Spindrift

I already said, I think the idea tekk have with a folding comment system would be the way to address the problem....if there was a problem. Considering that 80-90% of the reviews with comments fit on one page i fail to see how anyone could justify putting in the effort into making such a system. As it is now it would just give the impression that the section is quite dead IMO. It would for sure be a lot less work to just be strict with moderation if some people cannot be asked to scroll thru the not directly relevant posts. For me personally when I look at a review also the short "this is crap" or "very nice" comments is just as valuable as the main review. I usually scroll thru all the track by track descriptions anyway. Even when people been making reviews with my own tracks I can't hardly be asked to read the many times quite nonsensical descriptions of how the track appears to the reviewer. There is exceptions with people who actually can write long and relevent reviews, but thats rare. So usually the chit-chat and comments is more valuable IMO.

A system that requiers zero moderation, thats of course a great idea. When you have that coded together there will be 1000's of forums, blogs and comments systems wanting to implement it for sure. I think your really on to something there

Of course a system like that would be great if there was a lot of posts. But considering that the review with the most posts on the first page of the 2005 section (shpongle) has 6 pages, and very few reviews have more than one page, is it really an area in desperate need for improvement?

Ok, then, if EP asked it to be removed he at least understood he was out of line and maybe need no warning, fair enough. The topic can be summed up very easily IMO: A storm in a waterglass. It's no problem if people say nice review if they like what someone wrote. It's not like the reviews have 50 pages of comments not relating to the release itself as it is now, so I really don't see what the fuzz is about. A system for reviewing the reviews would not be used that much is my guess.

I would be curious on what exactly I said that was considered out of line or offensive according to the standards of this forum and should actually have qualified me for a warning? Not that it's my business, it's your forum and you do what you like, ban and warn as much as you like. I just thought that EP's idea that "to avoid such situations a simple rule like keeping reviews clean from comments is a very simple and safe-proof solution" is incorrect and voiced my opinion. If you think you just add that as a rule when you sign up and people will follow it, then fine, but personally I don't think that will make any difference whatsoever. A moderator have to look for users that is making offensive and pointless comments warn and possibly ban them, and the line there will always be subjective. Maybe my comment about EP's continous pointless and non-constructive critisism against genres and artists he don't like was over that line, thats up to you to decide. I think most people here is very familar with that side of him, no matter if they find it funny or not. The thing it that it seems to me that that was exactly the kind of comments the old psynews review section was troubeled with. "so yet another kilarghhhhhhhh CD is about to see the light of day.... run, run for your life ph34r.gif" Maybe thats funny for some people who share the same disliking of an artist, but that can easily turn into a flame war, while it's a mystery to me it can happen with a comment like: "good review moni I'm a little impressed wink.gif" So if I ask to have travellers post deleted is he calls EP a drama queen again he will be safe from being warned? Sorry, but I fail to see the relevance. Again, I don't personally care if you ban traveller, EP or me. I just thought the situation looked really twisted and unfair and wondered why 100x more offensive posts never resulted in a warning discussion while travellers little comment did. Sorry if my perception of the situation is offensive to anyone, my intention is not to cause offense but since the situation seems unjust to me I say what I think. If that should be enough grounds for a warning, well....I can't honestly say I give a rats ass about if I ever can enter this forum again.

It looks like someone is getting prefered treatment here from both mods and owner. Thats always great for the community feeling. There is obviously people far more guilty for fueling up the arguement than traveller here I must say. When about the remarks that EP made to rain that later got deleted.....will he be warned for those as well?

I thought it was you who was one of the absolutley loudest opponents to moderation....what made you change your mind? I do agree that moderation is needed, but to take precautionary mesures by making some rules that you expect people to obey to does not work. Moderation have to be done by actually looking thru posts and see which ones is considered offensive. To be really fuzzy about if everything is 100% on topic is maybe better left to Isratrance. If you like that style of moderation why not sign up there again under a new nick? I remember the problems in the old review section, and it was certainly not that there was too much praise of the reviews themself that created the noise. Niether was it actual critisism of the reviewing style. It was people that liked to piss on genres and artists they did not understand or respect and like to argue about pointless things. Very similar to the kind of anti full-on comments that for example SOLO, EP, Kris and HandA tends to fill this forum and isratrance with. The way to deal with that kind of behaviour is to warn and ban the user before the place becomes the No 1 playground for all the bitter and twisted trolls out there.

