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What is the best way to get really thick sounds when layering?

Make sure the sounds don't overlap in frequency a lot/at all and compress them together?

I thought you do have to overlap to make sounds thick

OfficialDAPT wrote:I thought you do have to overlap to make sounds thick

not really. the point is to take two sounds with really strong presence in certain frequencies. its hard to get a patch with strong presence across the whole frequency spectrum. so its best to take one strong mid bass and then mix it with some high end sound so it sounds like a huge bass that takes up the whole spectrum, but really its 2 patches nicely layered. you dont want overlapping frequencies because it will cause clashes and eat your headroom. you will want to cut out the frequencies that are not needed in each patch and just let them shine in the frequencies they were designed to take up. you will still want very slight overlapping in the sounds, no straight cuts or anything, this will allow the sounds to mesh together.

you could pan em about, also bus comp and a reverb send

OfficialDAPT wrote:I thought you do have to overlap to make sounds thick

Yeah reason I mentioned no overalapping is because specifically with basses phasing can become an issue as can muddiness, although if you layer properly and EQ properly you can get the thick sounds with overlap - I'd just recommend not layering a wobble, a saw and a kick that all peak at like 90Hz because it'll sound shit. Things generally sound fatter because they fill as much of the frequency spectrum as possible at a constant volume so you might want to try using say 3 basses - one that covers the sub, one that cover "bass" and then a midrange layer and squash them together.

If your bass is too bright, try layering it with the same bass (aka duplicate the synth), but make it darker (for example, lower the filter cutoff, make it open less, change it to darker waveforms, lower octaves, etc.). Then do an high shelv cut on it.
If your bass needs brightness, duplicate it, but this time distort it like hell and lowcut it.

You may even just duplicate the patch if the OSC's are not retriggering. They may have overlapping frequencies, but the difference in phase of the OSCs can add a lot to the sound (like unison).

I'm going to have to disagree with the above posts, sometimes, frequency overlapping can work if two sounds are similar. The real problem is overlapping two different sounds as you won't be able to hear them property.

Like others have stated, fill out the spectrum, use a spectrum analyzer to keep an eye on how you are filling it out

Also, panning can really help too, your lows and mids can stay centered and your higher freqs can be spread/panned

I would seriously avoid panning my basses. That shit should stay mono for sure. there is also nothing wrong with duplicating your sounds and throwing different effects on them to mangle their waveforms a bit. Don't forget to frequency split as well. This is super easy in Live btw.

howiegroove wrote:I would seriously avoid panning my basses. That shit should stay mono for sure.

i disagree, a big part of "basses" or mid-basses, are 1khz+, anything about ~300hz is fair game for panning for me. never good to limit artistic creativity just because

howiegroove wrote:I would seriously avoid panning my basses.

i agree i wouldnt pan a bassline/808/sub but as per layering bass + wobbles, panning is great to thicken things up
I would typically do it in reason if the patches were doable in reason, and i'd pan em hard R and L in a combi then compress that a bit maybe.. also with the RV7000 bus in the combi would be nice. i did a very decent wobble that way

On the subject of panning basses, I like to freq split my bass into lo, mid, hi and give the top end loads of panning effects maybe even some flange. Same with the mid but slightly less stereo and 100% mono for the low end.

I keep subs, kicks and low end sounds mono, and as the frequencies get higher, my stereo image gets wider. Can man a bass sound fuller using the top end. People seem too forget about using higher frequencies to make sounds thick, but every little helps.

Create your bass synth, eq it so it doesn't clash with your sub, add your FX and such, make a copy of it, turn the volume down quite a bit but just enough so it can be heard and add more fx, eq, stereo enhancers and whatever you like and it should make it sound fuller

yeah, i think there might have been a misunderstanding. sorry, i wasn't clear enough. When I make my bass, I will split the frequencies. anything under 250 mono. over 250 won't be panned but i wouldn't be opposed to adding some slight widening effects, but no panning for sure. The high frequencies i might pan, but unlike hats that might get panned slightly to the left or right, if I pan the top end of the bass to the right, then I would duplicate the channel and pan the same amount to the left. I would refer this as "widening" rather than "panning".

dupe and use pan pots > widener plugins

Today wrote:dupe and use pan pots > widener plugins

What exactly do widener plugins do? The same thing as turning it 100% seperated in FL?

Lots of good stuff thanks guys, another quick question though. What kinds of things should i do to the sound after i frequency split it? I'm trying to make everything more crisp and phat.

Distortion

OfficialDAPT wrote:Lots of good stuff thanks guys, another quick question though. What kinds of things should i do to the sound after i frequency split it? I'm trying to make everything more crisp and phat.

Honestly dude.... ANYTHING you want.

Killamike49 wrote:

Today wrote:dupe and use pan pots > widener plugins

What exactly do widener plugins do? The same thing as turning it 100% seperated in FL?

i don't know FL at all, but they all petty much spread a stereo signal wider, i think maybe they interpret it as dual mono and hard pan each channel toward their respective side as you raise the spread param.
some sound great, i usually find that they get a bit phasey, lose some presence in the mid range, thin out a bit. Great when you drop it over another layer that is warmer/centered, to thicken things up. but i usually prefer to use my pan pots and retain more control and power. I like spreading things manually in Reason or other vst built-in mixers and then just track it in stereo. widening plugs just kinda have this thing about them that i'm not crazy about