layering

[steevio]

ok i thought the forum could do with a new topic,

so what about layering ?

i know many of you guys use it religiously, and its an almost prerequiste to modern production, but i dont use it at all deliberately.

my philosophy is that layering is basically making sounds more dense and punchy, so i would rather make the sounds dense and punchy in the first place, so that they have individuality. but saying i dont layer isnt really accurate, because what i do is make each sound individual so that when they are naturally layered in the music ie. when they occur at the same time in the flow of the music, they create hybrid sounds which mark that particular confluence in the elements of the music.

a simple basic example would be, when a tom or timbali type sound occurs at the same time as an open hi-hat you get a snare like hybrid sound, and this naturally punctuates a confluence in the two rhythmic elements.

i do this with all my sounds, i try to make each sound occupy its own space and have its own character, but when it co- occupies a rhythmic node it co-creates a new sound.
if you layer up your sounds deliberately to increase their density, this makes these hybrid sounds less likely to have their own identity, and create a natural dynamic.

this becomes even more important when say 3 or more sounds occur at the same time, its even less likely that these confluences will have their own character.
this is even more important with polyrhythms, with just a few basic sounds, you can have many different combinations due to their being many more possible confluences occuring on longer cycles.

one of the reasons i dont use compression, is because these nodal confluences need to have their own dynamic to be effective as natural syncopation points. i think this gives the music many other dimensions, overly layered and compressed music sounds one dimensional to me.

very interested to hear peoples thoughts on the subject.

[::BLM::]

I layer all the time.

Like you said to create other tones like a snare from 2 other perc elements.

Mostly I do it with the same sound though. So I would have 3 parts of the same synth and then do different things to each (Different filter sweeps for example using an external filter) and them layer them together.

I tend to keep everything off the first and 3rd kicks as I like to hear them. It's a more minimal sound I feel when you keep them on there own.

[Phase Ghost]

I used to layer the sh!t out of sounds to make them sound more "full". It rarely worked. I would take a snare and try to fatten it with another snare or a clap. While it would work sometimes, a lot of the times it created mush. I still layer sounds, but it's generally to create a certain sound (which may or may not end up sounding more full) and much more deliberate in terms of what I want it to sound like.

An instance where I'm layering sounds is as follows from a recent tune. I had a rimshot'ish sound I made in ultrabeat that I layered with a sound I recorded of me crushing dead leaves. I used it as a snare type sound. I suppose this was to create a more dense sound, but it wasn't to beef up anything. More a case of sound design.

I do have a few layers of highats going on most songs. It's usually one dominant hat and 2 lower volume hats to accompany the main one. All three have the velocity of each note altered.

Steevio, your method of using sounds that collide to create a different sound is interesting. Obviously that happens no matter what. However, the idea of picking two sounds that do this on purpose in a song is cool. Since I've been using more polymetric elements in my music, this is something I want to try. Thanks for sharing.

[lem]

When i first started making music i used to layer drums all the time. I was using samples and was trying to make them my own.
Now this is a seperate process. If i am feeling a little uninspired. I will sit there and just build little sample libraries of drum sounds. I normally call this my sound design phase.
However, hydrogen made a point in another thread, something alone the lines of
'i have less need for ...(something).. as I get better gear'

I think the 'something' was channel count. but i am finding this true of layering. its less important when i start with something good in the first place.

I use in a parallel type layering, during the mixdown stage. I try not to get caught up in this during composition as I find I waste time and loose enthusiasm quickly. The only exeption being pads and bass. which I quite often do early on.

One of my favorite things about techno when I first heard it, is when two sounds become one ocasionally, like steevio said.
When I began producing I was always trying hard to make that sorta sound. But now I find I don't try and those sounds occur automatically. I think it comes of years of experience of just making beats.

There is probably more to say but I hate writing stuff like this on a mobile phone.

[steevio]

i should probably say i'm talking about minimal percussive based music here, which is my take on minimal techno, so when i'm talking about dimensions, i not necessarily including layering pads or big sounds etc. they will always add depth and dimensions to music. i suppose i was talking about the shorter decay or release type sounds, which is what i mainly work with.

[lem]

when i think about layering, drums automatically spring to mind. when its pads u think of it as texture.

this sort of topic makes me really want to get the studio warmed up!

[hydrogen]

There is probably more to say but I hate writing stuff like this on a mobile phone.

lol, you must be like me, i'm checking this forum like clockwork. i just love reading and sharing information about music.

Like lem and phase ghost said, layering can turn quickly to mush! Less is more, especially when starting with good sounds in the first place. Layering has been the basis for much of my productions in the last couple years but as my studio improves and I have better tools/knowledge, great sounds seem to emerge out of the equipment automatically. Some slight compression/filter and thats it.

When layering, I think the most important aspect with layering is to not have much frequency masking, otherwise the mush starts to happen and can be quite apparent. If there is frequency masking going on, two things can happen...it can either produce interesting results or just sound fatiguing.

[Barfunkel]

I don't layer. I firmly believe in that I'd rather one, for example, really good snare than 2 or 3 mediocre snares that somehow magically turn into one supersnare when you layer them. I know many people get great results from layering but it's just not for me. I like to keep things really simple and minimalistic.

I also have a very low attention span, I probably even couldn't spend endless hours of finding sounds that fit well together, I just rather synthesize something simple in a minute or two.

Things might change when I get my Octatrack though, then I might get into creative sampling and try to combine different sounds to create new ones.