Ableton Forum

What is the best way to layer sounds or find sounds that would layer together? My main goal is to have layered sounds that can be offset just a little bit to get a nice punch to the sound.

Just as a side note, my ears arnt that completely trained so this might be easy for some of you but maybe there is a way that might be able to help me out. Thanks in advance.

Use the same sound twice but process it differently maybe? Then offset that?
Kind of like this: http://www.mrbillstunes.com/post_20100624.php

Put the sounds on seperate tracks so you can move them around exactly as you want, then render them to a single new sample to make it easier to use later on.

Instrument Racks are great for this, depending on what exactly you want to do.

As for the sounds themselves... just need to experiment really. Try to have each sound providing different elements of the overall sound if that makes any sense.

^^

I use racks a lot too.
I like pad with evolving patterns and usually I have a rack with the pad sound and the evolving sound pattern (aggressive LFO or arp or Operator loop).
It's nice to try!

- Best
- Pasha

Racks and experimentation are the best way to achieve what i think you are after.

to make drum sounds and efx, make extra tracks and resample it. good for keeping oversight.

for instruments (like pads, piano-string combinations etc) use racks. good for performing with the finished sound.

to train your ears, aks yourself while stacking sounds: what do i want as a result?
if you have a fat tone which needs crispness, don´t stack annother fat sound on it. add something thin (or add something and make it thin by eq). don´t add a fat sound to a fat sound to make even it fatter, it will not work. add missing elements.
add something moving on a dark pad. or some accoustic noize on electronic stuff. or some digital highs to analog stuff...

rack em and stack em deffo!

thanks for all the help, its been helping a lot.

oh also,

do you guys recommend grouping the drums together and eqing and compressing as a hole or sending them to separate busses and doing the proper eqing and compressing. if seen both methods but i was curious which method is the best or at least more efficient.

Edit:
A little clarification, I already eq each individual sound but wondering which method after the individual eqing is best to eq all together to make it sound complete.

i add all my drums to a group and add a compressor to gel them together, sometimes brutally