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Modulation / keychange


SkeletonMan

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There's one thing on this album that doesn't appear enough: key changes.  Rotate To Vibrate has some GREAT ones towards its second half, and they really REALLY help to lift the relative "monotony" of the tracks.

 

More goa artists should use key changes!  Don't listen to people who claim that they are "cheesy" because that is just total and utter bullshit.  If goa trance, as a genre, wants to progress, then that sort of attitude is only going to hold it back.  <_<

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You want to debate taste :huh: mkay, I go first. I :angry::angry::angry: hate HATE HATE modulation.

 

Now you go ... :ph34r:

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Guest antic

:angry:  :angry:  :angry: hate HATE HATE modulation.

 

Skelly, do I have to remind you again about Cosmosis - Inner Space? ;)

 

If it's done professionally, it doesn't have to sound cheesy. In Filetria's case however, he's not reached the level yet - it came awful in Mind Expansion and good in Rotate To Vibrate, so it's 50/50.

 

Bottom line is - I wouldn't generalize about musical tips & tricks and categorise them as being psychedelic or cheesy. It all depends on the execution :)

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Skelly, do I have to remind you again about Cosmosis - Inner Space? ;)

 

If it's done professionally, it doesn't have to sound cheesy. In Filetria's case however, he's not reached the level yet - it came awful in Mind Expansion and good in Rotate To Vibrate, so it's 50/50.

 

Bottom line is - I wouldn't generalize about musical tips & tricks and categorise them as being psychedelic or cheesy. It all depends on the execution :)

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Haha, Hi Artur,

You know, I was just about to mention that example since off hand I can't remember another track where it's executed like that.

 

But yeah, I fully agree. I don't categorically hate modulation. I just wrote that to annoy whoever said people who don't like modulations are goofheads. Okay, I'm a goofhead then :D

 

My problem with modulation is, that when you actually notice it AS modulation, it's because it resembles the prototypical Eurovison Song Contest entry. Okay, everybody happy? Yeah?! Alright, we do the chorus once more, but one note higher!! How creative!! How innovative!

 

Modulation has the exact same problem in trance, in my view, when the modulation is noticeable like that. It can be executed nicely as you say. In the Cosmosis track the modulation doesn't stick out as modulation. It's just a nice keychange. The trick here is that the leading instruments (as far as I can tell) changes key in each direction (5:34), so I feel it's the mood of the track that changes. Not there entire arrangement. Also at 6:03 the lead changes key, but the bass stays in the same note. Awesome track Inner Space btw!! And the bass modulates at 6:32 but the rest stays in place. I don't know. It works for me here. It doesn't sound corny.

 

But off course, hey, modulating all instruments is done in Eurovision because it gives point. So naturally there's gonna be a couple of modulation followers within psy as well.

 

Just count Skelly out. :P

 

(not to say MODULATION IS bad taste, off course B) )

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And just for the record. The modulation in Rotate To Vibrate at 4:58 sounds so cheesy in my ears it's almost a joke. ALMOST. But it ruins the track for me since it both sounds horrible AND makes it impossible for me to enjoy the rest of the track as I constantly worry the next double cheese bacon sandwich with cheese topping will be forced down my throath.

 

... wait, that was the track you liked ...!!

 

okay, i'm hearing Mind Expansion now ...

 

No comment :ph34r:

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Guest antic

Good example of wonderfully executed key changes: UX - Ultimate Experience :)

 

Michael, we should cut those off-topic modulation discussions (it's our second time I guess), before DP or Moni kick us out of the forum :)

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can someone explain me what is modulation pls :)

 

mayb it is an other word here

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Modulation.

 

But yeah, let's not venture further offtopic... You guys are welcome to open a topic about modulation in the general section and I'll move those posts there.

 

/DP

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can someone explain me what is modulation pls :)

 

mayb it is an other word here

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SkeletonMan is meaning by modulation keychanges.. Like say for instance, the bass keynote is D. Then it changes to F .. That is modulation in his description. The correct term however is keychanges.

 

Modulation actually means when you tweak say: the cut-off and the resonance or make a Lfo-knob move, That is modulation :)

 

Thanx for comments. I enjoy reading them :)

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SkeletonMan is meaning by modulation keychanges.. Like say for instance, the bass keynote is D. Then it changes to F .. That is modulation in his description. The correct term however is keychanges.

 

Modulation actually means when you tweak say: the cut-off and the resonance or make a Lfo-knob move, That is modulation :)

 

Thanx for comments. I enjoy reading them :)

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I stand corrected :angry: Thanks Jannis!

 

Just for the full understanding of it, can you give me an example from your albums where you use modulation as opposed to keychange?

 

And yeah I can see this should be in a separate general topic. But let me just for the record here finish with - and I am in no way retracting what I've said earlier - that I enjoy both your albums! There's up and downs with respect to them meeting my taste, but you got a hell of a nice angle going. Hopefully your music and my taste will meet on day :) I still keep the faith & your next album will still be ordered no matter what :rolleyes:

 

Anyway, sorry, no more rambling about keychange and modulation here. I'll make a separate topic about keychange in the general section. And if the DP can move the superflous inputs here over there, I'd be real ... B) with it

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I stand corrected  :angry:  Thanks Jannis!

