tips for psychedelic soundscapes

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Lodger

Lodger

Certified Funk Master
hey, all,

lately i've been experimenting wildly with psychedelics- psychedelic tricks in music, that is..whay i was wondering is

A. within an actual psychedelic experience, what are typical aural hallucinations? how do you emulate this w/ sound manipulation
B. any tips on trippy sounds?

-Lodger
 
Try throwing in some muffled or whispering voices. Put reverb on it and eq it in a strange way so it sounds like its coming from the next room. Random laughing works well too. Its ok if its unintelligble. Water dripping is pretty trippy too.

Also listen to music by an artist called "Shpongle" for more psychedelic ideas. In my opinion it is the ultimate in psy music.
 
I'm not advoacting drugs here, but a psychadelic experience is completely personal. The only way you ever really know is to try. Everyone hears sound differently on psychadelics, which is why it's personal.
 
Mangobob said:

Also listen to music by an artist called "Shpongle" for more psychedelic ideas. In my opinion it is the ultimate in psy music.
Click to expand...

Shpongle is awesome. Get the first album, "Are you Shpongled". Simon Posford is my hero, and i model much of my music after his even though I don't compose psy.
 
Mingus's "Trippy Drum Shadow" technique.

Create/import drum loop. Duplicate it onto another track.

Keep the original the same, let's work with the duplicate.

Reverb the hell out of it and cut out all the low end so it's just the higher frequency reflections that are heard. Now EQ to taste (you may want to bump the frequency of the snare, mabye the hi-hat...)

Play both the original and the "shadow track" together and EQ and level to taste.

Now get a side gate (midi or audio). I like Scuzzphut6 the best
Hybridalien: http://www.hybridalien.com
Scuzzphut6 http://www.djmarko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

With the side gate, enter a rhythm that is complimentary to that of the original loop and make sure that it highlights the parts of the "shadow" track that you like...

Now, you should be left with a real tinny (or muddy depending on which way you went) very "washy" but rhythmic track that has lots of verb, but is "chopped" up into a synopated rhythm. You'll want to tuck this to about 1/4 as loud as the original loop.

Now the "trippy" part....Let's say the loop was four bars long...Use the time stretch function (I use Cubase, but I'm sure all sequencers have a similar function) and drag the loop out the 8 measures (or double of whatever your loop is).

The end result is a real washy, on TEMPO but not quite on BEAT "Ghost" track that "shadows" the original and adds texture and depth.

Add chorus, Flanger, or a stereo panner for even wierder effects.

If you'd like I'll toss up some examples, but I can't really do a "step by step" as there's a gazillion different ways to approach this.

Cheers
 
if you have access to four cd players in the same room, i'd highly recommend getting a hold of the Flaming Lips' album Zaireeka. this is one of my favorite albums for trippy experiences. the album is actually on four seperate cds, and you play all the cds at the same time (coordinate with your friends). the songs pan around you in 360 degrees, and have different f*cked up stuff going on at different times. try it out.

in terms of trippy sounds, dogs barking tend to weird me out, sometimes in a good way. the people talking, especially muffled or in another room, is a great one. just try to mess around with normal, everyday sounds, just because those are the sounds that we hear the most, and as such might really weird us out while experiencing them under "altered" states of mind.
 
>>peaking (mp3)

lilback-p.jpg


"how long has it been?"
 
great stuff here, thank you boys and girls. But can't we add more ideas?

One thing I was thinking about was.. uhm.. it's not about psy. "sound" but one thing you can do is add something really unexpected in the track. Example; After a half-hard part you make a buildup like somethinge even harder would come, but instead you add very soft choir, flute or something after.

..maybe =)

Take care
 
One simple thing that I like to play with is doubling, tripling, quadrupling, etc. a chord pattern or slow moving part over multiple sound sources. For example, send the output from your master keyboard/controller/sequencer to multiple instruments & start tweeking all of them while you record. I can get some amazing & strange sounds when running my Virus, JP-8080, A-5000, & Pro-53 all at the same time.
Whoa dude, what a trip :bigeyes:
 
One fun thing to do is to make people think they're hearing things from the real world. Add voices, street sounds, rain or wind, alarms, telephone ringtones, doorbells, radio broadcasts, snippets of popular songs, etc. to your track. However, keep these elements very low in the mix, and use appropriate panning, EQ, and reverb to make it sound like they're coming from another source.
 
I like adding foot steps, female coos, ahs, and moans, breathing, laughing, and fishtank sounds. Just add reverb, panning, filters, and distortion.

Aquatic sounds are some of the best trippy sounds, and if you can get a hold of a hydrophone even better. Then you can just drop it in the water and record the sounds from below the surface. Even tapping on the glass can make a really tripped out kick drum. If you can get you hands on the Q Sound plugins, youu can add so much depth to mono and stereo tracks creating more multi directional sound from just a pair of speakers.
 
try running an AM radio through a spring reverb, and then EQ it to taste...

in two tracks i've written, i've taken snippets of vocoded voices, and selectively reversed certain words, or parts of words.

one little trick i also like to do on breakdowns or buildups is to reverse the beat and then hit it with a reverb & a multi-tap delay. it can be a great technique both in bringing up as well as lowering energy in a track, depending on how you use it.

i think one of my all-time favorite "trippy" bits is on a track on Aphex Twin's album "I Care Because You Do". (as i remember it) the tune begins all muffled and echoed out, as you hear the sounds of someone climbing a flight of steps and walking down a hall. then as the sound of door opening cuts in, the music hits full force. it's a great intro and very trippy.

peace,
sim*n
 
First post, hi to all. Looking for examples of psychedelic soundscapes but without beats. Anybody got any suggestions
 
Some examples of psychedelic soundscapes tracks without a beat can be found by the artist bioLuMigen . One is called " lost garden ", the other is called " Quest ".
 
The best psychedelic music comes from a groove felt between those playing it, and warm, rich sound either live or on recording. The Grateful Dead and Gorky's Zygotic Minci's organic, and natural approach works for a calming experience while The Thirteenth Floor Elevators and The Black Angels' Wall of sound approach intensifies a psychedelic experience. As far as production tricks, there are so many options with DAW routing that just about any signal can be made in some way psychedelic. Shifting phases at intense moments in the music, on bass tracks have a send shelved at a frequency where you want the effects on that send to take place, long decay compression on hi's for cymbals. My suggestions for listening for ideas as far as soundscapes go would be Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, Sigur Ros, Cocteau Twins, Brian Eno, Boards Of Canada, The Microphones, Bjork, The Elephant Six Orchestra, My Bloody Valentine. This covers a wide swath of atmospheric psch. The classic psych rock era could be best understood in Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but so much pop music has incorporated psychedelic elements that coming up with creative, original psycho-acoustics is a good challenge best met for years by Radiohead. Thom Yorke's "The Eraser" is currently my favorite psych album. Go out and get. On Vinyl preferably. Good Luck.
 
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