Some great advice there from Vexa. Other things to remember when it comes to psy bass lines is to mess around with the velocity, I find it's best to have it something like:
K b B b K b B b K b B b K b B b
The "b" being a lower velocity and the "B" being a higher velocity, that’s a good way to get a nice rolling sound. Play with the decay and sustain depending on the sound you want, artists like Zen Mechanics will have a little more decay and sustain in their bass then say Burn In Noise.
A lot of psy producers use Cubase standard VB-1. I use Alien 303, and you can get some good sounds with that... The best way I have found is to mess around with the "Morning Psy", "Dark Psy" and "Big" presets of Alien, modify and play around with them to get your sound. Also eq as well, instead of boosting the frequencies you do want, use it to cut the frequencies you don't want.
Changing the length of the notes can help a lot too, as can adding slight distortion like
Quadrafuzz. Tuning your kick and bass together helps for clarity. If you use battery you can change the tone of the kick, also try to make it so the frequencies don’t clash, so if for example your loudest bass frequency is around 60hz then maybe cutting around that frequency range on the kick so the bass comes through a little clearer and the frequencies don’t clash. I recommend getting Waves Bundle too, the Rbass plug-in is great for boosting individual bass frequencies that can get lost in the mix.
Synth wise, I would recommend using Vanguard, Albino 3, Z3ta… They are my main 3, Renegade does have some nice sounds on there too. But in the end, they all do pretty much the same thing. I would start with Vanguard, the interface is a little easier to use, you can get some wicked sounds from it, and there are also a lot of patches made for it already. Then play around with Albino 3 if Vanguard doesn’t do everything you need, that will give you a bit more in depth experience of LFO’s, Modulation Matrix and a lot more filter and effects variation. Z3ta is a brilliant programme, but is quite hard to get your head around. It has quite a complex Modulation Matrix, and a lot of other things that I am yet to understand.
I would also recommend as Vexa said, sampling lots, almost anything can be made into an interesting sound with a little creativity. Again as Vexa recommended, ping pong delays, reverbs and rotary speaker effects are superb. I highly recommend Camel Audio stuff, Camelphat and Camelspace are great little effects.
When it comes to layering sounds, having the same synth with different filters, effects, cutoff frequencies, LFO rates/depths ect, all of them can work wonders and ultimately it is all about knowing your synth and know what it is capable of doing, and how you can do what you want with it. The best way is to experiment over and over and over and over with both your synth and your effects too.
I believe what a lot of the big producers will do is play around with their synths for hours/days/weeks, making and saving sounds they like, then when it comes to making a tune they have a lot saved already… I can’t be bothered with that (I should), I like to get stuck in straight away, but save every sound and effect you make for future use. Also using 2 different sounds to make one sound (if that makes sense) works very well too.
Remember, automation is your friend; you can control almost every aspect of every VST/VSTi to constantly change and evolve the sounds you are using. This means you can keep it interesting, by say, changing the cutoff frequency of a filter as it goes, or changing a reverb style, or changing the presets you use. This is great as it means you can drastically reduce the amount of VSTi’s you are using, so instead of having 10 vanguards open, you can have 5, with the automation completely changing the sound, very useful when layering, also your CPU will thank you. FX sends are handy to use, so instead of loading every track with a FX, you can send 3 tracks to 1 reverb track and then use the automation to change the reverb to how you want it.
Remember it all takes time. I have been making psytrance for just under a year, and I am nowhere near happy with where I am at, I know people who have been producing for 3 years who are just starting to feel confident in their tunes.
The best advice I can give is to start a tune and finish it, even if it sucks, it’s the worst thing you have heard, finish it. A lot of people start a song, get a couple of minutes into it and then decide to start another because it’s not sounding right, if you do that you keep hitting the same block every time and wont get anywhere.
2 forums that are very good for psy related fun. Both have very good music production parts, and also have some very experienced producers posting on them who are normally more then happy to share their tips, techniques and answer any questions you have.
www.forum.isratrance.com
www.psymusic.co.uk
www.myspace.com/thesupremeabstract <--- This is my efforts, Tryptamine Daze is the first song I completed, I am still not at all happy with it, I think it sucks, but it is done (apart from some mixing)… I didn’t know half of the above either at the time, so I am hoping my next efforts will be a massive improvement, and essentially that is what it is about, bettering your previous effort.
Good luck and keep at it, you will get there in the end if you have the determination and patience.
I should note that I am far far far from pro and don't pretend to be amazing, these are methods that work for me and have been advised to me by others.
I will give your tips a try. also when you refer to the gate length what is that? my synths don't have a gate control? and what synth do you use?
