Track Filler Techniques - Ear Candy and Textures

The Lounge General Discussion
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I’m trying to take production and sound design more seriously lately and while I can make a few satisfying loops I really am lacking at creating longer arrangements. I found this video by Rival Consoles to be really inspiring and similar to the music I’d like to make. He throws so many techniques at this track for making little complimentary sounds and textures to stretch out the song. I am calling these Ear Candy or Textures. Some of them Ryan explains and some we get just a brief description of. I think I enjoy sound design as much as track creation so I’d like to hear what kind of creative techniques you are using to make complimentary sounds on a track. To get the ball rolling I have been experimenting with some of the following techniques, but would like to hear more ideas.

Basic techniques like:
-Field recorded samples
-Pitched down/reversed resampled audio of elements from the track
-Extreme Time stretching of samples/Paul Stretch
-Granular is a whole rabbit hole
-Sidechain gates

More obscure stuff like:
-Self oscillating reverb feedback. This video is cool.
-Envelope followers + noise sources (I’ve been looking at Noises from AudioThing)
-Contact mic recordings
-“Shaper box stuff”

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For a long time I liked to use fully wet delays and/or reverbs, then distort or pitch shift those, and EQ/Filter out a lot of information. You end up with with wispy sounds that help fill out a track but only where you want it to. Sidechain or use an envelope follower that decreases the amplitude of a track to ensure these filler layers only come through when your parent layers do not.

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I use hyslicer for this recently (got it here throug a tip from a fellow Elektronaut - really a cool plugin.). Essentially i feed it some recordings, and it can do the rearranging - it can play a contributing role, or be the lead it self.

I mangle some stems, put it in this hyslicer plugin, which also does some of the effect programming. Saves a tremendous amount of time. And also works as consistency method to repurpose sounds throughout your track - what was a lead before - now gets to be a sound effect. (Or vice versa -what will be a lead sound, can be a supporting element before.)

Other methods, is designing the sound itself so it does multiple purposes - i.e. envelope with macro to use it with an arp or sequencer, then turn it off - make it into a pad.
Repitch the stem, and let it play psychedelic high frequency bubbles as shimmer effect.

In abelton i use also the resonator fx quiete a bit to extend the amount of repetition.

Also rack, make grid synth - i.e. play each note with different plugin , or use the selector to shift who plays, think in possible layer combinations to extend the usability.

Make rack fx, and put it through infiltrator, shaperbox, or other multi fx plugins. Then automate the selector again. Or make a super macro that control the vst rack together with the fx rack. Or just use random LFO to see where it lands, and record this stuff, cut n paste the best bits.

Reverse reverb - time consuming, but worth it.

Racks for drum sounds -i .e. sampler in multisample mode, automating the rack selector, for random drum hits which you preselected carefully as sound fx.
Works also cool if you insert other fx type of sounds together with drums for variation. I sometimes include sequencers into these racks, to not have to paint rythms - i use stepic to generate some rythms, and then LFO the rack selector, then record, cut n paste.

(But works mostly for complementary fx stuff - if you want rhytmical intention -better to create it manually, or with a drum pad. MPC etc.)

Intresting topic - lets hear your methods.

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i heard about this one recently. What makes it time consuming?
Loads of good ideas!

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Love this idea for a thread. Here are some things I’ve tried for some interesting (at least to me) ear candy and texture. A lot of them have to do with field recordings, ha.

  • Field recordings as the modulator for a vocoder - I like using vocoders where you can input your own carrier, rather than ones built into a synth, so you can vocode a full mix or experiment with different sounds (such as vocoding a field recording onto just a reverb tail or something).
  • Field recordings as an IR response for a convolution reverb.
  • Recorded music as an IR response for a convolution reverb - then use short bursts of noise to "ping’ the convoluted music.
  • Noise and field recordings as a modulation source for filter cutoff (both enveloped followed and not).
  • Field recordings as the modulator for the amplitude modulation of another sound (both envelope followed and not).
  • Field recordings as the modulator for the phase modulation of another sound (both envelope followed and not) - shoutout to the Rossum Assimil8or and the Roland V-Synth for being able to do this.
  • Field recordings into resonators.
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Time consuming - because i do it probably so regularly. Bouncing it out made it a little bit better since 12.x in Abelton, you need to reverse it, find the sweetspot for the length. Individually the action costs like 3-5 minutes -but because i do it so often, the accumulated time is quiete a lot. (I also do it for certain drum hits, i.e. to slide into the hit, or an fx sound so its not to abpruptly appearing.) I also try to have variation in each section, so its providing the ear candy function. There is also this shaperbox tool, that can do this pre ringing sounds - but its not meant for melodic sounds - more for drum shots. But well its 20 Euro, and i didnt bought it yet. (Snapback)

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One thing I’ve seen mr Bill do a lot for ear candy is just record himself changing a bunch of parameters on a synth or fx and then go through the audio to take micro chops. I’ve also seen him do the same thing with an fx unit on the master of an almost finished track and then inserting the micro chops from the master into the track.

Automating fx in general is good for this, throwing phase or flange on a few hits, micro delay on a hit, etc.

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