This is IMO the most original and psychedelic music that been released in a long time. It sure makes me dance like crazy, and I'm sure it drives the crowd nuts nightime in the typical forest/jungle party just like his earlier tracks. Listening at home to dark is not really my cuppa, and in that sense this album don't fare any better. If I play it loud I just want to dance, and as background when doing things at home industrial dance music just don't work for me. The depth and grit in the production is one step beyond everything else in this scene, and the basslines has their own style, something that is extremly unusual nowadays, both in "darkpsy" and full-on. It reminds me very much of my roots, and the roots of dark psychedelic dance music and acts like Skinny Puppy, A Split Second, Frontline Assembly etc. I know a few producers, including myself, that have been very inspired from those acts, but nothing I heard comes close before to match that very delicate mix of grit, power, depth and beauty. So hat's of to Ghreg. This release confirmed the expectations I expressed in the promotional thread. This is the best release this side of the millenium so far IMO. I never ever called something the release of the year before.....but with this one I could just keep going on about how extraordinarily good it is.

After an extended summer break there are things happening lately at http://www.resonantearth.com again. 4 new tracks have been added: Malice in Wonderland is an Austrian trio producing intense night music. They contributed the track "Cold Nights". Zalabim is a Swedish producer coming out with some very original and twisted music. Check out the tracks "Lonley Stranger" and "Hide And Seek". Last but not least Macedonian act Uminum. Their track "E-Rectum" is like a mix of old-school and soumi but with their very own touch. Truly psychedelic morning music of their caliber is rare these days and I can't wait to hear more from these guys. Enjoy

Hi Jeremy, I'm looking forward to check this out. Usually there is extremly little progressive music that I find interesting and psychedelic, but your stuff is an exception.

I don't see why mone have to get rich to be a sell-out. Imagine that you make just enough to pay the rent and eat from producing and touring. Thats usually how it is for a successful full-on producer. Now, maybe you one day really feel like making an old-school album. You look at the maket for that, you notice that thee is no labels that can afford to give you a decent advance and get a decent number of copies out there. Probably not many of your current fans will not like it, and getting gig's would be a lot harder. Many people will rather cling on to carrying a star status flying aound the world playing full-on then getting a dayjob that pays about the same. So they adapt to the market, even if it doesn't make them rich. Same with the label owners. Usually they initially just like to release the music they like. But if you like o make a lving out of it, you are either a very mainstream person or you adapt. Forget about weird psychedelic night music or old-school and go for house or full-on to be able to live of running a label, o get a dayjob to have money to pour in to the label. Anyway...on the topic: Labels is nothing more than a PR organisation for artists in this scene IMO. Traditionally labels was a lot more important. You just could not record a decent record without the support fom the label, and no-one would hear your music if they didn't plug it to the radio for you and got it out in the stores. Now everyone have a studio at home themself and there is alternatives to radio and shops to get music out to people. So labels as such is superflous, and they should start working more to fulfill the functions they still have, PR and management.

Thats the problem with most old analogues. The pro-1 tends to be comparativly reliable in my experience. The prophet-5 for example is usually totally hopeless. I bought one the same time as NI's plugin version came out. After A/B testing them against eachother I very quickly sold the hardware version since it sounded awful in comparasion. Old synths many times sound tired, thats the reason it's better to go for modern analogues when i comes to hardware synths. For digital synthesis integrated DSP solutions is much more reliable and convenient IMO.

The stuff I heared done with the Doepfer modular sounded really good and exciting. It's hard to compare a modular with a simple monosynth though, even if they would use the same components. I have no interest in an SH101 really, but the 100m system is a complety different story even if it sounds like the same oscillators, filters and envelopes. For example modulation of oscillators and filters with audible frequencies can sound very different on different systems in my experience. Have you used a decently sized Doepfer system and done a lot of FM and stuff like that? I only heared very positive comments on the sound and expressiveness of the Doepfer modular, so I'm a bit curious what you base you view on. I cannot agree too costly with real analogue synths. Most of the digital machines mentioned here cost as much if not more than a real analogue. Last time I looked you could get a pro-1 for some $350. The ATC-1 was like $700 new in the shop. The original microwave is not so often you come across, but i seen it a few years ago for less than $1000. A small Doepfer modular system is like $1000-1500.

It's indeed crap that the faders only output sysex. Also the faders seem to be very low quality. I tried a couple of machines which both had a few screwed fades, and that was some 10yrs ago. If you get an exemplar today I would be amazed if it still was 100% working, and it will be damned hard to keep it that way. And although I liked the typical Pleiadians lead, I must say that I was never so keen on the JD800. It sounds great on it's own many times, but it was very hard to get sounds that actually fits nice in the mix. Somehow the sound is many times a bit uncontrolled and bloated. It's the filters that is the problem I think. But sure, with a bit of work it sounds very good on some settings, but I'm quite lazy and rather go with instuments that I find pleasing to work with.

