realisation

I'm sorry but its bullshit that cubase has a good interface, its the most irritating interface i've ever used in any sequencer.. PLEASE, not reason, especially the new 3.0 version.. what a pile of shite.. the new effects dont do anything for your sound. the sequencer is pretty pants at putting notes together. Logic is OK, infact its intuitive enough to use, but you cant re-arrange your effects on the fly. madtracker 2.5 is good for putting ideas together quickly.. you can create the same results in this compared to something like reason or logic.. because it now supports VSTi's its on par with any of the other sequencers, the only thing that it cant do is variable note lengths easily, but this can be done using something like automation on the decay, and if you want to record some very complicated keyboard playing and editing that then a linear sequencer like logic is the way to go. logic and madtracker (and ableton live) for me.. the rest is just drivel..

c'mon, its 0.3 but its pretty much a finished tune! whatdya think?

new tune, could you give me some critisism on this? it would be much appreciated! download everse cheers, dave realisation

i've tried atmosphere, its nice but not that great.. pads are basically normal synth sounds layered at different octaves/sounds with effects added (reverb, chorus, phasor, flanger, delay)

IMHO Reason 3 is not worth the upgrade, don't do it! its much slower and the new effects/ 'features' are pretty naff. i've found a lot of joy with freeware vst's, synths are only half the picture remember, effects are just as important in psytrance. the classic series plugins are excellent (and free): http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/ retrodelay ROCKS!! http://www.e-phonic.com/vstplugins/retrodelay.html btw, for instance a real arp oddysey sounds much better than the vsti oddity (i had a loan of one once).. but once you've added the effects, eq, etc. who's going to tell the difference?

http://www.psy-trance.com/mars.mp3 ok, it sounds roughly like it; what i've done sounds a bit fuller and doesn't have that 'digital' kinda sound. maybe someone can get closer to the sound? lets ask AP how they made it!

you know, pretty much at the end of the day they are all using similar algorithms. if you want to get into details go here: http://www.simonv.com/music/quality/ its got a comparison of anti-aliasing in all the programs. logic's Emagic EXS24 MKII comes off pretty badly in this department. v5 looks impressive, i have to try it sometime - i've not used fruityloops for ages :-) just looking at the eq from the pictures on the website, it looks more than good enough to produce a good mix. all you have to do is get to grips with mixing. there are some tricks around like removing the mids in your hats, but one of the main uses of it is to remove too much treble or bass in a sound, and tune it in so that it fits well in the mix. a lot of psy-trance has bass lines without any bass in them, so its a creative tool. also, you can have hats without any treble as well, maybe just one type. breakbeat sounds dull? put some mid eq boost in there. fx plays a big part as well in getting a professional mix. reverb,chorus,phaser, delay and flanger almost always used many times on different sounds in a psy-trance track. as with using cubase, just use what works for you. its what i do - i personally hate cubase, i think its interface is like playing one of those games where you have to remove all the pieces in the correct order.

I would buy some cheaper but good sounding monitors, i recently got wharfedale 8.1+'s for £80 then you could buy a second hand waldorf 4-pole filter (about £60) for that waldorf sound and a yamaha ex5r (pick them up for £200-250) which has 4 types of synthesis, or a virus b for about £300 which is good enough on its own. uk prices, everywhere else should be cheaper :-)

i just worked it out! i used vst plugins, first make 128 F#, octave 2 notes in refx junoX2, which is set to osc 1=PWMx2 osc 2=Saw sub=pulse2 fat=65%>< filter f=396hz,q=19%, type=HP 12db envelope a=5ms,d=0.2s,s=4%,r=5ms,vol=73%,pwm=0% (very important), filter=19% lfo f=2.4hz,pwm=0% next in chain is classic flanger (classic plugs from http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/ delay time=4mx, rate=0.05,depth=74%,feedback modulating between 0 and 56% (you'll see what i mean) output, effect=full on classic chorus delay time range=40ms,fine=0.915 modulation rate=0.288, spread on, depth=13%, mix 1:1 classic auto filter filter type=BP (band pass) filter frequency=186.8,resonance =7 mix=64.36 envelope follower attack=0,release=1.514,depth=24 lfo sync on, r.h off, spr. on,depth=80, t.sig (time signature) 1/1 retro delay (from http://www.e-phonic.com/ active button under bpm time active, first and second bpm time knobs set to 2 and 4, both dotted feedback=0.7, 1pass, not negative (neg button not clicked) delay time lfo rate=32, depth=a very little cutoff facing hard left, resonance at 11'oclock filter type high pass, filter on filter cutoff lfo rate=32, depth=0.55 mode +L -R Dry/wet just past half way mark (1'oclock) volume on full, reverb,distortion off both delays on sine wave all effects processed in order above! ok, thats the first sound! its not exact but it sounds much better than the original :-) have fun!

any idea what the first two sounds you hear in this track: astral projection - life on mars the strange alien synth, and the other strange alien synth :-) some flange, filtering, delays, but i cant put my finger on it..

heh, no problem. i've got logic and a mac and keep going back to it :-) biggest thing that is noticable is the ease of altering the sequence the fx's are in, on madtracker. logic is a re-do job to change the order of fx's. also, much quicker to put notes in :-)

you cant say dancing galaxy is a dissapointment, there are some really cool tracks on there.. flying into a star, life on mars, liquid sun, no-one ever dreams the only tune thats a bit cliched is dancing galaxy itsself.

sounds ok, sounds like SFX. a few comments: i would probably stay away from using pianos. its a bit light? what about some more synths lines overtoned, some more fx? not sure about the bass sound, what about using a 303 bass sound with no resonance? too much of the piano and weird up-down synth fx. god man, sorry, there are some nice elements but the rebirth line sounds like some early 90's tune i know, and the other 303 sound sounds like a dolphin being mamed. maybe thrown in spuriously on a high octave beat this would work but its the structure, use of fx (lack of them), too much space, no atmosphere (more synth lines) that lets down this piece.

too complicated for you?

anyone here use this program? its great for getting down whats in your head instead of drawing little boxes like in reason/cubase/cakewalk/logic. its also got 3 band eq, sweepable mids on each channel, unlimited vst's (well, your cpu) automation on all vst parameters. a nice touch is the vsti info's on the site, well worth a look anyway www.madtracker.org

Axis v0.99? (on in the mix sundown cd, last track) or god is a dj, astral projection mix? as the guy before me said, sounds like any astral projection track (hmm, i'll need to remember that the next time i write some psytrance)

i've been there and done that with my headphones, because the sound is not 'real' and only in your ears you end up wanting to feel the bass so you end up with far too much. the trick is to listen to other mixes and see how they sound on your speakers and try to get as close as possible to those mixes. you have to have good speakers though, to hear the mix clearly! you can pick up a pair of wharfedale 8.1's for next to nothing, you dont need to spend loads to get good monitoring speakers, as long as its not paper cones you should be ok. if you're writing goa/psy look for a frequency response that goes down to 55hz or below. lower the better! a cheaper way of getting better sound also is to buy better cables, get silver or gold plated copper cable.