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What do you miss in music/goa/psy-trance?


Mentaloscope

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Hey guys,

 

it interests me, what are things you would love to hear in psytrance-songs?

I hear alot of talking about what you don't like, e.g. triples, chant-drops, useless breaks with uninspiring vocals, etc.

But are there some things of which you always thought "why doesn't anyone use this in this genre (anymore).

 

For me it's temposhifts, I'm sure the producers strayed away from it, because it's hard to imply in the middle of a liveset, where the dancefloor is all hyped up and enjoying themselves, just to find themselves in the middle of a 140-63-bpm tempodrop for no apparent reason. But you can do quite nice stuff with that. Some darkpsy artists use that, but mostly just in the beginning of their livesets, to build a weird vibe all around.

 

 

Let me know!

 

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I miss having more breakbeat moments, similar to a tempo shift I suppose. There is an alright amount of broken beat sections in tracks but they are still rare and short enough that I get excited everytime, it doesn't seem to be anyone's thing, just something that happens sometimes.

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I think those darker psy artists are doing a real great job pushing the limits of music forward!

 

Alot of the prog style psy is just running in circles of the same squelches, the same basslines and the same FX

 

Also I'd love to see Cpt. Hook/Loud -esque trance, but in a darker and twisted way.

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7 hours ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

There are too many tracks that sound like a Salad out of 20 different synths and effects pounded by an annoying Rubber bass. I cant hear that "simple one line Bass" anymore.

Makes me aggressive....like everithing else too.

Peace.

I wonder if you can post 2-3 examples of these rubber bass tracks ? Cause perhaps it is the same you mean that I think of :)

As for the topic question, I do not miss anything much to be honest, it seems much is explored already. And I do not like eg. vox and guitar in psy anyway. But more psy mixed with ebm is what I could like I guess, using darker style of vox then would perhaps even work
But for "newer" Psy refer to my thread "..curious....after 2010..." for what I miss a bit...these days

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i miss the cosmic sci-fi atmosphere that was prevalent in early 00s psy.

previously we were missing melodies, newschool goa gave us more melodies than we bargained for. then when progressive took over the dancefloor we were missing proper stompers at parties; with modern fullon/uk-psy we've now got that covered too. early progressive was more atmospheric, but with futureprog it too wants to be banging instead (and fails miserably at that), so we're really missing that aspect of psy now. with forest being popular instead of regular darkpsy/pysycore it trys to fill that gap a bit. still with the mossy/haunting atmosphere of forest together with its often disjointed, weird sounds, it's no real replacement here.

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Raw experimental sounds. Everything sounds so overproduced & plastic/fake now. Even the rare tech trance tracks sounds really digital & not analogue at all. 
 

to be honest I don't even see why producers bother using great analogue gear when they process it with so many plugins it sounds just like soft-synth.

if you're using analogue gear keep it sounding like the original instrument ffs.

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8 hours ago, Bartzabel said:

to be honest I don't even see why producers bother using great analogue gear when they process it with so many plugins it sounds just like soft-synth.

Modern software synths do quite good job at emulating analogue gear. It's just the modern mixing style, everything is very precisely equed and sounds very clean. It's not a bad thing per se, unless overdone.

 

I miss tracks like these  

Not sure I can put into words what is that "something" these tracks have, the melody, the atmosphere, the musical progression... It seems that most modern producers proceed from pure sound-design, they make all kinds of weird noises then try to organize them into tracks. The older tracks were made the other way round, the musical idea first, then  sound-design and production were used to express this idea.

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54 minutes ago, recursion loop said:

Modern software synths do quite good job at emulating analogue gear. It's just the modern mixing style, everything is very precisely equed and sounds very clean. It's not a bad thing per se, unless overdone.

 

I miss tracks like these  

Not sure I can put into words what is that "something" these tracks have, the melody, the atmosphere, the musical progression... It seems that most modern producers proceed from pure sound-design, they make all kinds of weird noises then try to organize them into tracks. The older tracks were made the other way round, the musical idea first, then  sound-design and production were used to express this idea.

Everybody has different tastE but as I own a good amount of analogue Eurorack & other analogue gear I am yet to find any software that emulates it well. 
 

And I'm not being a negative Nancy, I find for certain styles I only use software as it suits... definitely for modern psy & trance in general.

My analogue collection I mostly use for techno, drum & bass and ambient. 
 

it's funny that my nephews in theirs 20's think analogue gear sounds terrible compared to software. 

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2 hours ago, Bartzabel said:

Everybody has different tastE but as I own a good amount of analogue Eurorack & other analogue gear I am yet to find any software that emulates it well. 

