acid being

This is a collaboration between Norweigan musicians Xerxes and Phoenix who is Marthe Borge-Lunde Pfirrmann, sister of Christer Borge-Lunde. She did some of the vocal work for RA. Some of Xerxes' earlier solo work is well worth a listen as well:

I'm just starting to learn about mastering and in the past it seemed just a little daunting, being so far outside anything I had experience of combined with all the talk of it being a field best left to highly skilled specialists with lots of experience. Since then I've read tutorials and have the basic ideas and techniques now. What surprised me is when I started to watch the spectrum plots of some of my favorite Goa tracks (some of RA's beautifully mastered sounds for example), they were pretty much just totally flat across the whole spectrum, at least at the important parts of peak activity in the tracks with the most instruments playing at once. Now, adjusting EQ to give a flat response for the key parts of a track seems really straightforward to me. There's so much talk about making sure the music sounds good across a range of different sound systems, but surely if the spectrum is flat, it's flat, and it leaves room for the listener to adjust the EQ to fit their listening environment. I guess if I were trying to master some rock music recorded live and needing to correct for anomalies in the recording environment, it could get more complicated. When 99% of the sounds are coming from software synths, surely you're most of the way there to begin with once you get the mix where you want it? I know about compression to increase loudness and I do use it on some of my sounds as well as filters to stop frequencies clashing but I do most of that as I go and not really as part of a separate mastering step. On some tracks I will look at just a little compression on the master channel to make them a bit louder. Is there more to mastering than I am seeing, or is it really this easy for Goa trance?

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It still manages to be groovier than anything I've come up with so far! I enjoyed the sounds around 5:30 on as well.

Nice work That sounds really close to the Sheyba lead - do you mind sharing what shape waveforms you used? It's a nice mystical feeling track.

Nice arrangement. I think you're some of the way there with the Sheybaish sound. It sounded a little sort of thinner but that's probably just my terrible laptop speakers - I need to repair my headphones! EDIT: My comment was about an earlier video you put up. If there were two, I only heard the first. What waveforms are you using for the lead is it a saw?

In my opinion, Artha already has that nicely covered. If someone had told me Influencing Dreams was the new Hallucinogen album, I'd have believed them! I hope Artha's still active though. It's been eight years since his last album. https://www.discogs.com/artist/342098-Artha I agree though, it would have been fascinating to see where Simon would have taken that sound next all those years ago. Still, he made that new track recently, so there's still time for more uptempo if he wants to.

Yeah it would definitely make my top 20 Goa trance tracks at the moment. Sheyba / Elysium have the best rhythms and I love the way it builds up. Thanks for the tips. I'll keep playing with plugins - you've given me some good ideas. I was some of the way there before but then I got diverted into making music. I wouldn't want an exact duplicate of the lead anyway, just to recapture some of that lovely warm, bright, squishiness. If I had to describe it, I would say it sounds like a thousand glowing chocolate oranges caught some rays of sunshine and partially melted, sent tumbling, rolling, curling up on themselves and gurgling into a puddle of pure bliss! Yes, it's a great lead!

I think it is in Ganesh as well but my main reference was Ancient Lands. It's the synth that first appears about 3:30 and is playing solo (well, almost) at 5:28: When I first started writing my earlier comment, I think I was looking at the waveform at a point where there were other sounds playing and getting confused.

I've always slightly preferred The Lone Deranger to Twisted though the albums are similar and it's hard to tell exactly why. I can't rule out if it's just the fact that I heard the Lone Deranger first. But I feel like Simon was already evolving as an artist in that second album. His sound in the Younger Brother albums has more of a Hallucinogen flavor than in Shpongle to me as well. Learning and evolving as an artist is a separate thing to choosing to explore a different style of music, although they are related.

I can see where you're coming from. Most of his other work has more depth to it. I enjoy it for what it is, though, as I say, I haven't listened to it very many times. I don't disagree with that assessment. Flux is not his strongest work. I will give Codex VI another listen as well. I was personally a bit underwhelmed by it because with every new album I'm always hoping for something more like Nothing Lasts or honestly even something closer to Hallucinogen but I'm starting to accept that Simon has moved on. I found some of the talky bits a bit distracting on Codex as well but I'll give it another go and I'm glad others are enjoying it. Hearing Klaus Schulze when very young must be one of the main things that set me on a path to loving Goa trance and psytrance. I've not heard much Brian Eno; could you recommend me an album to start with? The more electronic, the better.

Interesting how much opinions differ because I think I prefer it to most of the tracks on Codex VI (I saw your discogs review of that), with the possible exception of Empty Branes. Nothing Lasts is currently my favorite Shpongle album though and I haven't listened to Flux that many times. It's quite a departure from his other music. I see it as a bit of an experiment.

