Ableton Forum

I make songs with ableton. I like it a lot... but unfortunately the sound is a bit tiny

I would like to change this....
I hear people talk about layering.
But what is it? and how to do it? is there a good tutorial about it?

my idea about layering:
Not take 1 snare, but take 3.... put them together so that i create a better snare....
I think it's possible to do the same with all beats and synths.

that's all i know... it's difficult for me to find the right information on internet
I hope someone can help

Simple drum layering could be, for example having an impulse with a hissy synth style snare and an acoustic snare being triggered at the same time. Say one is in Impulse slot 2 and the other impulse slot 3 you'd make sure that the midi notes going to each slot were the same (copy and paste or alt and drag). You can then akter the settings on each slot to make them work better i.e. a high pass filter on the synth snare and a low pass on the acoustic snare. This way you get some of the body and character of the acoustic snare sample along with the long sizzling tail and the high end of the synth snare.

For instrument layering you need to look at instrument groups and how to create them as its probably the best way to do it.

If I understand the problem completely, then wouldn't you just need to duplicate the track and have a different instrument trigger from the notes? You could also use instrument racks to have two or more instruments responding on the same track; I do this for live performance layering. For studio I'd just use another track as you have more control over the doubled instrument.

I wonder though...doubling/tripling everything, all the time, does not sound like a great solution. It's possible that your listening environment or something in your hardware is causing the sound to be "tiny". Compare your tracks to a track done elsewhere but run through your setup (have an mp3 or wav play from a track for example) to see if it suffers also. Your description could also mean that the tracks could be dry...my background is in midi synths, and they can sound pretty thin and boring without some delay, verb, chorus etc. Effects are not a fix-all but they are very important (unless you are going for a real dry sound). Could possibly be a mix thing--try some different pannings to open up the mix. Mess around with compression, it can add some punch and consistency; again, it can be overdone but it doesn't hurt to play around.

Finally, doubling tracks could actually make the sound thinner due to phase cancellation--two similar sounds may end up fighting each other and the final sound might be worse than either one.

Hope that helps!

Check out this link. If you are really interested in this area I thoroughly recommend purchasing Nicks videos, they are excellent quality and loads of people on this forum will vouch for that.

http://www.sounddesigntutorials.com/sdacam.php

layering is really not a tutorial worthy topic.

here is an easy way.

make a synth. make it make some noise.

duplicate that track and then make the same synth, play an octave lower.

or

try taking your kick drum. take a kick with a sharp attack, and then combine that with an over compressed boom kick.

its just about getting the sound you want.