You apparently have much more experience with actual analog than me. I have only one analog synth, an "affordable" VCO mono. But I have various circuit modelled software stuff, like Reaktor Blocks, Monark, U-He synths, I actually think in a real mix they may be made almost indistinguishable from analog, as has been proven by numerous comparions. The workflow may radically differ but teh sound i there or almost there I think.

What we could have more are the emulations of late 90's/early 00's VAs and wavertable synths like Virus, Nordlead, Waldorf and Novation synths. When Virus and Nordlead dominated the psytrance production it did sound different. I have a Virus myself and no software sounds exactly like it, there are quite nice softies inspired by it, like Viper, Spire, Dune3 and others but they don't quite nail its character (too clean/perfect sounding, less aliasing, more accurate filters - technically better but the imperfections of the early digital tech did have some charm).

 

This is a track which I think had been made with extensive use of Virus TI (I guess so because of the sound, the time when it was made and that the artist does have a Virus afaik). There is certain depth and character in the synth sounds I don't quite hear in modern releases.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

i dont understand the confused smiley on my post. WHY?

Perhaps cause you missed my question above - you posted " annoying Rubber bass. I cant hear that "simple one line Bass" anymore."
I asked for examples what you mean and to find out if more people could mean the same including myself...;)

And yes, Sandman made some cool stuff, 3 - 4 of his tracks are among my fave psy/goa tracks (but this list is quite long and not easy to define)

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18 hours ago, Bartzabel said:

Raw experimental sounds. Everything sounds so overproduced & plastic/fake now. Even the rare tech trance tracks sounds really digital & not analogue at all. to be honest I don't even see why producers bother using great analogue gear when they process it with so many plugins it sounds just like soft-synth. If you're using analogue gear keep it sounding like the original instrument ffs.

Haha, interesting....BUT what is even more funny imho is when the producers using these hightech plugins synths are now asking how to get "oldschool" and "dirty" or "tape" or "analogue" sound (back). I find that funny because "back in the days" musicians were struggling to get the best sound. And now this not perfect or even noisy sound is "en vogue" again: And the plugin market is flooded with "analogue" emulations. But why pay much for these? I mean one can easily get some old analogue mixer 2nd hand for cheap and run everything through it incl. the added noise. And use cheapest cables and connectors. Or even record on actuall fuckin tape like int he 70ties LOL

Which reminds me of Burzum, the guy from it asked specially for the cheapest microphone in the studio and used the worst amp he could find to record his early "blackmetal" stuff. And guess what it sounds pretty terrible...but it is apparently "KVLT" even if also the songwriting is no the best LOL The repetitions/loopings in his "metal" remind me of techno...

I still have such an old small mixer (quite unknown firm, named Prosonic and it was on the cheaper side) and recently re-listened some old recording (from 2003/04 or so), damn some it has some lowfi noise floor. Mixed together in a track it does not get noticed much especially when some of it was in the "industrial" genre anyway where more or less noise is wanted. But listening to the isolated track I was quite astonished by the bad quality and that I actually used it for a song "back in the days" But no one complained in the genre about it, so...

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4 hours ago, Bartzabel said:

it's funny that my nephews in theirs 20's think analogue gear sounds terrible compared to software. 

Well it is a difference if we talk about recording gear or instruments ? Remember almost ALL vst synths are just analogue or DX7/FM etc. replicated. Possibly there are some out there which do this quite good. It is more a feeling,mood and user interface thing that hardware synths still do better than VSTs. Playing real keys and twisting real knobs has more "feeling" to it, especially if we talk about synths with MANY knobs like JP,Nord,Virus. I don´t know newer instruments at all, my "newest one" must be from 2005/06 (both for software and hardware).  And btw. the Synth1 freeware vst was said to be a good "copy" of the Nord - I could compare and do think for "free" it is good, but never reaches a real Nordlead (2 in my case). Question is does the average listener care, I mean not experts like in this thread or those that make music themselves who might pick up the differences. Sorry for the long texts LOL

Edit, Example: When I re-started and re-learn to make music 3 months ago I basically have only the old stuff and use only software for now. Eg. I have the Albino2 and this one has MANY presets many knobs and options etc. and I guess I found it quite good - however now I realize, it is often quite "thin" and the filters are not really that good. For basses however eg. the ES2 from Logic is more than good enough imo (when one learns how to eq/mix the bass which is more important). Here a link to Albino2 (German):

https://www.amazona.de/test-linplug-albino-2/

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20 minutes ago, Multi-Media said:

I don´t know newer instruments at all, my "newest one" must be from 2005/06

 

20 minutes ago, Multi-Media said:

Remember almost ALL vst synths are just analogue or DX7/FM etc. replicated

Software has moved on quite a bit since then. Synths like Serum, Massive X or Harmor aren't based on any hardware and can do things no hardware can. Also the quality of analogue emulations has progressed a lot, just compare Pro-53 with U-He Repro or Arturia Minimoog with Monark. 

