How to achieve mainstream house sound richness.

[H3x0S]

My usual track consists of a lead, bass, drum section, chopped piano chords, whitenoise. When I play the track it just sounds so empty compared to some other popular songs. What can I do to make my songs more interesting, to achieve that big room sound? Any tips are welcome.

[Tricky-Loops]

There are more instruments than pianos...

[H3x0S]

It was just an example

[cruisy18]

I'm currently working on achieving a big house sound as well. I think it involves layering correctly and reverb/delay. Also, sidechain compression can make the big room sound more dynamic. I don't mean sidechaining the main kick, I mean sidechain compression with its own pattern. If you listen to In My Mind by Axwell, in the pre-break before the second chorus, you can hear how the sounds come in then out. Either sidechain compression or transient mastering. Perhaps both.

Oh yeah, transient master plugins can be useful too.

[ouroboros]

take with a grain of salt:
Stereo width makes a big difference in mainstream stuff. You don't need anything wild, but big sweeps and highs are pushed to the sides. You can hear the hi sides sidechained and gated sometimes, too. So work from the center (=bass) to the side(=hi's)

There is a lot of reverb subtly filling blank spaces, especially in more electro sounding
stuff.

I think I hear a lot of really low bass lines following the lead - they aren't very complex sonically, maybe even just a triangle heavily filtered.

In older house stuff, people use synth hits (where the filter is largely closed) to really create really wonderful rhythmic figures and accents. Opening the filter coincides with the risers/sweeps and really fills things out. Sadly, I'm not very good at the low-mid rhythm figures, but I love the way old school deep/min house used low mids (Hi-lows? ) for a bubbly, round feel.

Oh well, just some observations for fun

[Tricky-Loops]

So work from the center (=bass) to the side(=hi's)

That's very important. Some months ago I've heard an autopanned bass, and it sounded terribly (it feels like if the stage is flying around you). All hi-freq instruments can be delayed, panned to the hard or being autopanned, but the bass should be on the ground...

[RyanBrennan]

So work from the center (=bass) to the side(=hi's)

That's very important. Some months ago I've heard an autopanned bass, and it sounded terribly (it feels like if the stage is flying around you). All hi-freq instruments can be delayed, panned to the hard or being autopanned, but the bass should be on the ground...

for the most part you want to keep you sub 200hz (kick and bass) in mono, they're just too overpowering to have flying all over the track. would make everything sound really, really muddy.

another really good piece of advice i got regarding stereo imaging is that, if you keep more stuff towards the center then you don't have to send your big synths, hi hats etc. as far into the stereo field to make them seem really wide. if you've ever like really sent a lot of shit wide you'll notice your track just lacks warmths and seems kind of "empty" thats because essentially what you're doing is just exaggerating the stuff in mono, so using reverse logic keep most sounds towards the center (doesn't have to be completely mono though) then the stuff panned out will seem really really wide.

and as far as white noise is concerned, it can be one of your biggest tools in the mix. Suppose your drop lacks some stereo width because its mainly a bass line and a kick, well then send your white noise into the stereo field it will fill out your sound. then the opposite of that is if you have these big huge synths with a lot of detune chorus etc. but not a huge baseline and kick then keep your noise in the middle. Just think of white noise as a tool to fill your stereo field and i guarantee you you'll see an improvement in the stereo field of your tracks