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/shpongle-simon-posford-20-questions-flux-contemplation-9414552/ Not sure how many of you already read this, but he says some interesting things. Probably the most unsettling bit for us is that he said his album Twisted now sounds "a bit irritating" to him! And Leftfield are great, but Underwold? I was starting to wonder if he was winding them up a bit. I mean, it's not the best interview question for a psytrance pioneer, is it? He also said he hadn't listened to much psytrance since the early 2000s. Most of the best stuff was before then so I think I get it. Worth a read anyway.

I love tracker tunes. You've got some good rhythm there.

Please keep it going. As we get older other things take up our time but sometimes we also end up with more time. I'd been reading the site occasionally for many years but only signed up two years ago and am visiting much more often now and writing posts. I much prefer old style forums and if you ended this site the members would disperse onto multiple sites making a small community even smaller. I also love the feeling of timelessness this site invokes. People happily continue discussions inside threads that had been dormant for many years. It's trippy. Your average web surfer would get confused by that! The threads remain timeless because the great music is timeless. Thanks for all your hard work keeping the site running.

This track's actually not bad psytrance. I wouldn't call it groundbreaking but it builds up nicely with some slightly spooky sounds. It sounds more coherent to me than a lot of the modern psy, there's variety to the percussion, quieter bits and little bits of melody. Love the artwork as well.

Yes I like this one even better than version 4. It definitely feels like it's got more sort of space and depth to it. The quality is really nice and everything sounds well defined.

Any good? I know the sound quality needs some work. It's really hard to get it to sound clean when I turn up the distortion.

No worries. I figured you knew some of it but decided to share the links as they help me. I use the list of chords to help write my arpeggios.

About the music theory, I've just been learning what I can as I go. I'm no expert, very far from it, but just following some tutorials to understand scales (and modes), the chords of your chosen scale, and importantly how different intervals between the notes sound, give you most of the tools you need to start writing melodies and harmonies. This https://feelyoursound.com/scale-chords/a-harmonic-minor/ lists all the chords in the A Harmonic Minor scale which is basically the same as E Phrygian Dominant (just with the notes in a different order), commonly used in Goa and psytrance. It's an easy scale to remember because it's all white notes apart from the G# and you can always transpose your music to other keys later. After the above topics, this https://music.tutsplus.com/the-contemporary-musicians-guide-to-counterpoint--audio-4630t is a good tutorial for learning counterpoint which is useful to keep in mind if you want layers of melodies. Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs with this, but it might be useful for others reading this as well.

There's a new version of the track now in the original post above. Yep I learned all about sidechain compression and I'm using it on the bass and tom toms now to slightly lower them when the kick plays. I've done the same thing to very slightly lower the lead synth when the flute is playing as well. There's a tiny bit of reverb now and loads of delay. Does the delay on the lead synth sound OK or is it overdone? I still can't get a true ping pong delay but it has different delays for left and right and I had to manually calculate the timing to match the bpm!

I use Ardour. The lead is an Alpha Juno emulator. You're right about the kick and bass not sounding very Goa yet. Those were just presets I found in the Xhip synthesizer plugin until I can replace them with something better. No I've not used sidechain compression before - I'll have a play with that. I've not done any mastering yet, only basic adjustments to the levels and stereo positions in the mixer. It's a topic I have a lot to learn about. At this stage I am a lot more focused on getting better at writing melodies and harmonies, and experimenting with synths and effects. There is delay on the lead synth at the moment but I definitely want to make the delay more noticeable as I think it will help a lot. You only really notice it when you stop the track playing at the moment, because there aren't very long gaps between the synth notes, so I think I need a stereo or ping pong delay. None of the delay plugins I have at the moment offer stereo but maybe I can route each stereo channel through a different delay plugin to do it, more stuff I need to learn. I played with reverb on another track but all the reverb plugins I had seemed to just make the sounds go kind of metallic and a bit messed up, so where I use it at the moment I would only put a tiny bit on, unless I'm after a very particular sound. I want things to sound like they are playing floating in outer space but I think better delay is the key to that. Anyway, I really appreciate the comments, thanks!

Yeah I'm not sure what you did but it already sounds a lot better, to me at least. The synth phrases stand out more and sound more interesting. I especially like the synth that goes into the breakdown from about 2:59 - it sounds a bit more melodic. I'm sure you already know by the later stages of the track it still sounds a bit repetitive, but that's easily solved as you develop it more. Good luck!

OK then.... Have a look here: https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/77953-slightly-tribal-goa-track/ I'll have a listen to your updated one tomorrow.

I've been learning to use my DAW. Here's my very incomplete early attempt at a Goa Trance track, aiming for a slightly tribal feel and lowish tempo (143 bpm at the moment). I'd love any comments and suggestions, even to tell me it's dreadful. The drums need some work I think. The ones at the start are supposed to be 808 style tom toms, but I think the kick maybe interferes with them a bit and they get sort of clicky so I may change them. I like my melody but I'm not totally sure if it matches up that well with the percussion and bass in terms of the timing. If I don't end up abandoning the whole thing I'll probably make some acid lines next and maybe another layer or two, pads and other samples.