Saikosounds did not want to sell it Or they said they where interested, I sent them a demo, but never got an answer even after repeated enquieries. So you'll have to check it out on http://www.resonantearth.com

I think Abelton is the best, but it's very different from using a pair of decks. Traktor with a hardware contol is just like a pair of modern exclusive decks with waveform display, auto sync and possiblilty to play two tracks from one CD. The advantage is the quick and reliable access to the music on a HD. I Abelton you can do a lot more like using VST effects, triggering loops and effects in sync with the music etc. So you can create a very "hands on" environment where you can really play around a lot. But the actual aligning and synchronising is very different and not "hands on" at all.

I know they used the JD800 a lot for their typical lead sound. I must agreee that reaktor sounds a bit thin. Sure you might be able to make if fat by stacking and processing. Somehow to me it seems like a good idea to stick with instruments that I like the sound of without too much work. A synth patch that sounds great without any FX or stacking usually sound amazing with it. But then the nord lead sound thin as well in my ears, at least the versions I tried. But both that and the virus is so extemly overused in trance so it's the first two hardware synths I would sell if I had them. The modulars is cool, and although it is a bit sterile you can make nice sounds that is easy to fit in the mix. The pulsar synths and modular is what I rely on when I want dense analogue type sounds. For thinner sounds there is plenty of VST synths that sounds really good. The hardware I really thought been the best before I went digital: Sequential Circuits Pro-1 (cheap monophonic analouge with great sound and modulation capabilities) Original Waldorf Microwave with analogue filers (the later ones had a bit weak filters IMO, the original rules) Korg MS-20 (very electric sounding and great modulation) Korg MonoPoly (flexible with good modulation) ARP 2600 (thin sounding but extremly expressive, flexible and a pleasure to work with) Oberheim 4 voice (deep and clear acid sound) Roland 100m (neither cheap or easy to get a decent system, but sounds great and easy to work with....for a modular that is) Studio Electronics ATC-1 and SE-1 (fat sounding proper modern analouge synths) Nice machines that you can get hold of real cheap: ESQ-1 (buggy and annoying, but sounds good) Korg DW8000 (that great combination of digital oscillators and analogue filters) Ensoniq Mirage (early lofi processor, then branded "sampler". 8bit sampling with analogue filters) I haven't actually used any of the modern analogue modulars like doepher. But that would probably be highest on my shopping list......if I would get some weird impulse and suddenly look forward to suffer with MIDI/CV issues and having to stretch around in the room to reach various control surfaces. I'm sure glad those days are over

Juno.....as in Juno Reactor? Errr....their NOT american. But you do have a whole bunch of good artists, for example: Penta Chromatone Proteus Ocelot / Vector Selector Ghreg on earth Mubali Bodhi Sattva Random The Nommos Fractal Cowboys Onnomon Quadra At least in my taste most of the best atists is currently fom the states. As a Swede my favourites would be the Shlab guys, BOTFB and Ka-Sol.

You don't find me going in to a lot of promotional theads hyping releases. Infact I can't think of any releases during this millenium that been as deep and heavy as Ghregs unreleased stuff from the last couple of years. I'm pretty confident I will think it's the best release this millenium for my taste....well see. Don't worry, sometime you might also attend to some parties and actually be able to have an educated opinion about the music made for the dancefloor and the terminology involved. But I undestand where you are coming from, Ghregs music probably will not work in the night in your bedroom. Shpongle is the bollocks for that I guess.

And not a day to early I can't remember last time I really been excited to hear a new album, but this one I just have to get. Ghreg is the undisputable master of psychedelic night music as far as I'm concerned, and I'm quite confident that this will be the best album of 2005, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was the best so far from this millenium.

You are so fanatic about BT and wav files I don't share your enthusiasm for neither of those choices so I will winch a bit. Using BT would for sure be an alternative, so distribution is there, and if there is a choice thats fine. The thing is that BT is very slow and unreliable IMO. Ok it might be accessible for the fist few days when many people download, but at least in my experience it's less than ideal. Hosting is better....but it does cost money and/or a bit of effort, so maybe it's not possible. I would say to make it a bit faster to download for people use FLAC instead of wav. Both with BT and from most webservers I rarely get more than 100k on my 8Mb connection. Downloading and installing FLAC takes two minutes. One compilation as wav takes usually at least 30 minutes extra to download compared to if it would have been FLAC. I don't want to put anyone down, just adding my $0.2. All ideas and offers is of course great. There for sure never be one solution which everyone really agrees with 100%, but someone just have to take charge and make it happen and I'm sure it will all work out fine.

