Musical texture describes how many musical layers are mixed to create the overall sound of a piece of music. Occasionally, using just delay or similar effects isn’t enough, and we need to use other techniques to add texture to the original melody, creating a better blend of the melody with other elements of the track. Bearing this in mind, I will show you how to add an extra texture to your melodies in the following tutorial.
As an illustration, I have prepared a short sequence in our SoundBridge: DAW, which contains most instruments of the whole mix. Let us listen to it.
~Full Mix – El. Guitar (Unprocessed)
Create a Duplicate of Your Melody and Reverse It
You may have noticed an electric guitar while listening to the elements of this mix, and this is the instrument to which I will add texture. Let us then listen to it solo.
~El. Guitar – Solo (Unprocessed)
To begin with, I’ll duplicate the original el. Guitar channel and place it just below the original. The copied version will then be reversed.
~Duplicated El. Guitar – Solo (Reversed)
Use Reverb and Delay to Add an Extra Texture to Your Melodies
Following the abovementioned, I have added a reverb effect to the duplicated and reversed version of the el. Guitar. For this purpose, I have used Tal Reverb 4. As I have shown in the image below, I have increased the size of the Reverb and decreased the dry mix down. Also, the wet mix is around 65%. From other settings, I should equally mention the tune section, which I used specifically to add a high-octave layer and mix it with the original signal. Let us hear how it sounds.
~Duplicated El. Guitar – Solo (Reversed + Reverb)
I have bounced and assigned the duplicated el. Guitar channel to a new channel to complete its processing. I have also once again reversed the sequence, added a short fade-in/out, and blended it with the original electric guitar. Finally, let us hear how our electric guitar sounds both by itself and in the context of the entire mix.
~Duplicated El. Guitar – Solo (Reversed + Reverb + Reversed)
~El. Guitar – Solo (Processed)
~Full Mix – El. Guitar (Processed)
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