Spindrift

I run a self distributed label with digital downloads and ordering of custom burned CD's and have thru that gained some insights about the industry that I don't mind sharing with you. About prices you have to of course look at the competitors. With a download shop there is not so much reason for customers to use a local shop, and also not so much point to focus on the local market IMO. Normal prices in download shops is between $1-$2 depending a bit on what resolution you offer. One thing you have to keep in mind also is that opening a download shop is not at all like opening a CD shop. You have to get the labels to accept that you sell downloads of their material and that seems to be difficult many times. Some distributors also do not give their labels permission to sell downloads even. So you cannot count on getting a very complete assortment. About digital rights management is that they are not working very well, and the customers do not like it. None of the download shops I know of actually use any such system. You can have a look at your competitors at http://www.sonicblend.com/links/digital-music-downloads.php to get more idea about prices etc. Sales of downloads is quite low still like, and it's not easy to do well yet at least. The cost of developing a good system can be quite high because it can be a bit complicated to develop. Personally I think the future lies in web shops, but probably providing both downloads and physical CD's. A shop that could provide custom burned CD's from a wide range of tracks would be very nice in my opinion, but that wikll be very hard to negotiate with the labels probably. Anyway, good luck with your project if you decide to go for it.

About Slinky Wizard I just know that I saw Dominiq a while back, and he was doing house music and did not seem very intent then to get back into trance. But he did show up in Goa and seemed to enjoy himself, so maybe he has changed his mind. I didn't hear any rumours myself about a Slinky Wizard album being on it's way, but that would be nice if it was true. Where did you hear that from?

Ok, to keep the thread of track further I just have to make a little comment. Sure you have to be very careful about you settings on a bass sound, but on the other hand it can be hard to tweak a bass sound to perfection. Synth patches that is good for basses is generally very simple. The 303 is one of the better analogue bass synths IMO, and it's not really a lot to control on it. Basically get the right decay and filter settings and it sounds good. So the "secret" to good basses according to me is not that you have to be very good in neither synthesis or EQ/compression. It's just to find an instrument that sounds good. Might sound simple, but can require a lot more work and experience than learning what threshold, attack and release does on a compressor or what frequencies is important or problematic.

I have struggled a lot with analogue synths for basslines and find it very difficult to get a really good bass with them. And it's mostly in the bass department I find old tracks seem to lack many times, and there seem to be quite a few that agree on that. Some digital synths just have a lot more precise envelopes than I ever heard in any analogue synths. A lot of music today, especially the full-on variety, uses far too thin sounding basses for my taste though. They are punchy, but lack depth. And I never found a VSTi I am happy with for bass when I tried. For me struggling with basses is a thing of the past since I started using the Pulsar a few years ago. There I feel I get both punchy enough envelopes so I can avoid compressing the sound at all but at the same time getting very much warmth and depth. Especially the Flexor modular modules is astonishing IMO.

Maybe you are right that some fruity users might have worse monitoring and that's why they do not hear the difference. But I tend to trust people if they say they have experience that it sounds just as good, and I don't see why anyone that only compared other sequencers with it using a bad soundcard and crap monitors would bother to defend the sound quality. And according to my experience you have to have very bad monitoring indeed to not notice the difference. Fruity can still render in 32 bit even if you use a 16 bit card and a soundblaster does not sound so bad and should not really be a serious problem to monitor on. I have worked a bit on standard consumer soundcards sometimes, and I can't say there was an obvious disturbing difference compared to the output of the Pulsar i use normally. It might not be ideal to monitor on a soundblaster, but you can hear quite well what is going on if you have ok speakers. If you would record many channels thru cheap converters or a bad mixer you can hear a clear difference in the mix though. I'm not really fuzzy about sound in general. I can't tell the difference between a 320k mp3 and a wav myself for example. But I hear a clear difference between different mixers and software when using many channels Although I used Logic for a long time and can work very fast and smooth in it the way it's designed is not ideal, so I would be happy to change sequencer. But I just can't get satisfactory sound from the one's I do enjoy the workflow in. Talking about quality of VSTi's, I can agree I also have a hard time to find one's with enough depth in the sound. That has much to with that they user lower resolution when calculating then VA's and DSP based synths, and therefore sound more digital. That's fine by me for many sounds, but I like the bass and a lead or two from my pulsar instead since I feel that adds a bit of depth to the production. The favourite VSTi's for me when it comes to sounding deep and analogue is z3+a, Oddity, impOSCar and pentagon. A bit of PSP vintage warmer can help as well.

