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The Psy Trance Learning (potentially Mega-) Thread
Oh goodness, it's that time. JWM is learning a new genre of music and needs knowledge and help.
Yeah, I figured I'll let the last thread where we started discussing Psy Trance fall into obscurity, branch it off into a more positive thread focused on learning and discussion of this intricate, complex genre of music!
Firstly, I finally had enough free time to give the amazing mix that @dendy shared...
...a full, uninterrupted listen today (I listened to bits and pieces yesterday to get a feel for the genre, but today was the deep dive). I admit I used to listen to Goa and classic 90s Psy Trance as a preteen around the time I also discovered Paul Van Dyk, and while some elements have remained approximately the same, a LOT has also changed and evolved greatly.
I consider myself pretty adept at sound design, and while the kick and bassline seem relatively simple to create (I probably could craft the specialised kick in NS2's Obsidian and give it some sauce with an EQ, then Beef or Knock), there's just so much going on! 😳 Melodic motifs, random percussive elements, effects, everything but the kitchen sink, but it's done in such a way that it doesn't become tiresome on the ears nor repetitive. (Of course things not tiring out the ears boils down to the mixing, which I also consider myself pretty adept at.)
With THIS all said, what I'm looking for are the usual things - primers on what Psy Trance has all going on in it, tutorial videos on Youtube that are actually good, any Udemy courses that go through great lengths to explain things, insightful interviews with big-name producers in the Psy Trance scene, mindblowing tracks I can listen to on Youtube and Spotify (preferably Spotify, and note that I don't have Apple Music), and so on.
Can you help me become a Psy Trance wizard!? 😃 It'd be fun to have my own music to listen to when I get high, lol.
Comments
OH! And also what plugins you think are good for Psy Trance in general. No, I don't have GAS, lol, but rather I was to (re)discover what I already have and what I may need to jot down to purchase at a later date.
I haven’t made pay trance either so I’m curious what kinds answers will be here.
I’m hearing fx that Model 15 could make. Suggest the Psychotropic Synthesis IAP.
Me too.
Oooo, I'll have to check that out!
I do have Model 15.
Pitch Modded Delays, Trance Gate on a reverbed vocal, Pitch Env modded Oscillators with an extremely short decay (lazer zaps)
Lots and lots of extremely short envelopes. Both on the bass and kick and arps. the space is filled with evolving pads, huge reverbs, reversed FX etc. Big braaams, acid synths, trance super saws etc etc.
I cant stress this enough though, the most important element is the Kick and bass. You could have the sickest sound design, but if your foundation is lacking its not believable. it needs that GROOVE. The kick and bass have to play together extremely nicely, more so than other EDM genres. Especially since they generally are both very attacky. Kick needs to punch through, but so does the bass. normal Sidechain compression doesnt work the same, Its all about the groove. generally speaking, i beleive no kick note and bass note should ever happen at the same time. its Kick and then immediately after a series of bass notes .
Sorry for the randomness of this post, just letting whatever comes to mind out.
https://gearspace.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/846372-ultimate-goa-trance-technique-thread.html
Actually, this is far more helpful than a lot of the Youtube videos I was watching! It cuts out the b.s. and life stories and gets straight to the ruddy point! ❤️
DAMN! S-s-s-score!!!! Well done on finding that! 😃
Yet you can’t be more wrong here :-))) kick and bass (and how they play together) is very tricky part of whole track… there is much more behind that it looks..
1/ kick
First - forget Obsidian.. without multiple rounds of resampling you won’t get result as needed and this method isn’t ideal for beginner cause you can get lost on the way with partial results, make mistakes which are impossible to fix in later stages. Also there is problem that because of some dsp optimalisations, very short envelopes sounds differently during playback and after rendered. Not usable for this at all.
