Layering within your music is a fundamental part of building your song, but we often don’t realize its’ importance. I watched a great tutorial earlier today by Multiplier, on this important component of production. Proper layering, in a very basic sense can be used to provide added depth or breadth to your song. If you layer correctly you will strengthen your music and improve the quality of your tracks significantly. I’ve highlighted his points below and provided along with some additional thoughts. The three points can be summarized by variation in octaves, properly utilizing your space, and adding sound styles.
Variation in Octaves –
The easiest way to start layering, is to vary your octaves. Throughout your song you should be doing this already for proper bass/leads, but include this variation in your melody as well. Take your existing melody layer, duplicate it and raise or lower the octave. Now, this will require some tweaking so you don’t overpower the track volume, but use your ears and feel for the right balance. This method of layering will help fill out the missing frequencies in your track.If this isn’t quite to your liking, you can always just shift notes up or down slightly in this new layer to create a similar pattern (with some modifications). This will require a lot more finesse, but if done properly your brain can be convinced that this new melody meshes perfectly with the original.
Utilizing your Space –
Make sure you are not heavy in one space with your song. Every instrument should not be centered in your track, so make sure to adjust properly. Do this by panning to the side (a few left, or a few right). Helps separate sound from something that you always have centered(like your kick drum). You don’t need anything incredibly advanced, but enough to make a little difference. It’s these tiny changes that can move your song leagues ahead when done properly. A more standard approach to this is using reverb. The only warning I have here is to be careful — it’s very easy to overboard with reverb and make your entire song sound cloudy and gross. Reverb IS a great way to expanding your instruments to fill the space — just be careful.
Changing Sound Styles –
Using a variety of sounds is really the heart and soul of producing music. It’s your job to blend different sounds together — which is truly the essence of music. This is important to mention because we typically do this subconsciously. If your song is mainly soft instruments, add something sharp or edgy. If you have something grungy already, add some pads and lighten the tone. There is not much to really cover here as this concept does not need a lot of background to cover, but every little variation helps.
The last thing to mention about layering, is to utilize the right tool for the job. Ableton Live has a stereoscope that will show you the frequencies your layers are currently playing in. Use this to properly filter your layers to the right frequencies and make it easier on yourself. This can also show you where you might have holes in your tune that you might not be able to hear right away. As always, if you get stuck while making a track, take a break and come back to it later. Then go back and try some of these layering tips to get your track moving again.
Cheers,