@realisation I think the question was about the sound of the mixing in FL, not the quality of the pitch shifting algorythm in samplers. I hardly ever use pitch shifted samles myself, so I would not have a clue what sampler that have the best algorythm really. I'm surpised though that there is so many people that cannot hear the difference of the mixing in FL. Most producers I know that make good souding mixes testify that they do hear a massive difference. How human hearing can be so varied is a mystery. It would be very interesting to get to have a listen to some fruity mixes from some of the people claiming you can get the same quality of sound with FL as with logic or cubase.

No doubt get monitors! Dynaudio, genelec or tannoy reveal is my recommendations. The difference between VA's and software synths is not that great, but a pair of decent montors will enable you to get a lot better results out of your whatever synths no doubt. And for synths, get a pulsar instead of a VA. Super sound with many channels of direct 32bit audio into your host application and a very good mixer included. Think about it as a Virus TI without a steel box, but a lot cheaper and more flexible.

In mainstream music production that was the idea in the 80's. Nowadays at least pop producers have realized that it's actually more about putting together the sounds in a way that sounds interesting. Total harmony between the sounds don't catch many peoples attention. I just wish more trance producers could come to that insight sometime as well. IMO opinion madionna many times have a lot more interesting and wild production than GMS. And since trance is combining production and performing instruments people seem to forget one thing, use good sounds to start with and you need to do very little mixing work.

@Trolsk It was really not easy to tell it was a joke considering other posts in this thread. You made a very good impersination of a typical Posford fan IMO

Im not saying it is a toy, but it sounds different than Logic for sure. You can make a fine sounding track with a really cheap analogue mixer as well. It takes more skill and more attention to EQ and gain structure though and it will never sound as good as something coming out of a neve or ssl. But of course it can still sound good.

It can be hard to find bass sounds especially that will sound great with any treatment. But it should be the first priority if you like a fat clean bass. You can listen to my tracks on the site in my signature if you like and see what you think about the bass and kick sounds I use. Pretty much all tracks have completely untreated bass and kick. About separating bass and kick. Again, start with finding sounds that does not clash to much. It's very common nowadays to try to avoid having the bass and kick triggering at the same time to avoid problems. Most of the tracks by the artists you mentioned do not trigger the kick and bass at the same time. So the standard russian bass would be KbbbKbbbKbbbKbbb. If you like to have them playing at the same time you would many times get better separation by making a little peak in one, and a dip in the other. For example boost around 110hzin the bass, dip at the same freq in the kick. Then boost the kick around 70hz, and aagin dip the same frequency in the bass. I normally make sure the bass and kick sounds is not overlapping by ensuring that the sounds do not last longer than 1/16. If you do that you do not need a sidechain compressor. But by all means play around with one and try it out. You might like to get the first bass note after each kick to be a bit delayed or have a synth that refuse to make your notes shorter than a 16th (don't know if there is any synths like that, but anyway). I use sidechain sometimes, but then it only kicks in when i do kick fills where it saves me the hassle of editing the bass notes to avoid clashing. I do not know about the fruity compresssor really. From what I recall it is posssible to sidechain in fruity, but how someone else have to answer. Otherwise TC compressor is a popular choice. Insert the sidechainer on the kick channel and the compressor on the bass and there choose the sidechain input. Normally you have to use quite a low treshold and high ratio.

Opinions differ on the subject. Of course it's possible, and there is a few releasing artists that do. None really renowned for their great sound quality AFAIK, but many making very inspired music. I do think it's really hard to get anything decent sound wise out of fruity and many producers that use fruity do the actual mixing in other applications. Especially when mixing many tracks they have a tendency to get quite muddy, loose stero image and kick and bass starts dissappering. What you should keep in mind with fruity, contradictory to the information provided by Image Line, is that there is actually no 24 bit support. The help file say's that it supports 24 bit, but apperently Image Lines definition of "supporting" is that it will dither down your audio to 16 bit. If you use many channels thats quite a bit of noise added to your output, and a highly questionable practice. So it seems best to stick with 32 bit files if you want to get the best out of the software. It might improve things a bit, but from my experience with various software neither orion, Abelton Live, reason or fruity can unfortunally not compare in sound quality to the major players. Why seems to be a bit of a mystery when you speak to developers who many times say it should be an easy task to mix the signals. But if the developers of Logic or DP for example know otherwise I guess they keep it a secret how they achive the sound they do. But the best thing to do is to try out for yourself. Get hold of somekind of "demo" for Logic, Cubase, DP or Sonar and try to mix a track in them to see if you find there to be enough improvement in sound quality to justify the switch.

