ITT: You teach Ibby about layering

[Kidd Cabbage]

So, I know what layering is. You take multiple sound files and you overlay them to create a sound with characteristics of both. I don't need anyone to explain that to me.

What I need help with is knowing what/when to layer sounds. I consider myself pretty decent metal producer, but almost everything that I do is like... two rhythm guitars, a bass, and a drumkit. I've done some slight layering, but only like throwing a send on my snare and kick, compressing them to fuck and back, and mixing that with the original signal for more presence.

But now I'm getting into other styles that I could use layering in, and I really don't know where to begin. Drums? Synths? Layering damned anything I could use some advice on what I should be listening for or keeping in mind. What mindset should I have when listening or thinking about it?

[The Vagrance]

But now I'm getting into other styles that I could use layering in, and I really don't know where to begin. Drums? Synths? Layering damned anything I could use some advice on what I should be listening for or keeping in mind. What mindset should I have when listening or thinking about it?

There are usually one of two thought processes going through my head when I layer sounds, its either "I like this sound but wish it was fatter/twangier/more atmospheric/etc. and adding effects just diminishes the sound" or "I'm bored and I'm going to see what cool sounds I can get out of these samples/sounds". The former occurs most often when layering drum sounds and the latter when layering synths/samples.

Layering drum samples is tricky though, and while its tempting to pile on kicks until you get a massive wall of thump you should really worry more about sample choice as opposed to number of samples. Also, make sure the samples are in tune with both each other (especially on kicks, you have no idea how much this can change the character) and the song itself.

As for synths and samples, I only have one piece of advice: Any time you come up with a cool synth stab, pad, etc. render an audio file of it and start building a folder comprised of your own samples. Whenever I think about layering a melodic element of a song, my sampler is always my weapon of choice (Usually the built-in one on Albeton. It doesn't need to be as complicated as Kontakt although it never hurts if your computer than do the lifting) and its very easy to get unique sounds that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

EDIT: An quick audio example of layering samples. The two sounds at the beginning are a couple that I made and then the 8 bars after that are them with a drum loop. There are no effects aside from sidechaining and I loaded them up in two separate samplers (controlled by the same MIDI track) and adjusted the envelopes, loop points, and pitch. Its not the most impressive audio demonstration but I did it in literally 2-3 minutes and never would have gotten a similar result if I had tried to do it without rendered audio.

http://tindeck.com/listen/gour

[Rozovian]

I once combined a flute sample with a woodwind-like synth. They were similar enough that they still felt like the same instrument when panning them opposite each other (not hardpanning, but maybe half way there). I guess you could combine any two similar synths to make it appear like one big phat synth sound.

As for drums, Logic's drum synth has three parts to it, for kicks I usually use a sample (3rd part, in order) and when necessary add some click using a short filtered burst from a noise generator (2nd part). Most of my bass drums are two-parters except those based on presets that use the uppermost (first part) oscillator. I guess this counts as layering despite that it all happens within the same plugin.

[Kidd Cabbage]

Thanks for the demonstration Vagrance. I can hear the differences that the two are making to each other, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how they're really affecting each other, sonically.

Another question that I have isn't just when you should layer sounds, but how do you choose which sounds should be layered together? Hear a kick and think "this needs more thump" and go find a thumpier kick, LP its low end and mix that in?

[The Vagrance]

Thanks for the demonstration Vagrance. I can hear the differences that the two are making to each other, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how they're really affecting each other, sonically.

Well no matter what its going to sound like two things layered on top of each other because that's what it is, and you know the process to get there. They're probably not going to affect the sonic characteristics of each other (assuming you're talking about phase issues, etc.) unless they're very similar sounds to begin with, like kick samples, snares, etc.. That said I'm still not fully understanding what you mean by "how they're affecting each other" though.

EDIT: One thing that might help the pieces sound seperate from the original two/the/however many samples though is resampling those samples, and so on. Its a ridiculously common technique in electronic music and is usually the answer to "how the hell did they make that crazy sound" questions.

Another question that I have isn't just when you should layer sounds, but how do you choose which sounds should be layered together? Hear a kick and think "this needs more thump" and go find a thumpier kick, LP its low end and mix that in?