 

The tangible approach of hardware is another story. I can get lost for hours tweaking knobs on my analog synth. Very little of it gets recorded or makes it into actual tracks tho.

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@recursion loop

Sure it moved a LOT since 2006 and I also listened to many YT vids or demos from newer software incl. the U-he etc stuff  - heard not much that I REALLY would need or pay much for it (also it would not run on my old music pc anyway lol and I have now sadly lower income). 

A bit OT:
I am in a "recording" forum also - and members would post their tracks and I understand most of them have many of these new tools/synths etc. The electronic stuff over there that many post sounds kind of "meh" to me. For what do they have all this stuff when it more often than not translates to cool tracks. Ok, my 2-3 main electronic genres are not en vogue there anyway. I heard perhaps 1 - 2 tracks in the psy direction there, and not a single(true) EBM/Indus one. This may be the reason I judge the tracks "low" because I have no connection to the genre (?). But honestly why can they not build better and huge sounds with these newer synths etc. Same for much new psytrance.. guess I could do simmilar stuff with my 2000-2005ish cheaper and old gear - now talking about sounddesign more than mixing at which these guys are better... I could do more with the CS2x I believe alone, but I have no time/patience at the moment to set up my 2 HW synths and the old mixer.

I found one forum member who makes kind of dark techno, from which I liked a few tracks. He also has already 3 albums or so and is on a big Spotify playlist. He has a PHAT Virus "TI" (?) - however his leads go on my nerves a bit, they are overly distored and sound a bit "clipped" why "destroy" the Virus sound, probably in darktechno it must be so LOL. However there are 2-3 tracks over there in the hiphop and "early rap" category which sound better to me than the "hiphop" which is huge on YT or the German charts (rubbish). Also the metal guys there have some cool stuff. OT off :)

Found some old recordings (single tracks from songs I started but never ended) which are named with CS2x and Reaktor (I had some kind of free Reaktor version) and this sounds quite good really...will try to re-use these or complete the songs and post them also here in the promo forum - when I got the time and learned better mixing etc.

 

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5 hours ago, Psychedelic Superbeast said:

are here talented human beings?

please someone should do 130bpm goa with dark ambiente soundscape and dark metallic agressive synths. not the synthetic plastic sound but more the neurofunk/techstep tone?

i will buy and honor it.

Pretty sure many here are talented... :)
But guess most make music firstly for themselves... in my case anyways, I do not like much newer "darkpsy" and also got bored of oldschool true goa (please do not hate on me for this), for some reason "progressive" stuff aged better for me (eg. Vibrasphere, Atmos etc.) probably because I did not like it first and listened more only later when it grew on me. I listened oldschool goa too much it seems (similar to certain metal classix, like Master Of Puppets or even , gosh, Reign In Blood). I do not mean eg. X-Dream, Hallucinogen, some MFG, Dark Soho or Blue Planet - this I still like very much for example - it "aged" better for some reason. Coming back to Goa in 2-3 months and see if it grows on me again...
I try to make music in a cosmos "from (oldschool)Techno, (Psy)trance, Darkelectro, Industrial to Ambient.." Well not so much Ambient anymore, I have relentless "beats" now mostly, just cause I am also bored of pure Ambient stuff. For listening in the background to relax yeahh ok. Btw. if you can make the day 48 hours it would help for sure :)

I like that you want to buy and support good music.

Edit, a track I do not get tired of is for example Mahadeva (remember first listen and when the bassline kicks in, so cool)

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Are you originally from Russia ? As I said if the day has 48 hours I can listen to all your uploads.

And btw. only Immortal is Immortal:

71YuLpXN1SL.jpg


Just now, someone on YT who made a comment of "weird dark electronic music" liked my uploads, guess a good description.,..

