with a sample I'm using. More often with piano or brass samples. It's a huge pain to get all the notes perfectly lined up though. I really only do it if the sample has poor sound quality or the instrument I like in it is a little too muddy.
 
One thing I've found to be very helpful is a trick a user on here by the name of WeissSound I believe mentioned is taking a very quiet (10%) layer of the snare you are using and putting it on top of your kick drum... you can even do this on your hi hat, the effect here is that it makes everything have the same reverberation.. In essence, your drums will sound like they are from the same kit.

---------- Post added at 04:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:52 PM ----------

Another layering trick I use for my bass is recording the bass guitar in 2 channels.. one of them plays the dry signal and the other is a distorted version with a low pass filter on it.. makes a grimy analog sound.. sounds especially good when sidechained with a kick.
example:
Equinoxe by Chase_Miles on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
 
I don't like to layer 2 different instruments except for synths.But almost every time I play an instrument on 2 or 3 octaves at the same time(if you can call that layering) .You get a warmer,fuller sound that way.
 
Dirty South says if you are recording a vocal, always record it twice. Even if it sounds almost the same, when you layer it on top the slight differences will give it depth.
 
When I layer strings I like to use patches that vary a lot, like a vibrato and a non vibrato patch. Creates a bigger sound. A lot of my string samples are 2,3,4 patches big.
 
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