 

Just for the full understanding of it, can you give me an example from your albums where you use modulation as opposed to keychange?

 

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Actually, after reading some of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation_(music)

I got abit confused :blink: . In my psytrance and synth-world modulation was allways sound-manipulation in some form. For instance: the first track: unfiltred. If you take the sound that comes after 29 seconds and follow it for about 30 seconds (or even 10 seconds that is), you can notice it changes in frequency etc. The same goes for the first climax: The sound that comes 2.15-2.16 and gets FM-tweaked (the FM stands for frequency modulation actually :)). That is modulation (in my world atleast)..

 

Key changes: Like you said: Rotate to vibrate in the end. But even there, the sounds get modulated (tweaked) while there are keychanges going on..

 

So in conclusion: i am abit confused for the moment :D Still (for me anyway) modulation and keychanges are 2 separated things..

 

And yeah I can see this should be in a separate general topic. But let me just for the record here finish with - and I am in no way retracting what I've said earlier - that I enjoy both your albums! There's up and downs with respect to them meeting my taste, but you got a hell of a nice angle going. Hopefully your music and my taste will meet on day  :)  I still keep the faith & your next album will still be ordered no matter what :rolleyes:

 

Anyway, sorry, no more rambling about keychange and modulation here. I'll make a separate topic about keychange in the general section. And if the DP can move the superflous inputs here over there, I'd be real ...  B) with it

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Thanx for the kind words :)

However, i just wanna clarify that i didn't answer here to change anyones opinion :) Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I respect that. And i don't mind bad critic as long as it constructive and i can learn something by the rewiev :). I read loads of rewievs on sky input and saw some people complained about some stuff. I tried to change some of that in this album (for instance. better connection between the melodies, and better melodies in general).. But ofcourse you can't make everyone happy :D

 

EDIT: DP: time to move this :D

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So, under Filteria's Heliopolis the classic topic has been debated. Is use of modulation / keychange cheesy or is it?

 

I gotta say, Filteria's use of modulation on Heliopolis ruins a couple of the tracks for me. Others love them and want more. I've tried referring them to the Eurovision Song Contest. They've responded by calling me an ignorant goofhead, that holds the development of psytrance back.

 

Skelly can hardly do that by himself :unsure: but what's the general idea of modulation / keychange. Oh, let me say there's a little uncertainty whether modulation and keychange is the same. Wikipedia has something on it. Until corrected I believe it's the same.

 

Anyway, I'm sure this hasn't been debated a thousand times. So let's do it again B)

 

What do you think? Is modulation cheesy or is it ?

 

Btw, I believe the DP may copypaste some offtopic entries from Heliopolis here. Anyway, here's making way for them.

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I haven't picked up Filteria's new one yet, but I suspect you are talking about basically a sort of chord progression in trance tracks. In general most tracks stay on the same root from front to back, but you do get some that shift to other notes in a scale (actual "key changes" are much more unusual in trance).

 

Depending on how the chord change (in the case of psy, usually the change in the root of the bass note) I can see of something could be cheesy, but it could also be very cool. It depends more on the skill of the artist than anything else. In general though I am a fan of the idea of having the bass shift around and not always sit on the root note and very little else for a whole track, but again it depends on the track an what is needed... case by case.

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Yeah, I should have listed examples. Well, Oforias Deliveriuos is packed with modulation. First track maximiser at 4:11. Horrible. Or next track Cream 4:42. Pukeable!

 

On Filteria there's Mind Expansion at 7:08 and throughout. And other examples, I'm afraid.

 

That could be an idea. To list the most horrible example. Well, then I have to choose Oforia, Cream. How happy can you get, Ofer? B)

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Guest antic

Oh, the modulation topic again.

 

IMO, 'modulation' is a process of constant change of some attribute of the sound being played, like filter cut-off, resonance, reverb / phaser / distortion amount, panning etc. What Skelly calls 'modulation' is a 'key-change', which in it's simplies euro-trance form is a change of background music, while the main melody plays as it played before (e.g. the bass notes & chords change few notes up or down, and the main melody continues).

 

The bad example of this 'effect' used in trance are - as already mentioned - some Oforia / Tandu tracks and lot's of israeli full-on in general (can't name any atm, because I don't listen to it in general). This is a very easy way to put variation, euphoria & excitement into a track. Problem is, only few people know how to do this so it doesn't sound cheesy. Few examples off my head are Cosmosis ("Inner Space"), Rinkadink ("Cabbage De La Tetradink") or UX (whole "Ultimate Experience" album). The key to the success is a musical education - they just know what scales / chords work best together and how they sound in context of psytrance - what is good for euro-trance might not be acceptable in psytrance, and vice-versa...

 

I'll repeat myself again - if it's done skilfully the 'key-changes' is a great composition tool as no tool in general is good or bad. The same is with so-called "full-on bassline" :)

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Oh, the modulation topic again.