 

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Ooops has the Immortal pic scared the posters or was I too much "rumbling" LOL

Well someone said he misses "Raw experimental sounds. " ..here is such a piece (not good mixed or really mastered, means "raw")

I found this site "bandlab" which is to bring musicians together so they can work/remix tracks each other but I use it for now to store some older and "unreleased" stuff.
https://www.bandlab.com/band/band7263596317214513/shades-64820bff-811e135f

And here a minute snippet from one of the tracks I am working on... this went to a quite interesting sound I think, but I do not really know in what genre it would be or compare to which known band(s). Perhaps someone can help (you can also send me a pm) ? Thank you!;) (guess that is the problem with "own" style)
https://www.bandlab.com/band/band7263596317214513/not-yet-named-7f8bacc0-6c046be5

 

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On 6/22/2020 at 4:45 PM, Multi-Media said:

@recursion loop

Sure it moved a LOT since 2006 and I also listened to many YT vids or demos from newer software incl. the U-he etc stuff  - heard not much that I REALLY would need or pay much for it (also it would not run on my old music pc anyway lol and I have now sadly lower income). 

A bit OT:
I am in a "recording" forum also - and members would post their tracks and I understand most of them have many of these new tools/synths etc. The electronic stuff over there that many post sounds kind of "meh" to me. 

it's probably not the synths. i also read in other music production forums and often see people mention unironically that they stack multiple instances of ott (from ableton's "over the top" compressor preset) over each other. no wonder everything sounds flat and lacks atmosphere afterwards. some dubstep producers even posit that it's essential for the aggressive tone of their music to limit it to somewhere between -2 and -3 lufs. that's just insanity.

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14 hours ago, Padmapani said:

it's probably not the synths. i also read in other music production forums and often see people mention unironically that they stack multiple instances of ott (from ableton's "over the top" compressor preset) over each other. no wonder everything sounds flat and lacks atmosphere afterwards. some dubstep producers even posit that it's essential for the aggressive tone of their music to limit it to somewhere between -2 and -3 lufs. that's just insanity.

Yes I have read that too with "stacking" 2-3 compressors or limiters. They maintain this reason afaik; each one adds some certain tone and has only light compression. This should be better than using one limiter with harder setting. Ie. better 3 different limiters with "soft" settings than 1 single with "hard" settings. No idea about that I do not use this method, I would put a limiter only on a single track when there is some element(s) with a too wide volume difference, the limiter will "contain" the spikes in the audio a bit. I learned such small thing over a long time, with less experience one would just pull the fader down, but then you also pull down what is wanted in the sound and not only the "harsh volume spikes"  

I do not use the lufs measure to new for me, but I would aim for a "club" track and for online (they will pull the volume down anyway) at 6-7 DR and -5   to -6 rms. For a ballad, chill out, classical etc. much lesser.

Here interesting thread: "YT loudness wars":

https://recording.de/threads/youtube-loudnesswar.232944/

 

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4 hours ago, Multi-Media said:

Yes I have read that too with "stacking" 2-3 compressors or limiters. They maintain this reason afaik; each one adds some certain tone and has only light compression. This should be better than using one limiter with harder setting. Ie. better 3 different limiters with "soft" settings than 1 single with "hard" settings. No idea about that I do not use this method, I would put a limiter only on a single track when there is some element(s) with a too wide volume difference, the limiter will "contain" the spikes in the audio a bit. I learned such small thing over a long time, with less experience one would just pull the fader down, but then you also pull down what is wanted in the sound and not only the "harsh volume spikes"  

I do not use the lufs measure to new for me, but I would aim for a "club" track and for online (they will pull the volume down anyway) at 6-7 DR and -5   to -6 rms. For a ballad, chill out, classical etc. much lesser.

Here interesting thread: "YT loudness wars":

https://recording.de/threads/youtube-loudnesswar.232944/

 

yeah, it's to make it more tranparent if you use normal compressors. that's however not the result if you use compressors with "over the top" settings that outright flatten everything even with one instance.

just for comparison, psytrance or even oldschool goatrance (just tried mwnn - lunar cycle) is usually in the range of -8 to -6 lufs, not overall but in the louder parts of the track.

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On 6/25/2020 at 11:39 PM, Padmapani said:

it's probably not the synths. i also read in other music production forums and often see people mention unironically that they stack multiple instances of ott (from ableton's "over the top" compressor preset) over each other. no wonder everything sounds flat and lacks atmosphere afterwards. some dubstep producers even posit that it's essential for the aggressive tone of their music to limit it to somewhere between -2 and -3 lufs. that's just insanity.

isnt it the xFer OTT plugin that inspired the ableton Over the top preset? chicken and the egg scenario perhaps.

i was under the impression the xfer plugin came first. anyway it doesnt matter, and youre right. it does flatten things out but when used in moderation its an easy cheat code to get a sound sounding fatter and bigger than it really is. ive not yet heard any dubstep in the -2db lufs range but then again i dont listen to much dubstep id rather keep my sanity =) (at least whats left of it :P)

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