Psychadelic Trance Tips&Tricks

B

brainload

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If you have any sugestions releated to psy-trance production please post them here :-)
Im ready to exchange my experience with somebody interested in this beautyfull music genre.
 
I will start this thread with some useful tips about equipment you will need to start (or improve) your psy-production.
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First of all you need only synths (VST or hardware - depends on your wallet content :-) Samples are used only rarely and never for synth lines. Of course you can use them on rhytmic section of your composition. For drums, hats, claps, snares, clicks, blips, etc. you can use great freeware percussion synth STOMPER Hyperion - it is realy easy to use and sound great. In case you don't want to use samples for this I can recomend WALDORF ATTACK or some free stuff from ODO (http://odo.nl.nu) or CM-505 (try to google it or look at www.kvr-vst.com).
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Next you will need some synth(s) capable of producing fat bass sounds. For this purpose I discovered that almost all VST machines from reFX are great (VANGUARD, TBL, Claw, Beast). Also dont forget to try Audiorealism Bassline (best tb303 emulation ever made - it is even better than Rebirth's one).
I will put here some basic examples how to sequence nice basslines:
(X - beat, b - bass note, B - bass octave higher/lower)

Really basic one:
X---X---X---X---
--b---b---b---b-

Basic pump up bassline:
X---X---X---X---
-bbb-bbb-bbb-bbb

Another pumping bassline
X---X---X---X---
-bBb-bBb-bBb-bBb

Next one:
X---X---X---X---
-Bbb-Bbb-Bbb-Bbb

You can just experiment. Put some of this into sequencer and try diferent bass sounds (good head start is to try different synth presets and then tweak it when you find some interesting among them)

Now Im going to lunch, so next part will be posted soon....
 
Another (and maybe most important) part of psytrance music is synth line. You will probably use arpegiator for this or construct your own melody. Some synths have ARP built in, some haven't (in this case you can use VST host's ARP, for example FL Studio have one).
For this part of your track I can recommend you Rob Papen's ALBINO 2 (my all time favorite - check it out). Albino have endless possibilities of creating weird psytrance sounds and noises. VANGUARD is great for this job too. I cannot forget to mention about some old classics like Arturia MOOG MODULAR or Arturia CS-80V - these are realy tresure when you master them :-) Luxonix RAVITY is great tool to create pad-like sounds for background of your song and there is also a rhythm version of RAVITY which is capable of creating great drum patterns. Ravity is based on wave synthesis and included samples are in great quality. You could layer these samples and set diferent parameters for each layer (envelopes, filters, etc.) - this cannot offer endless possibilities, but final sound quality of this machine is realy briliant.
All these synths mentioned above are also great for FX (Albino is best again).
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Into one song I typicaly stack 3-5 Albinos and some of others (depends on type of sound I want to get and also on what Im able to experiment-out from these VSTs). Im using almost always Vanguard for basslines becouse it is (imho) best for pumping trance basslines and have realy FAT and FULL sound. Rhythm section in my songs is created with help of STOMPER.
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If you find any question(s) you want to ask me feel free to post'em here - It will be pleasure for me to help you.
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Soon I will put some pieces of my work to my website so you can listen to all my hints in action.

ByE --brainLOAD
 
Another important hint about percussion sounds made by STOMPER:

LAYER THEM :-))

you will then get better and fuller sound.

dont forget to equalize each layer and then compress'em (separately or all together - just experiment)

----> dont ask me how to set compressor, it is sooooo hard to explain (and to understand) - just experiment and listen, once you discover how it works you will realize that it is sooooo EASY :-))

PEACE

--brainLOAD
 
Hi :)

A few things about lead/melodie lines;

If it sounds boring try to raise some notes one halftone, like from F to F#.

Play with cutof, from really low to really high. Add one other line, similar but not exactly the same - and start from high and go to low.

Stereo/pingpong delay of course =) synced to tempo but rythmical.

303

303 with dist

more 303 =)

If you have a synth with many oscilators, fiddle with fine-tuning to make a sound phatter.

Have longer attack on some tones then other in the line to trick the listner

..trick the listner as often as you can =)

Panningeffects

Did I say 303 with dist?
 
Just wanted to say thank you for this cool thread, it helped me a lot!
~:)~
 
hi..
i feel that psy trance must have as much variation as possible...little details make all the difference..
but many times i get stuck in this repetetive monotonous loop..and soon get sick of making music for the day..

i also feel that the track overall should have some nice pauses,crescendos,build ups that sort of thing...

use your dynamic range and also fill up your frequency spectrum with things in their respective places(eq)..

also..
i dont know if this works for everyone but i find that watch movies and listen to the way sounds fade in and fade out and the way they progress as the visuals progress...from one to the next.. ... i find that this can be used while making psy trance as well...
u can picturize your track and get a nice flow of sounds...


anyway...
just some input....

see u..
 
