how to 'layer' sounds?

[brmanuk]

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone here can help me. I want to add a bit of dimension to my songs to give them a more professional sound and what I'd really like to do is 'layer' certain elements. I'm not sure if the correct term is layer but what I mean is to have certain elements, for example a guitar riff, configured so it sounds 'above' the rest of the track. Hmm ok this is really hard to explain. Errr ok, for example on the chorus on Intergalactic, there are some wierd synthy sci fi type effects which sorta jump out from the rest of the song, especially when you listen to it on headphones. A better example is the chorus of Alive where Adrocks vocals appear jump out of the rest of the track. In Sound Forge I managed to create a smiliar effect by selecting 'inverted average' under channel converter, however, when played on a hi-fi cd player the sound in unaudiable. Does anyone have any idea what I'm on about? If so, does anyone know how to create similar effects in Acid, becasue all my songs sound rather 'flat'. Thanksss

[King of Rock II]

can't help you there, but it's a good question. i've been wondering this myself.

i can make some decent sounding stuff, but it does sound sort of flat. i don't know how to change that.

also i wanted to know how you remixers use quantization in your projects.

[Nygel]

I'm not exactly sure wat you are talking about, but heres some little things ill say that should make the song sound a little bit more alive. Panning... if u dont kno wat this is, its when u make a part of the song play on one side of the speaker/headphone... also, volume... raise the volume on the beat u want to stress, little things like that do alot, and the Acid FX are really nice to mess with if u have acid, distortion, echo... bunch of sweet stuff to make the song more interesting... reverse beats... the list goes on. just be creative and u should get wat u want. (y) (y)

[DJ BC]

From what I gather, "Layering" is putting one sound over another, simply put, and building layers of sound. Phil Spector pioneered this technique with his "Wall of Sound." For example I often layer 2-3 or more different drumbeats in any given song to give various depths and feels to different sections. Or, I cut together many scratch breaks and layer them over and between each other, making a new scratch break with many little bits. Eh maybe thats not strictly layering. But its the same sort of concept.

Then of course, there is the possibility of layering vocals. This is a bit different because when it happens on a studio album, often the artists will layer different vocal takes over each other to give a more full sound. The Beasties do it a lot, and you can hear it in the pellas. However, of course you only have your pellas to work with, no Ad Rock to re-record the bits you want layered!

If you are using Acid you can right click on the track and "duplicate track". You just duplicated, ie. "layered" it. Basically it just sounds a bit louder and denser when you hear both tracks at once. Then, in the new layer, you just cut out all the bits you dont want to have the boost on. (just FYI- I dont usually do this unless the pella is really soft or something- but it could be good to use the boost just on the chorus, or certains phrases or something.). you could also jog your new layer VERY slightly to make it very slightly off the beat and thereby achieve different sorts of effects/texture depending on how off the two vox tracks are.

It's not the same as when vocalists do it live with different takes, but it's something you could play with.

I hope thats what you mean, and I hope it's helpful. :p

[Brother McDuff]

Another thing that you'll want to keep an eye on (that most people aren't even aware of) is using your whole dynamic range. Don't forget certain bandwidths of frequencies. For example, a song with a whole bunch of low end and high end elements sounds kind of hollow without midrange components. Make sure you have things going on in all of the bandwidths; low, mid, and high frequencies. Sometimes you need to add an extra part to the track, while other times you can simply EQ (equalize) already present parts to fill in the gaps. For another example, if you are missing any high end, high-pitched elements, you can isolate the tracks that are the highest and add a little bit of high end to them through EQ. That way it won't sound too busy by adding a new instrument, but the higher frequencies will be spoken for and it won't seem lob-sided. This goes for mids and lows too. I've never used Acid or Fruity Loops or any of those type programs, but I would be extremely surprised if they don't offer an equalization feature. This should thicken up your sound and give it more dimension. Hope it helps.

[nobbus]

it also helps if you use compression. get a program called T-RackS.