Really, all that is needed is someone with a half decent connection and a half decent computer that they can leave on. Maybe someone here have a 10Mb connection....if you live in a big city in Sweden there is no excuse not to But I would say a 1Mb connection would do. If it's many users at the same time it will be a bit slow, but at least it will be no nasty surprises like it could be for someone who offer to use a hosted account. It's a shame Kris made a 180 degree turn. I don't know what made him think thats it a contest about who has the biggest. I said mine is not very fast, and Cybernetica said he have limited transfer per month. The reason I commented that 50Gb is maybe not enough was just because I hate to see Cybernetica ending up with a bill on a few $100 that he might not have expected. Otherwise I'm sure what he offers is like John Holmes and my offer like an average Chinese (no offence to all the Chinese out there, just stereotyping for the sake of the example)

@Cybernetika I would recommend that you check how much it would cost if you use more than 50Gb/mnth. I use about 80Gb for RE, and I could well imagine that this comp would get more traffic. I like to once again make clear that I have no intetentions to make money. So far with the deal I have on resonantearth have worked out as a minus for me if I don't count in getting money from Spindrift/Steptime/Maximizers tracks. Using cafeexpress or printing CD's on the other hand does involve parts that will take a profit from their work. Since thats been discussed a lot I thought I can offer an alternative where all profit goes to the artists. But I agree that a free mp3 compilation is maybe a better idea. Better to keep business out of it.

I hoped my post was quite thourough on what I was offering, but maybe it was not so clear. I'm not gonna produce CD's, host, master and provide sales of downloads all for free. But I do it without taking profit. Allt those parts together could make it a good thing fo me since it maybe helps promoting the site and the artists. You have to decide if that sounds good to you. I could consider doing only mastering if I know what would happen with the compilation and what license it would be under. If the CD press, distributor and/or shops should be involved you can ask them if they do it for free. If they agree to that I do as well But if it's an mp3 compilation, just one CD and an open license I'll can imagine doing it.

Well Done ProSect I been thinking that I could help out a little bit. The deal would be like this: I master the tracks and host them on resonantearth, so people can get 128k free, buy 320k or FLAC for download or order physical CD's. So basically all you need is some winners and a cover and I do the rest. But if there is interest I like to be clear on a few things: My sever is already quite heavily loaded as it is and is not very fast, neither is my internet connection. I have 1Mb upload speed wich seems to refuse to give more than 120k to one user. If 100 users would come at the same time trying to download it wont keep up well. It would mean each user can get max ~7k, and thats if the server will keep up ok. I doubt that there will be 100's of simultaineous users though, but maybe it would be a good idea to at least host the free 128k files on a separate page and host. That would be 90% of the traffic most likely. I'm willing to take the chance, but I cannot guarantee a really good service if it becomes more popular than I anticipated. The CD's would be high quality diamond surface CDR (looks just like a pressed CD). Ful colour print on CD body and artwork. But it will be CDR. The material will be released under the same license and as separate downloads as well just like other tracks on resonantearth. I guess for most people what license is used does not really matter, but that would probably exclude members of royalty organisations. The only payment I accept on the site is paypal. The agreement I have with the artists on the site is that for every sold download or track sold on a CD $0.65 goes to the artist and is paid with paypal. The works out at a bit varying percentage dependent on how many tracks people buy at one time and in what format. Some examples so you get an idea: If someone buys a single 320k mp3 track $0.65 is 100% of whats left after paypal fees. If someone gets a compilation as mp3 it's about 90% to the artists. For 10 FLAC files not from a compilation it's a bit more than 50%. I been contemplating to offer both mastering, server space and CD burning before. But just like Colin said....mastering a whole compilation can be a lot of work. Especially if not all tracks have top-notch production, but I'm sure they will in this case Burning and sending CD's is also quite much work, and the few dollars I charge on top of the download price does not cover for much more than CDR's, cases, paper and cartriges. I don't mind to do some free work for the scene, but I already spend plenty of time running RE and making music only for the fun of it, and I have open source projects I'm working on...again in a PLUR spirit. So I have to deal with the responsibilities I already been taking on first of all and cannot say yes to any opportunity to help out that is offered. But after thinking a bit I figured that it could be a win-win situation if I did release the competition on RE because it would maybe give some of the artists that already is on the site more attention as well as promote the winners and make it easy for you guys to get going with launching the competiton.