skippy81

Okay guys, I accept that my post was a bit extreme, and was a unfair of me to bring history into it etc, as it implied that you are a racist, which I'm sure your not. Pls accept my apologies \gro

OMG I can't believe people can make comments like this after all the shit that happened in the last century. Israel is a country and Judaism is a religion, and on top of that referring to people as "Jews" and stereotyping them as money-grabbers is so incredibly low. Although I totally agree with the peeps who posted the more humorous responses. it has to be said that this sort of attitude to others is completely pathetic and I feel that rather that laughing at these sort of attitudes, it is sometimes better to answer in "black and white". As for the actual poll, a middle option would have helped. In general, any society or culture is as capable of producing great art and music. The fact that Psy music is popular in Israel obviously gives the country an advantage over others, but IMO this advantage is being neutralised by the psytrace explosion in many other global areas. At the end of the day, nationality and "race" are all pointless distinctions - we are all human beings, and are equal in our creativity.

Gratz mate, just listened to you track a couple of times at top volume, really enjoyed it ;-)

Hehe, I found a rather funky site when helping my little brother with history project a while ago:- http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speechbank.htm If you have any spare time, listen to Richard Nixon's infamous "checkers" speech. Its so funny, he talks a load of confusing rubbish and then starts going on about his pet dog so people will feel sorry for him lol!! Typical example of a politician talking out of his backside to save his skin....

I think Wizack was actually refering to the Waves Platinum Bundle http://www.waves.com/ rather than to the "making waves" sequencer. Assuming that FL5 supports vst plugins, then I would get the fx bundles produced by either Waves or TC Works. Reverb and delay are the two fx most used for making sounds more "psy", but also of honourable mention are phaser and flanger fx. No fx should be overused, reverb in particular can make a mess of a track if overused IMO. Native Instruments Specktral Delay and PSP Nitro are both capable of adding really spectacular delay fx to a sound, but they are both fairly difficult to keep under control and can easily run riot over your track I think the single best way of making a synth sound "psy" is by fiddling with highpass, notch and bandpass filters, either the build in ones, or in the fx chain - assuming FL5 supports track automation, you could have a field day creating some cool acidy effects using an otherwise fairly plain lead. Hope that helps ya...

Wow, cheers mate, just the sort of answer I was looking for. I'm gonna make some coffee and have a night up experimenting

I'm trying to get create some leads with a bit of power behind them. The lead synth used on this short track sample here http://82.13.114.225/Atomicpulseclip.mp3 is similar to what I want, but its so heavily gated and filtered I can't for the life of me work out what its based on, ie wave forms and the type of synth. I've only got VSTs at the moment - but ive tried various combinations of slightly detuned saws and even thrown in a pulse osc. I can't even get close, the best I can get is that cheesey detuned lead used in pop-trance. Any pointers to the sort of things I should be trying would be awesome. I've been trying with ReFX vanguard, Synth1 and even albino, but been having no real luck. BTW. I know these sort of questions get asked by peeps all the time looking for a very specific sound, but I'm really just looking for some general advice for programming some full on lead sounds. Many thanks

For voice synthesis you could be cheeky and use http://www.research.att.com/projects/tts/demo.html , but do not charge in anyway for the tracks you make which use it, the material it produces is copyrighted. Also make sure to adjust the pitch, add distortion and other FX, otherwise your tracks will sound unoriginal and therefore crap As for psytrance only having one beat, I assume that by this you dont really mean the entire "beat", you are refering specifically to the kickdrum. I agree that many psy tracks have a similar kickdrum sound in them, ie one that has more high end presence than the kicks commonly found in house music and club trance. However, there is a great amount of room for variation with psy - more so than with other music IMO. I would advise against sampling the kick from someone elses tune, it will have been compressed, and maybe EQ'ed and otherwise mastered to fit in with / around their baseline - and will no doubt sound crap with yours. You can generate some cool kicks with http://www.lysator.liu.se/~zap/stomper/index2.html and its free. For other percussion sounds, search the net for 808 or 909 drumkits and play around with these samples until you are developing some good flowing rhythms. Remember that good psytrance music is always original and unique at the time it comes out. Innovate, don't imitate mate Try listening to psy music on http://www.psyradio.org/ and http://www.philosomatika.com/, as well as some of the great tracks people have posted on this forum.

Overall I like the track. The structure is good and the melodies and bassline fit in together nicely. I think the melodies used are really cool and warm sounding. although maybe tweaking with the filters on the synth or "mutating" the notes some more would make the track sound a bit more "shroomy" ;-) The bassline is very good. The drum track I am not too keen on, I think the drum samples used sound a little lifeless, maybe some tweaking with the velocities would help, but I think the kickdrum should go, it doesnt stand out from the bass enough IMO - although it may have been you intention to blend the two of course :-).. The actualy drum pattern is fine however. There a percussion sound (first heard at 0:26) kinda like a finger click/snare with a reverb that I think sounds really fluffy and nice . The pads are too prominent in the mix - maybe you could add some nice psychedelic fx to help the rhythm along and make the mix sound fuller. I may just be being picky here, as I've always disliked pads in psytrance. There a few coliding kicks between 1:10 and 1:20 that need sorting out. Overall a great tune, the essential ingredients i.e the bassline and the melodies sound beutiful together The song does create pictures in my mind when I listen to it, which is always a sign of a good trance tune lol I hope my "critique" was of some help mate.

In my opinion the midi sequencers such as Cubase and Logic perform a different function to the all in one studio tools like fruity loops and Reason. While you can make decent sounding tunes by going solely down either route, I would say that Fruity and Reason are really creativity tools, which make the creative part of music production a little more intuitive - for example you can experiment with rhythmic patterns for basslines much easier with the 303 clones found in Reason and fruity - using Cubase and/or midi keyboard can be a little more difficult as there is more screen switching involved. Cubase, Logic and Cakewalk on the other hand excel when it comes to organising a complex and long track in a coherent way and offer built in EQs and effects of a higher standard. IMO tracks often sound better when mixed down with a good sequencer, but this doesnt mean that you can't do the songwriting in fruity or Reason - I know people who make really kicking tracks using a combination of both. I would say it is well worth learning Cubase, Logic (Apple only now I think) or Sonar ASAP, as these tools are the industry standard for dance music production (in much the same way as Photoshop is for graphic work). As for equipment to start of with I would say in order of importance: Decent monitor speakers and amp Midi Keyboard Low Latency soundcard (you need multiple midi outputs if you are working with hardware synths, and multiple line in's if working with real instruments) I would personally refrain from buying any synth or effects hardware until you have experimented with VST instruments, as pointed out above it takes months to get amazing sounds out of synths so dont blow too much on em. Good VSTs for making Psy Trance are: Native Instruments Battery (Drum sampler) Vanguard (lead synth) and TBL (303 clone) from ReFX Synth1 (nord lead clone) is free. Z3TA and Arksun Albino are good for general trance melodies. JunoX2 (ReFX) can make some odd noises ;-) Novation make the Bass Station and V-Station Vsts which I like, but seem to be fairly unpopular with psytrancers.

http://www.collective.co.uk/expertsleepers/multitap.html is a free multitap. If you want something a little more "bling" you could try specktal delay by Native Instruments - im sure theres a multitap delay hidden in that VST somewhere - if you have a few years spare to figure out the interface of course Also, you should register at KVR-VST, its a really good online guide to pretty much every VST instrument and effect, and has a search function. Its free to register... http://www.kvraudio.com PS My first post on this forum