acid being

I'm pleased you're still making music. I saw your web page was down. I think this is a bit better than your earlier stuff so keep at it. The bass and overall sort of rhythm to the track sound good to me. I like the bleepy sounds near the beginning but to my ears they repeat later in the track too often without changing, and as you say the whole thing is very repetitive at the moment. The synth does sound good for psytrance but listening to the whole track I get a feel that most of the sounds are quite low down plus the occasional high pitched sort of whilstley synth sounds and my ears are left wanting something more melodic in between in the sort of middle octaves. But then I don't listen to much progressive psytrance so maybe that's my love of goa talking. The drum patterns sound OK. It could be my terrible messed up headphones, but the drum sounds themselves sound sort of muffled to me. Not sure if anyone else is hearing that? I don't know if that is the quality of the drum synth like you said or a filter you've got on it. Where I'm also learning to make this kind of music, I find it's a constant struggle not to make something that sounds too generic or formulaic, to keep my creativity and originality but still make something that will be recognizable to fans of the genre. Do you find that too?

I would like to figure out how Sheyba did their leads. I saw someone said they used an Alpha Juno 1. But the waveforms of the lead in Ancient Lands look like they're based on triangle waves to me, and I thought the Juno 1 could only do combinations of sawtooth and square waves. The big triangular waves could be the LFO - I'd have to check the frequencies to know. But the smaller, higher frequency waves look kind of symmetrical to me too like little triangles. Is it a different synth? Update: I've more or less figured it out. On the Juno 1 some of the sawtooth waveforms have lots of little peaks. They're not really triangular, more sinusoidal, especially at lower VCF Cutoffs. With the VCF Resonance turned up high, I'm starting to get something sounding a bit like their leads.

This is the darkest electronic track I've heard. Nice dark space ambient from Enigma. The album is A Posteriori. I think that would go great in a sort of doom psy mix with Psychaos - Chaos to Order, Orbital - Dwr Budr, and a bit of drum and bass:

This probably deserves an entry in the review section but I'm in love with this album. It's my favorite of his so far. I don't mind if some of the sounds are recycled - to me it all sounds fresh. The acid lines are perfect. It's dark and full of energy without getting monotonous or colorless like some dark Goa seems to. This is probably because it's constantly changing and bringing in different interesting sounds and rhythms. The vocal samples are spot on and I love the track reminscent of the Lone Deranger. We're so lucky to have this music.

I don't agree because goa / psytrance is a musical niche and there are some very talented and knowledgeable people on this site that understand it. Sending to a friend that only likes rock and pop isn't going to help anyone learn (That's why I put my very early stuff on here as well). Many of them wouldn't even like Dimension 5 or Posford's stuff! For what it's worth, I don't think the track sounds horrible at all. It just sounds unfinished.

I can't offer technical tips because you're beyond my level, so only opinions based on my weird tastes. I like the lively dancing synth patterns you've got and they all fit well together. The basic track structure seems good to me too with elements dropping in and out at various points. For me I think your alien noise at the start loops maybe one or two too many times on its own before the other elements start to come in, unless you're going to add another sample or do something else with it but that's a minor point. In my opinion you need to decide what flavor you want to add as you develop the track as it could go in a number of different directions. You could add variety by writing a couple of other synth patterns. Or keep the same ones and add more effects and vary the settings a lot more. I like the sort of frequency filter effect at 3:47. The mood or theme of the track could change a lot depending on any other samples and instruments you want to add. You could go spacey, tribal, or harder, though the light synths give me a somewhat light, spacey feel at the moment. Personally, I'm a sucker for 303ish acid sounds as you might guess from my username! Oh, I personally prefer a slightly more complex bassline as well but you don't always get that in this genre and it makes it harder to fit the other elements around it. Anyway it's great you're still making music. I enjoyed the track you shared on here previously as well. Keep at it.

I forgot all about that EP, thanks! I still have the CD somewhere, if it hasn't fallen to bits.

I like it and I think it's awesome Simon's proving us wrong by making new Hallucinogen material. It's not perfect but I like it better than about 60% of Shpongle's catalog. I'll keep watching this space.