 

IMO, 'modulation' is a process of constant change of some attribute of the sound being played, like filter cut-off, resonance, reverb / phaser / distortion amount, panning etc. What Skelly calls 'modulation' is a 'key-change', which in it's simplies euro-trance form is a change of background music, while the main melody plays as it played before (e.g. the bass notes & chords change few notes up or down, and the main melody continues).

 

The bad example of this 'effect' used in trance are - as already mentioned - some Oforia / Tandu tracks and lot's of israeli full-on in general (can't name any atm, because I don't listen to it in general). This is a very easy way to put variation, euphoria & excitement into a track. Problem is, only few people know how to do this so it doesn't sound cheesy. Few examples off my head are Cosmosis ("Inner Space"), Rinkadink ("Cabbage De La Tetradink") or UX (whole "Ultimate Experience" album). The key to the success is a musical education - they just know what scales / chords work best together and how they sound in context of psytrance - what is good for euro-trance might not be acceptable in psytrance, and vice-versa...

 

I'll repeat myself again - if it's done skilfully the 'key-changes' is a great composition tool as no tool in general is good or bad. The same is with so-called "full-on bassline" :)

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How could I forget Rinkadink :huh: Beatiful track and couldn't agree with you more. It's done to perfection there. But then, Rinkadink's Rabbit side probably is the one record I listen to the mosten times these days. I love it. Gotta get hold of his last soon. Anyway, yep, he's too talented to fuck modulation up.
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Guest antic

How could I forget Rinkadink :huh:  Beatiful track and couldn't agree with you more. It's done to perfection there. But then, Rinkadink's Rabbit side probably is the one record I listen to the mosten times these days. I love it. Gotta get hold of his last soon. Anyway, yep, he's too talented to fuck modulation up.

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Skelly, check the 'samples' ;):ph34r: first - it's not nearly as good as Rabbit IMO :)

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Skelly, check the 'samples' ;):ph34r: first - it's not nearly as good as Rabbit IMO :)

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Yeah, I feared that. Reviews haven't been too good. Well, I'll remember to check. But you know how it is. When the first album is this good, you really wanna give the next a shot. But I'll try to stay critical when listening to the samples.

 

Saw you were outbid on the TIP :( Too bad. But yeah, I think you got out about the right time. It'll go for less than 30 usd at some point. Patience is the keyword. But off course then we may clash again ... :o

 

I got the Cosmology. That is, a friend of mine bid for me (long story). Getting it for some 18 usd + freight. That's nice. The last Cosmosis I needed. Now I'm selling Trancendance. Can't stand it.

 

Uh oh ... off topic B)

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Guest antic

Yeah, I feared that. Reviews haven't been too good. Well, I'll remember to check. But you know how it is. When the first album is this good, you really wanna give the next a shot. But I'll try to stay critical when listening to the samples.

 

Saw you were outbid on the TIP  :(  Too bad. But yeah, I think you got out about the right time. It'll go for less than 30 usd at some point. Patience is the keyword. But off course then we may clash again ... :o

 

I got the Cosmology. That is, a friend of mine bid for me (long story). Getting it for some 18 usd + freight. That's nice. The last Cosmosis I needed. Now I'm selling Trancendance. Can't stand it.

 

Uh oh ... off topic  B)

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Don't sell Trancendance - it's wonderful! It's worth to keep it just for the "Stormy Monday", but other tracks like "Inside Yourself", "One Blinding Illumination" & "Dead or Alive" are killarghh too! I tell you - you're gonna regret it! ;):)

 

And talking about patience & luck - check this one: 4881061946 :):D

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Don't sell Trancendance - it's wonderful! It's worth to keep it just for the "Stormy Monday", but other tracks like "Inside Yourself", "One Blinding Illumination" & "Dead or Alive" are killarghh too! I tell you - you're gonna regret it! ;):)

 

And talking about patience & luck - check this one: 4881061946 :)  :D

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Congrats! I'm not really fond of that koxbox myself. Far far from their earlier releases. I see it from time to time in 2nd hand bins in Copenhagen, but've never bothered purchasing it. Off course I ought to for trading purposes, but you know ...

 

Anyway, our styles differ here & there, Artur. I can't stand Stormy Monday. Actually just put in my review of the album on discogs. Don't know if it's been approved yet, but you can see it still if you want with the link at the bottom. Nope, that cd is a no no for me. Hate the sample in Stormy Monday. And other people like the track because of the sample. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

 

You should put in your comment on it in discogs!!

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I think one reason for the confusion in terms here is that "modulation" in synthesis is different from "modulation" in music ala the link Death Posture gave us. The second modulation (ala the link) is correct, but not a term that is used so much really. Most musicians, music publications, etc will more commonly refer to what you are discussing in trance as something like "chord changes" or "changing the root (note)", with the root being the tonal center of that passage (almost always the note the bass is playing at that time).

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Guest antic

IS it swiss ?

 

the most economical drug? or the genre you listen to?

i just don't get your question!

EDIT:

do you know licenses of alexander shulgin His Webpage :):o

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I don't understand, what it has to do with anything? :unsure::)

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I don't understand, what it has to do with anything? :unsure:  :)

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The answer will be easy said Albert Einstein.

 

btw do you know the album title "Everything_is_connected_to_nothing_but_itself" B)

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