Really good thread. It seems to fit in various styles of Trance music.

And yes! I use Stomper already!

Thanks to all!
 
Wow no ****!

Heres a trance beat too!

Bum tiss, Bum tiss, bum tiss, bum tiss.

Copy and paste through entire track!
 
Delphine said:
Wow no ****!

Heres a trance beat too!

Bum tiss, Bum tiss, bum tiss, bum tiss.

Copy and paste through entire track!
Click to expand...

You are funny and it seems you dont clearly understand basic psychadelic trance idea (it is not about beats, its about the rest of sounds).
Try to compose psytrance track, post link to us and we will all tell you that you dont know what you are talking about.

Bye and copy/paste dude.
 
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I also found LUXONIX RAVITY VST useful for making psytrance beats and hats (and other percussion).

Sounds great, demo available, google it.
 
brainload said:


You are funny and it seems you dont clearly understand basic psychadelic trance idea (it is not about beats, its about the rest of sounds).
Try to compose psytrance track, post link to us and we will all tell you that you dont know what you are talking about.

Bye and copy/paste dude.
Click to expand...

Hey lighten up, I'm only having a joke. No harm intended, sorry if you took it that way, I didnt mean to pee you off at all.

I don't write Psytrance stuff anyways, but I have a track that contains some Psy elements and as seen as you asked you can hear it here: This is unsigned and I have a pro mastered version of it in 24 bit. As soon as I can clear a sample, I am hoping to get it on a Dutch label. Hope you like it.

Jay.
http://www.mp3unsigned.com/Showmp3.asp?mp3id=3274&aid=1590
 
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I find that a lot of times my patterns are all centered around the 1, which is OK, but gets boring, no? So what i've started to do is compose things around the 1, then shift each line a little ahead or behind... a beat or two, or just an 8th or 16th. Gives things kick and interest, and when all the lines are shifted, you get a nice layered effect that blurs the 1 and tricks the mind :)
 
Another good thing is to avoid all the overdone psytrance techniques...if i hear another Terrence McKenna sample or some guy talking about aliens, i'm gonna barf! The full-on sound especially has gotten boring and stagnant imho...in fact i'd say psytrance in general has gotten pretty watered down and shallow. I still love it, of course, but i look forward to a new era of challenging music to scramble my senses and take me to beautiful new places within. The point of the psy experience is to explore, right?
 
I have gotten pretty attached to triplet use in psy-trance. For some reason I think it has this bounyer feel to it. I'll post some psy trance evntally.

I find that sound design is just as importan as synthlines. If you can create a crazy soundscape, you get my vote. Though it is most often hard to do. I think samples are great. If you can find some crazy person laugh and lfo it so that it is on beat, maybe echo it and distorted it you'll get some crazy stuff. The best advice I have to give is to listen to greats psy trance composers like:

Infected Mushroom
Juno Reactor
Dark Soho (not really as good as the first two but still good).
 
* Variation is paramount, hearing the same beat pump 9 minutes long is boring.
Rhytmic and melodic variation are very important.

*it needs ambience but the same kind in the track, if you have a dark sample, make everything sound dark. It ruins so many amateur tracks when an artist kills his own song

*Sounddesign is very important and production technique should be up to par with it. Every sound must be in the right proportion and the right spectrum.

*Choose your sounds wise, if they don't sound together, don't use em together!

*Use a lot of crescendo's, small rhytmic build-ups and pauses. Make sure the emphasis is on the beat and on the backbeat in the track later, this makes it sound more fresh.
 
ok so all that about variations is fine and all but you wont get a decent trance track if you dont achieve "the sound" that bright feel on the track but still with a lot of bass (on a sound system big enough) with zero peaks on the final waveform. any tips on that? i cant seem to get the compression right when its finally starting to sound strong enough i get clipping or at the best cases too many peaks on my waveforms (and of course every other sound in my tracks has no bass freqs that interfere) . ive tried probably as many settings as u can get (in reason 2.5) and i just cant ever seem to get even close to the pristine, crystal clear production quality of my reference material (psydrop, protoculture, silicon sound)

so, anyone knows how to get it right ? i would really appreciate it
 
If you're just using Reason, that might be part of the problem. Reason's mixer and ReDrum are notorious for muddy sound. Try ReWiring into another application like Live or Cubase. Also, using the NN-XT instead of ReDrum for drums will help. Reason's FX are not the greatest either, IMO, especially the compressor. Personally i like Reason for the synths because you can get a decent sound without too much CPU overhead, but overall i like Ableton Live better by far.
Also, good mastering does amazing things to make a track sound great. Sounds like you're on the right track though since you're conscious of freq. interference, clipping, and compression. :)
 
ethios4 wrote: Reason's mixer and ReDrum are notorious for muddy sound.
Click to expand...

Would you care to elaborate on that, I disagree and wondered how you could back that up?
 
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