Thanks, I really appreciate you taking the time to listen. I'll probably set up a youtube account for the next time. I think part of the reason things are sounding out of tune is the same reason the piano sounds bad. There's no multisampling on these tracker tunes. It's just one sample being slowed down or sped up to alter the pitch. I've borrowed most of these sounds from old tracker tunes so I can't guarantee they were even in tune with one another to begin with. When I move onto a DAW I'll check the samples carefully before I start and where possible record or synthesize my own. What about the third track. Do the ideas have any potential or is it too chaotic?

Well I guess when it comes to my beginner's attempts at composition it's a case of "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I get the message. I'll go back to school, metaphorically, and up my game next time.

I have always loved Ra'anan's music and I wish he made more and gained wider recognition for his frankly incredible talent. I've listened to his Mantis tunes countless times over the years. There's very little out there in a similar style to this. It's very dark but full of melodies and unique and weird sounds and ideas. On the offchance that someone else comes looking for this, I found an archive link to Resonance on trance.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20010827154453/http://www.trance.org/dissonance/resonance.htm There were a few tracks under the name Paradigm Shift. Around the same time there was a project called Principia Imagika which I seem to remember was also him. They made a track called Hosanna. It comes up in searches online but I won't post links here as he may not want the tracks appearing on unauthorized sites.

Very nice. Give me 15 years and hopefully I'll be churning out sounds like that too! I like Casper as well. It's tricky working out what exactly makes that spooky feel. Well, if you insist! Please bear in mind the following were just learning exercises - in fact my very first goes at trying to write layered harmonies. They're actually made in Milkytracker using 8-bit samples from the late 90s. Once I'm comfortable writing the layers I'll move onto a DAW. This is the arrangement I was originally talking about: https://mega.nz/file/JWMCELpL#D8BqIcbF6woCBahO1LIzc5MuyOHoAvf398LwkZjzXMk It's theoretically dissonant when the synth rises in pitch from about 00:25 because it gets within a semitone of the croaky acid line but as I said it doesn't really sound noticeable. When you replace all the instruments with a piano sample, you can hear it clearly though (at the same time sounding like an almost totally different piece of music - I wasn't trying to write neo-classical! ): https://mega.nz/file/sOU20CrB#Cwe9hwUsHsIWUtNk9L9CCje2-jdw97B6Pz7FbD9UE4s You can hear the dissonance clearly at about 00:35 and 00:43. Finally, for a bit of fun, below is my very first attempt at writing layers and I developed it quite a bit further, though the percussion is unfinished, it needs reverb, more effects, more everything...: acid being - Phrygian Beginnings I'd really appreciate any feedback, good or bad, on this early concept. I'd be interested if anyone likes how those layers fit together or if I should try something different next time. The 8-bit instrument samples were borrowed from tracker files which were by Matrix Cubed (Mantis) Copyright Ra'anan de Jong 1997 and Symbiote - Phantasmagoria Copyright Samuel Cote 1997. I intend to replace these with my own sounds if I develop my ideas into tracks. The 16-bit piano sample is by Berklee recorded for Richard Boulanger for use in the One Laptop per Child music library. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sound_samples for details. It's released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Just listened to Darshan - Awakening and on the second track, Sun Probe, from about 4:40 it really sounds to me like there's a bassline shifting pitch to follow the acid lead, though it all blends together so well it's hard to be 100% sure. Either way, it's a way to add a bit of interest to a track and surprises are good to have in this kind of music.

I raised them by less than an octave, adjusting to keep them in the scale. I guess I can just adjust a couple of notes a bit more to fit the other parts that are playing. I'm more confident about it now, so thanks for your help. In all honesty the clashing notes only play for a fraction of a second and I can't really hear any dischord. I think it helps that the acid lines aren't "pure" tones. I'm just a perfectionist!

Thanks. All the notes are in the right key. It's just at this point in the track I'm playing a fixed bassline / acid lines and then playing two different versions of a synth arpeggio I wrote over the top. The second version of the arpeggio is supposed to be the same pattern but higher pitched. At the higher pitch I then end up with an E and F playing at the same time a few times (and in the same octave) because it's clashing with the fixed acid lines and bassline. Maybe I'm overthinking it but this is one of my first few goes at a layered harmony so I want to get the basics right.