Pretty much the process, although the first thought is usually "do I have a better sample than the one I'm using?" There's that half of it (PROTIP: If you ever think "the low end needs be be beefier" on an electronic drum kit, 95% of the time a 909 kick will do the trick) and the other half is straight experimentation. Think about the two sounds and how they're going to sound layered together or just do it randomly and drag and drop them into your favorite sampler/synth and see what happens (light-weight synths and samplers work best with this method, as opposed to OmniSphere and Kontakt or something). There isn't usually a clear flag of "a layer needs to go here" but rather a sense of "something's not right about this sound, it could really use x feel to it" and seeing what you can do.

[Legion303]

For metal you want more than two rhythm guitars. You want to at least double and maybe triple most of your guitar work. At some points in this song I have at least 6-8 guitars going at once (I'll get you a screenshot of the project file tomorrow night when I can access my music drive): http://neutronstar.org/music/Steve_Pordon-Oblivion_Cursed_Earth_remix.mp3

For electronic music, Beatdrop (I'm not worthy!) once told me that he layers drums the same way I layer guitars. A good tip I read somewhere is to find, say, two kick sounds that you like and combine the best qualities of both. So if you have one kick that has a great booming quality and another with a great attack, you would low-pass the first one and cut off some of its attack, and high-pass the second one and retain just the attack part, then mix them together. I imagine this applies to other kit pieces as well.

-steve

[Kidd Cabbage]

For metal you want more than two rhythm guitars. You want to at least double and maybe triple most of your guitar work.

Yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. One guitar hard-panned in each speaker definitely does the job well for me. Here's an example on the site from a few years ago that is only dual-tracked, and still has bigger sounding rhythms than the mix you posted. http://ocrmirror.iiens.net/files/music/remixes/Final_Fantasy_7_Yet_Even_More_Fighting_OC_ReMix.mp3

What about layering snares? I know people like zircon say they have like 15 drums in a single loop (which I don't even know where to start with... I'm like "Two is fine for me!"). Where does one go about picking this kind of stuff out at?

[SnappleMan]

A nice fat 808 snare at about 1/4 the volume of the snare you want to fatten up. Fucking ace. I do it all over.

[CC Ricers]

I do a lot of drum & bass so I tend to layer snares a lot. As mentioned the 808 snare is simple but versatile.

With the 808 snare, I isolate the upper frequencies in order to give the whole snare sound that "sizzling" quality. The primary snare would be something that's easy to boost on the 150 to 400 hz range and presto, Pendulum snares! Actually I don't compare my work to Pendulum's but it is a good starting formula for snappy, beefy snare-driven beats.

[Legion303]

Yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there. One guitar hard-panned in each speaker definitely does the job well for me. Here's an example on the site from a few years ago that is only dual-tracked, and still has bigger sounding rhythms than the mix you posted. http://ocrmirror.iiens.net/files/music/remixes/Final_Fantasy_7_Yet_Even_More_Fighting_OC_ReMix.mp3

There's a point in that song where I hear four guitars (or maybe it's 3 and a distorted synth, but the EQ sounds muddy here)...so either you misunderstood me or I misunderstood you. Your original post made it sound like the only elements in your songs are two rhythm guitars, bass and drums. What I was pointing out was that you want to double-track (at least) other guitars as well, which includes solos for some people and harmonies too.

Thanks for the link. I avoid FF songs like the plague because I'm sick of Nobuo, but that was definitely a good remix.

-steve

[Kidd Cabbage]

Nope. You said two rhythm guitars. There are never more than two rhythm guitars at a time in the song, and never more than one lead guitar.

[Legion303]

Nope. You said two rhythm guitars.

I don't know what you're getting at.

EDIT: let me be more specific about layering guitars. Let's say your rhythm guitars are labeled Rhythm-L and Rhythm-R, separate takes panned hard left and right respectively. Each one should consist not just of a single layer, but something like this:

Straight into effects loop/recorder, close-mic'ed amp, far-mic'ed amp or room mic, SFX reverb/delay/whatever layer, mic on guitar for string sounds.

This is obviously an extreme example (the string sounds idea in metal comes from CotMM, but it's used all the time for acoustic recording), but if you look at studio multitracks from big name bands, it's just what you see. I don't know of any band who doesn't capture several different layers at once.

-steve