LOL...i doubt he is a shpongle fanatic and appreciate it very much. So if I get your logic right, it's ok to take someones music and sell it as your own for money, but to download mp3 is stealing? Couldn't agree less.

@Moai Yop are making a very good example of how sad many people is when trying to defend Simon as some kind of god. I had psychedelic experiences, and heard Hallucinogen first time when I was quite dosed up an acid. I just don't like his music. Sure if you sit down and listen to him on one of your first acid trips you might get the impression that he is god, but the same would be true for a lot of music.

I agree that the comparasions made and trying to compare Mozart and Simon as talents is a bit silly. I just though that saying that the reason Mozart is considered a musical genius is because his music is old was a bit out. Maybe Simon would be for music what Andy Warhol has been for art. Very influential and well known. I would not really agree with that paralell either, but if you like Warhols art or not is a matter of taste. Andy Warhol is not a great painter and anyone with a bit of deent ideas and a talent for creating hype could be a Warhol or a Pollock. You might like their art very much and it might really speak to you, but you cannot expect people to agree when you say that "Warhol is such a talented painter". I'll be very surprised to hear someone who think van Eyck is not a good painter. Maybe it's boring and not very creative art for everyone, but his painting skills I think most people with a pair of eyes can see is quite exceptional. Simon is not a great composer or a otherworldy gifted producer. He obviously have a message for a lot of people, but not for me.

For sure looks a lot better than the last few years IMO. Ok, they are only very obviously following fashion, but fashion is better than it has been for many years in trance it seems to me.

Sure I love feeling wierd. I would rather praise Graham than Simon for that album though. If I was convinced that Simon had more to do with that album than Graham I would totally change my view about him. But I don't think he had much to do with neither melodies or production. Considering how his own stuff sounded quality wise years after many of the tracks on feeling wierd was made I sincerly doubt it. Shamanix is not much worse than most of his early stuff. Listen again to the twisted album. Many of the tracks on feeling wierd is severeal years older and they are all better production than simons first album. I never liked it when it came out. Apart from production not being so good I could never get off on the dancefloor to the tracks. I must admit that after that I never followed hallucinogen much after that and considered him highly overrated and hyped. I though I give him a chance again when I started hearing everyone nagging about Shpongle, but although the production is clean there is just nothing that grabs me as interesting about the music.

I'm not so much in to classical, maybe much due to the fact that I do not like pretentious sounding music much. But there is a lot of classical wich anyone with a slight knowledge about composing must admire the skills of the composer. The same can not be said about Simon. If I told my father for example, who is a composer himself, that I think that spongles melodies is amazing or genius he would think I had lost my mind. And what makes me in agony when listening to some spongle stuff is like I said the combination of pretentions and navite.

It's not that I have not heard his music. But really, you can't say that the Hallucinogen stuff is that great melodically. And the melodies in much of the spongle tracks come across to me as naive and pretentious at the same time. Thats not a very sucessful combination in my taste, if fact it's almost painful to listen to some spongle for me.

I really tried, but I never heard any melodies in Simons stuff that strikes me as genius. I remeber several tracks have IMO almost annyingly bad melodies. Some how trying to sound catchy and poppy but failing. Much of the Hallucinogen is production wise actually is quite bad as well. If you isten to tip yellow compilation for example you have to admit that Shamanix does not strike you as well produced compared to the rest of the tracks. And Spongle is slick, but just not very interesting in my ears. Everything balanced well and clear sound but nothing sticking out and therefore I'm bored after listening to half a track. Without being a classical fanatic, I do remember that I sometimes when hearing Mozart the melodies did grab me as genius. He's not at all my favorite classical composer though. To compare classic music to trance or ambient is off course impossible. But people knew their craft better when it comes to handycraft and art in the olden days. Everyone who look at a van Eyck or Hironimus Bosh just have to admit that they knew how to paint very well. The same is simply not true for modern artists like Andy Warhol or Jackson Pollock. Their work might speak more to some people today, but you just can't compare their skills to painters a few 100 yrs ago.