In my teens I tried to make sort of techno tracks but they were incredibly primitive because I didn't understand music theory. I've just started to have another go at making music, aiming for something that is at least loosely overlapping the goa trance or psytrance genres. I doubt it will ever sound professional but it's for fun. I'm using the Phrygian Dominant scale. For a few parts of the tracks I'm using chord progressions (Strictly speaking they're arpeggios with a second note played alongside). Anyway on the track I'm currently working on I made an extra pattern with all the chords shifted up around 4 semitones (Altering a couple of the chords to keep them in Phrygian Dominant). I've got some acid lines playing at the same time as this and now on the new pattern a few notes of the arpeggios are only 1 semitone away from the notes in the acid lines, so it's dissonant. I can think of three different ways of dealing with this dissonance: 1. Leave it there. I'm not very comfortable with this because it will just sound like I've made a mistake. 2. Shift the arpeggios around or change the chords to match the acid lines. 3. Shift the pitch of the acid lines up at that point in the track, or otherwise change them so they stay in harmony with the new chords. I've read some people saying that normally at least the bassline stays rooted in a Goa trance track and other people saying a lot of tracks don't even use chord progressions at all, but I still want to use them. Basically my question is what's the norm in Goa trance, 1, 2 or 3? (I get that I have the creative freedom to try any of them to just see what sounds best, but on the other hand I don't have the best musical ear and I just want to get an idea for how this is commonly dealt with in the genre.)

https://beatspace-suntrip.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-a-forgotten-memory Just listened to this album again but for the first time with good headphones, eyes closed and not too much background noise around ...and h-o-oly crap this is good! The effects they use on some of those sounds and melodies, it's sometimes like the musical elements are being painted onto little 3D objects which are then floating around in space - and I say this stone cold sober (well, maybe a bit tired and semi-fasting)! I totally missed how great this is before when I hadn't listened to it properly. Another thing I've noticed with different albums within the psy genres is how dramatically your mood and the setting can alter your appreciation of it. There have been some albums I just haven't "got" for years and then I listen to them again in a different context and suddenly love them. I was in a dark mood this evening and this hit the spot. It's awesome.

I like it, very high quality, but they've made so much music it will take some time to find the bits I like best. Alone was a good track. I couldn't find a whole album with female vocals. OK some of his stuff sounds excellent. I was loving Echoes of the Thalassic Deep. More space ambient than metal. I enjoyed listening to it. They're talented but to me it sounds more folky (don't know if that's the right word) than the stuff I would normally like. I like it OK as chillout background music (though doesn't have the gloomy atmosphere I had in mind). It reminds me a bit of Avrigus. Blutengel - The Princess, yeah I like this. I'll definitely check out more of their stuff (not really explored synth-pop stuff very much before). Ladytron, too poppy for me I think. Night Club are pretty cool as well, thanks for the suggestion. Closterkeller is awesome metal! She's got a great voice. Will definitely be listening to more of that. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

Sorry guys I've been really busy! Yes, I agree she sounds surprisingly similar to Aleah, and she has a lovely voice. OK, none of these sound like Aleah, but I did some searches for doom metal with female vocals and these are the ones that stood out: Avrigus - The Secret Kingdom: Sort of ambient / electronic doom metal. I liked it although it sounds a bit like video game music at times. Her vocals are more sort of choral / classical. It has a medieval feel. Promethean Misery: Worth a listen though it didn't appeal to me as much. Quite heavy on the piano from what I can remember. Avatarium - The Girl With The Raven Mask: Not normally my type of thing but I found it strangely catchy. The music and her style of singing (Nothing like Aleah!) has a sort of 70s psychedelic rock flavor.

It's kind of scary just how good these bots are getting.

