Sound Combinations That Work Well together?

When layering sounds, what sounds work well together from the same or different categories? Have you combined sounds that you've never heard of that really work well together?

Hi MM:

Hope all is well in Scotland and with you. I can't remember anything that might contribute to your topic... but will give it some thought. Meanwhile, Happy New Year!

The old standby, piano and slow strings, strings piano and choir and hundreds of others. Too many to mention
MEL

Plus 1.

Gary

My trick to layering strings with piano
- increase the release of the strings
- make damper pedal only work for the piano part..

But i dont think Kurt wants to hear the obvious combinations..

Piano works good with several instruments..
Try with some percussion for example
Or a churchorgan with choirs..
Or brass and strings... and set brass for only high velocity range..
And layering the low end of a piano with a bas sound, requires some work as you want the volume of the bass to slowly degrade to zero from C3 to c4...
And how about layering the low end of a steinway with the high end of a yamaha grand, same way as with the bass.. from c3 to c5 the steinway volume slowly falls, as the yamaha volume comes in..

But thats still the usuall

Piano and panflute is also nice..
And my secret tip, bagpipes and percussion with lots of wide cathedral reverb..

It depends on if you sing or not.... Be your own maestro with your own music there are no rules..

When you say Bagpipes and Percussion what Percussion ?

Bagpipes go very well with some string voices, though I heard them used once with vibes and the effect was excellent.

Gary

Try vibraphone and put it one octave lower and half the volume of the bagpipes..

Thanks folks. When panning the sounds how much do you normally separate the sounds ?

Depends on the effect you want to archieve..
In a style, it works well to pan all voices differently..

Also have a look if your keyboard supports stereo spread for stereo voices..
Adding more spread makes the sound wider, works very good for strings..

For natural sounds just listen to real bands, groups etc. to see how sounds are mixed and panned and take your cues from there.
For artificial, (Electronic etc.) just go for the mix that sounds right, and make it your own.
Don’t be afraid to experiment which ever music you are creating, as it’s the only way to stand out from everybody else.

Bill

Sounds Thay Work Well With Electric Piano Sounds ?

MM,
Bill is right, listen to the music that you want to sound like. Watch You Tube. Here’s where you become inventive. Here’s where you become you.
My friend, a sax player, creates guitar sounds that he feels are great. I feel that they are fair. (I play guitar) He dislikes the sax sounds I create. Everyone hears differently. Do YOUR THINK.

John C.

Try combining a wurly and a rhodes..
Or ep and acoustic piano..
Ep and acoustic guitars..
Or add a bell sound to the ep..
And then there is ep and brass, works well with brass only at higher vellocity active

Eps are kind of neutral..

Personally, i like adding several DSP effects to the EP.. which works even better then layering

So I recorded a couple of songs on my Pa700 using with a couple of combinations of sounds.

The first is Danny Boy

https://soundcloud.com/nativeangels/danny-boy

The Second World In Union

https://soundcloud.com/nativeangels/world-in-union

Thanx for sharing your songs with us.

Happy New Year

MusicalMemories ... thank you ...
Of course all of this is subjective opinion, but personally, on "Danny Boy", I would have the 'crystal' or 'synth' voices deeper in the background ... BUT, that's just me ...

I have often used an 'Ooh Voice" or a 'Scat Voice' with a Flute or Guitar (Acoustic or Jazz) for a nice effect on swing tunes or bossas ...

Tony, the best sounding scat voices were on Technics keyboard.
They still sound good.

John C.

Yes ... and for me, the best sounding sax is on my Kn6000 ...

Roland has really nice scat voices.

+1

They allways had, but i think since the T5 Yamaha has come close to them...

Hi - a lot of good ideas here! Here are a few combo's I like:
(depends a lot on the song/genre, and playing style of course) ...

Acoustic piano + jazz vibes
"huh" or "ah" vocal + flute (on some Latin tunes)
flute and jazz vibes
symphonic brass + string (ensemble)
medium strings + oboe (for ballads, classical)
"DX7" or Rhodes, plus Ac. Piano (for some 80's ballads)
full strings ensemble + pipe organ (hymns, classical)
Drop "Glock" or "bells" on top of strings or brass for 1 verse of a song
Add Xylophone to strings or oboe or flute for 1 verse

(Lots more - it's fun to experiment!)
Jim

What sounds work well with guitar sounds ?

Have you gone thru ALL of your Music Finder directory songs, or songbook directory lists on your keyboards trying all the OTS, STS, sound combinations? I am sure you will find many many suggestive sound combinations to use. I have lots of times..

Yeah, lets all stop posting and asking quesions,
Its much easier to find out things ourself...

Yes, I am actually adding the loading OTS from yamaha styles to vArranger
There are some very interesting sounds combinations in yamaha OTS styles
I will take the best OTS and save them as sound presets to use in any other styles
Actually trying to understand the Yamaha DSP sysex messages...

Years ago when I first started to combine instrument sounds I met a OMB who had combined Piano and Strings. The strings were connected to a volume pedal so he could control their volume.

John C.

Today i toyed with an acoustic piano and a clarinet
Added some delay and echo to the piano
Tuned the filter and eq to make the piano more present in the low
Added some more release to the envelope and made attack a bit slower
And then a tiny bit of wah wah..

And then added the clarinet at 50% volume..
And set it to mono.. and disabled damper pedal..
Added some chorus..

Worked very well..
In the end you can layer any sound this way,
Because what i did was actually creating a new sound..

Yes, and what I don't like in Yamaha keyboards, is that it's not easy to use this new sound creation when you want in any style
For that you need to use OTS or REGISTRATION

This is what I want to do, to manage create and select sounds of my PSR from vArranger

Whats wrong witb registrations to just save panel voices? They are easy to recall in another style if you have them organised well

I like to have all my sounds available at any time for any styles, also, I need memory to remember what sound are inside OTS and REGISTRATIONS 1 2 3 4... and this finally limit to only use sounds that are actually previously organised, and never try something else when you have an idea on stage

Good news I can now manage the Yamaha DSP from vArranger, and play with the OTS from Yamaha Styles

Great, Dan. Will this be in a new update?

Yes !
The Yamaha OTS sound combinations are great
This is incredible to see how much effort Yamaha put on the perfection of the sound in every aspect
DSP, EQ, volumes, controllers...
Nothing is neglected
Such a high level of sound programmers and intelligence in their choice !
And they hide all the hard work so the musician can sit and play

This is also the missing point, when they don't really allow you to tune sounds and styles as good as they do

I actually have a PSR keyboard that includes only 2 RIGHT parts

This is interesting to load a Tyros 3 style in vArranger, and play the OTS sounds that have 3 RIGHT parts. The same PSR will sound a lot better

Hi Dan!
What does that mean? That I could use Varranger togher with a Yamaha keyboard and get additional features to the keyboard controlled by Varranger?

When this will be ready, I will use it personally with my PSRA3000 to :

- Play the Yamaha sounds from a second keyboard that is a lot better than the PSR
- Play with Aftertouch. Even if the PSR keybaord does not have aftertouch, it reacts to it from outside
- Try all the OTS from the huge Yamaha style library, and save the best OTS as my favorites presets list to be available on every styles
- Tune the presets to my taste more easily with a big screen
- Be able to play 5 Rights layered instruments together. Not only 2
- Maybe play the styles from vArranger too... later, when it will be as good as the original, as vArranger is somewhere more easy to use for playlists, displaying pdf etc... tuning volumes etc and save... easily