As always with trying to define sound in words it's very subjective so ther is no right or wrong, but different definitions. Normally crispness IMO is the opposite of warm sounding, but in a good way. For sure more high frequency would many times result in a more crisp sound. But also things like harmonics from subtle distortion will result in a more warm and fat sound. So basically I would try to define it as a clear sound with much presence in the highs, but without harmonic distortion. But somehow many VA's and software synths do not sound warm because you close the filter a bit. For example sounds from some low bit resolution drum machines is still very popular, much due to the crispness they produce. (SP1200, the hihats on a 909) Somehow the more stepped and less smooth curves of a lower resolution will give it a more crispy rather than warm impression. Software synths using a higher resolution (hardware VA's or DSP based) will be easier to get a fat and warm sound out of it seems to me. Since the first VA's like the nord lead came they have been very popular in trance, probably partly due to how easy it can be to fit more crispy digital sounds into the mix. IMO warm fat analogueish sounds and crispy digital sounds go very well together.

I usually use my pulsar for basses, but I had a play with the audio realism recently, and that is the best VST'i I have tried for basses. It does have good punch and depth. Otherwise I had problems finding a VSTi that produces basses with enough depth to them. Having said that apart from the audio realism I have not even tried for a long time, but the z3+a is quite dense sounding, and I can very well imagine that is not too bad. About GMS. I have heard that they use VB1 a lot, and it sure sounded like it last time I heard a track from them (I'm glad to say that was a while ago though ) And don't get to fixed on the sinewave. It's good for subby DnB style basses but if you want a bit of mid presence as well use a saw or square.

I remember plenty of people had the same opinion in the mid 90's. They got fed up with trance because of straight kicks and hihat. Sure variation can be nice, but the quest for it can make music very boring indeed. Straight hats and kicks work and help you get in to trance, people get off on them. There is nice trance tracks wich is more imaginative partly thanks to more inventive hihat and kicks, but not that many IMO. Most tracks I hear with more intricate drums seems rather stuck in trying to be differnt and does not work so good on the dance floor. There is a lot more nice tracks in my taste that has a bog standard rythm pattern and that relies on other parts of the production to express the creativity. If we would be discussing basslines I would agree that straight bass riffs is uncreative and there is room for a lot more variation and creativity when it comes to that. About the original subject though. One trick to make the hihats more alive is by pitching them slightly with the pitchwheel. Just wiggle it back and foth a bit to make them not sound so straight and sampled. Also like nemo said, try to mix sounds. Try to use for example an 909 sample but cut out the top frequencies with a lowpass. Then add for example a more pure noise sound at the top going thru a highpass. You can also like mentioned modulate them using a flanger or phaser. Gating, compression , lofi plugins or reverb can all be very useful for hats as well.

There is no general guidelines. Whats the problem with your bass sound to start with? First thing I would recommend is to look for more sources for kick and bass that you do not need to process to make them sound good. EQ and compression is really tools for fixing problems with source sounds and not the key to good sound. Some synths might give a bit varying amplitude on different notes or have inferior envelopes. Then you will need to compress them. How depends on what you think is not right with the sound. If you want more of a transient in the attack of the sound compress with a fairly high attack setting and a longish release, ie opposite to how you would adjust the envelope on a synth. If the sound is too transient and need to be fatter use a short attack and a short release. The main frequencies for bass and kick is somewhere between 70-120 hz. If your source sounds do not have enough energy in that area add a mild peak with the EQ to boost it. Many times you then need to compensate for bleeding of frequencies into the nearby frequencies by reducing a bit around 200-250hz and 40-70hz. To find what different frequencies actually do for the sound, try sweeping around with a narrow q boost. Routing both bass and kick thru the same compressor does not sound like a good idea to me. Normally you would use the compressors induvidually on kick and bass as inserts. But most of all, try to tweak your bass sound using the envelopes, notelengths and filter to get it as good as possible. If you are not happy with something about the sound, try again. Then try another synth if you still can't get it right. Now if you have something you is fairly happy with but know what you think the sound has too much of or is lacking, try EQ and compression. Same goes with the kick sound. If you are not happy with the sound you have, look for other sources. On many sample CD's the kicks is finetuned by good engineers and it's quite common it seems that people compress and EQ for the sake of it and actually degrade the sound rather than improving it. Also, fruity loops is not great sounding when it comes to mixing. There is people who will tell you otherwise, despite tests that have been done to prove it and the testimonies of loads of experienced producers. Most producers I know who use fruity end up mixing the tracks in another sequencer. It can make a great difference to especially the bass region when you have a few tracks playing at once. I would recommend to at least try for yourself if you can notice any difference when rewireing or exporting to logic or cubase.

I meant the first released as an album, but indeed there is much more material from him. He seems amazingly productive, but has surprisingly few releases. I did not hear his stuff myself until very recently. He is like lumpi said very generous with his music and it's very nice to hear that more people has not missed out on him before.