It's awesome to find someone to talk to about this, thanks man. I've been looking too but it's harder for me because I only really like the more ambient kinds of metal and it's a genre I've hardly bothered to explore at all (Anette Olzon is the only suggestion I found so far but I haven't had time to listen to any of her stuff at all yet). No idea if you'll feel the same or if anyone else here agrees, but my other favorite female vocalist is Toni Halliday. I don't know if it counts as metal really, but check out the album: Curve - Gift. Her vocals on Hung Up are amazing. It sounds dark and really trippy. It sounds like layers of 303s, but it could be some really ingenious guitar effects. The track has a lot in common with Leftfield - Original which she also sang beautifully on. The only other music I've found so far with similar feelings to the above gets classed as trip hop. A couple of tracks on Crustation - Bloom aren't too bad. Definitely let me know if you find anything yourself though.

Good advice. At the same time we have to understand that we're (pretty much) all part of the system that's messing up the world. We can try and do what little we can to reduce our own impact. But feeling bad about it all is pointless when it's not motivating us to do better. Thanks for the extra recommendations.

Small world! I'd been meaning to write a post here in memory of Aleah "Jewel" Stanbridge so I really loved to find out that some other psy fans were equally enchanted by her beautiful vocals and also discovered, and enjoyed, Hour of the Nightingale. It doesn't surprise me that the album appeals to other fans of psytrance. It's incredible and really gets under my skin, which is all the more impressive given I don't generally count myself as a rock fan. Especially the title track which I never want to end. I absolutely adore Aleah's mystical vocals on Binah - Crescent Suns as well, one of the very best vocalists in all of psy.

Hey hope I'm not too late to join in this discussion. I can only contribute to the "echo chamber bullsh*t" (or I hope it's more of a deep connection between like-minded souls. Or is that like-souled minds? ) by saying I've also been feeling anxiety, stress and a bit of gloom over the past year - I mean, have you seen the state of the world lately? Those things do tend to make me post less on forums and then when I do post people rarely find the motivation to have much of a discussion with me anymore. Probably for the same kind of reasons. It's OK though, I won't give up posting or reading the forums. I've been meaning to start a thread here discussing underrated Goa for a few months. I'll try and make the effort to write it soon. In terms of the music I had a great year (a great 2 or 3 years in fact) but it's not mainly been from discovering newly released music so much as catching up and filling in the gaps on many years of amazing Goa trance that I totally missed out on the first time around (due to limited funds and limited knowledge of what was out there). Delights like RA (Man, I'm longing for another album), Elysium and MFG. As for new music Ott - Heads is one of the only new albums I can immediately think of that I heard last year. It was OK, good music, but I prefer the style of his earlier stuff. The year before, Artifact303 - From The Stars was good but I found the previous album had more memorable samples and melodies in it that it could use more of next time. I'd need to give both those albums more listens to really make up my mind though. Thanks for all your other suggestions of new music (+1 million for Indoor - wow!). I've got a lot to catch up on again, and that's great!

I agree that project is gone for good, which is a pity for us. I wonder if it's partly that moniker scaring off potential listeners, hence making up the name Shpongle and the puns in the track titles. The casual observer may not associate Shpongle with psychedelia. Mixing in other musical styles meant they could sell to fans of other genres like ambient and world music. It makes sense from a commercial perspective even if it's a bit disappointing to us old time goa fans. It's interesting that years ago when the Twisted Music website had a forum, someone created a poll asking who wanted a new Hallucinogen album after apparently saying to Simon there was demand for it and he would find 1000 people interested. He wrote that Simon agreed he'd do it if the poll got 1000 votes. It got to just over 400. Eventually the forum was taken off the website and I don't really blame Simon for that because there weren't many people on there, mostly old timers I think, and some of them were really being too critical of his new work which isn't great when he needs to promote it. Here it is, it was in 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20120402144231/http://www.twistedmusic.com/forums/viewthread/4082/ I notice now on the Twisted website they've even removed the Hallucinogen bio and pasted the Shpongle one over it. At one point I seem to remember Simon posting that he didn't really get time to do solo work as he was enjoying working with Raja Ram. However during the pandemic lockdown he recorded Flux and Contemplation which gives a taste of what his current solo work sounds like. He used his own name rather than Hallucinogen but it hardly matters. As I said, I like it.