Layering Instruments in a mix

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rockne023

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Just curious as to what instruments people typically layer and pan in their mixes? Share your personal preferences
 
What instruments depends on what you are trying to make. Plenty of songs have just guitar or just piano. Some have guitar and a vocals. Others have a bunch of guitars a piano and vocals. Some even include drums.
 
I layer alot of kick drums while making a beat
when I'm mixing I'm double layer much
maybe stack the vocals







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I love stacking vocals as long as they recorded it multiple times. Copy/pasting vocals only goes so far.
 
I personally don't like stacking vocals anymore... unless it's for a chorus. On verses, I like the simplicity of one good, well-mixed lead vocal. So clean lol. Personal taste though.

The only thing I regularly layer is the snare/claps. It's rare I don't layer that.

Other than that... it really just depends on what sounds good on the song. My guitars get layers a lot... but that's moreso b/c I have trouble getting the tone I want w/ just one.

In general... I layer things that I don't think are strong enough to sound good on their own.
 
I recorded this guy once , and was going to do a little stacking .
His pitching was so good that , each track added would heterodyne and introduce a slow kinda phasing (around 1Hz and below) .

Stumped me for a while as I was after a subtle effect and was not going to "spam" the stack .
I eventually chose words and phrases that I liked from each take and gently made that take the dominant one .

Like I said it was a very gentle thing , and the vocals didn't double so much as transition between each chosen part , with the "lesser" take being in the background .
Also remeber I panned the transitions gnetly too .

Sorry , I was rambling on then !
Ignore me if all that is not important/relevant ! :)
 
i started on the layering of kicks/snares when i was just beginning producing edm but i got off of that pretty quick.. particularly with normalized samples i dont find much in the way of improvement when layering them... now if you have a bunch of recorded live drum samples you can get some very cool sounds by layering in a low from one kick and mid/high from another...
 
Foggy said:
I recorded this guy once , and was going to do a little stacking .
His pitching was so good that , each track added would heterodyne and introduce a slow kinda phasing (around 1Hz and below) .

Stumped me for a while as I was after a subtle effect and was not going to "spam" the stack .
I eventually chose words and phrases that I liked from each take and gently made that take the dominant one .

Like I said it was a very gentle thing , and the vocals didn't double so much as transition between each chosen part , with the "lesser" take being in the background .
Also remeber I panned the transitions gnetly too .

Sorry , I was rambling on then !
Ignore me if all that is not important/relevant ! :)
Click to expand...

Wow he must have been a phenomenal vocalist to be so close, that's practically spot on!
 
I think it depends on your source sounds. If you have thick, wide stereo image, synth sounds, sometimes you just need one of them to make a track work. If you have samples, sometimes you need layers.

As far as drums and vocals go, layering is pretty standard. Compression, delays and reverbs all affect the outcome.

Remember though: less is more, and KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.

What makes most songs hits, is a memorable, simple, catchy MELODY. Not the 14 layers of kick drums.
 
Yes and the sound/feeling of what you are trying to achieve. No need to layer for a blue grass band with 2 guitars. Or even a solo vocalist with just a piano. With a hip hop song or a pop song it would be more convenient to layer, but it is not necessary for each and every song you do.
 
rockne023 said:
Just curious as to what instruments people typically layer and pan in their mixes? Share your personal preferences
Click to expand...
Are you talking about mixing your own production or being hired as a 3rd party mixer to work on the session files.

Layering instrument parts is not typically what a third party mixer is hired to do. The parts are usually layered already.
 
I usually pan guitars, but that's just plain old me =) On the other hand panning different parts of a drum groove can get you to interesting places. Definitely worth checking out!
 
ObiK said:
Wow he must have been a phenomenal vocalist to be so close, that's practically spot on!
Click to expand...

Indeed !
The sad thing is he has given up on music .
I suppose he has too much talent and wrote songs with meaning and depth .
After all there's no call for that now is there ?
:(
 
Layering sounds is useful when I have a an instrument that I like, but I feel like it's missing something. I just load up another instrument and then that way I can hear 'different versions' of that original sounds and find something better.

When layering kicks and drums you should mess around with the Attacks

Layering bass is great and it strengthens it. Typically you could have a sub bass and a more mid-range one.

Pads are great too when layered, pan them and then add some stereo enhancement to make it sound beautiful.

http://kasimp3.co.za/s/4m5
 
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