Instead of, use just Drambo as kick synth and then resample it as wav .. This is important, it’s always better to use final kick as wav, here because of transient is very importsnt it plays always same with sample precision. Maybe in most cases even directly from synth it will be ok, but wav is just safe bet. You really doesn’t want fluctuating transient of kick
notice also how my kick looks in audio editor.. i set 1/16 grid intentionaly.. your kick should not be longer than this, in some harder styles like darkpsy and hitek it’s even shorter, really just knock in first 1/16 with just few ms tail during 2/16
this us importsnt because 2-4/16 are allocated for bass
You doesn't need much other processing on such kick, i would say it's even contraproductive to apply any cause it can introduce various unwanted phase shifting issues.. to fit kick with bass sonically, use just transposing of kick.. in semitones or fine pitch tweak.. if you want eq, just tune eq and then resample result again to wav.
Any realtime processing on kick can i troduce some problem which is hard to identify and fix in final mix.
2/ bass
use just saw as basic oscillator, sharo decay and low sustain on filter envelope.. Again also vass needs significant transient - some people layer it whit highpassed kick, inpreffer just shaping with amp envelope and eventually applying FAC transient.
Now important detail is solving problem of low frequency fight between kick tail and 2/16 bass.
I usually apply hipass filter automation (12-24db filter, freq around 100-200hz) on that step to bass, so when kick takl is playing , this bass note really cointains just high frequency content - it preserves groove but doesn’t fight with kick bass. Low spectrum is provided by kick anyway.
For bass , right notes are super important. They build proper groove.. forget just fixed 1/16 quantised positions - you need to play a lot with micro shiftings to left or right, changing velocity values (with velocity mapped to filter cutoff) to get proper groove.. melody itself should run on base note like D,E or F with just occasional jump few notes or octave up ..
It’s a lot if elaboration to get proper kick + bass groove, but if you do it, 60% of your trsck is done :-)
Then it comes to hihats and snares.. another chapter
can't stress enought this guy .. he is absolute giga brain when it comes to psytrance and his tutorials are stellar.. best stuff on YT, no competitors. He is genius of knowledge.
Also, going to save you a lot of time with this tip. There is thus classic psytrance trademark FM lead, which was literally develoepd on Nord Lead 2 synth using it's absolutely unique sounding oscillators fm modulation. There is not much synth can reproduce this sound. Thanks to me
we have such one on iOS - Butter Synth.. the "FMX" oscillator modulation mode is exactly modelled on Nord Lead 2 character :-)
There are also two hidden gems in Obsidian factory - another psytrance trademark fx sounds which you can hear in at least 70% of psytrance tunes
And these (also factory) may be usable for build up and transitions
mostly because of automation .. there is used a hell lot of automation and very long sweeps (64 or even 128 beats long) so the sound is constantly evolving and changing even through melody (in terms of notes) may be rather simple
I second that one. Some of the best Psytrance tutorials on YouTube…
I have been watching sooo many YT tutorials about the psytrance kick and bass and have tried to recreate it in Drambo. I got (almost) close only once.
It is just SO hard to get it right that it almost drives me crazy.
@dendy You did it again! This is a fantastic tutorial, no matter in which genre anyone might be interested. 🤩
I would only suggest that for masking and phase problems, you can use the Pro-Q analyzer to easily identify but hard (without compromise) to fix problems.
😇
Yeah, Pro-Q top class surgical tool .. anyway i am lazy to solve problems so i am always trying to avoid problems in first place
- this includes resampling all bass related content when tweaking is finished, and then do not apply any non-linear processes on them after that.. it saves time a LOT ..
I'm the complete opposite, in the production phase, before I start to mix and master, I only rely on my ears. But as soon as I fire up the analyzer, you can see true evidence of how much my ears are worth in a technical sense, haha! 😂
If you want to cheat a little bit, and you have Playbeat, download the free grooves, grids and glitches pack. Then it’s just a matter of arranging the piece and adding the fx and ear candy.
yes, you can always just glue together some premade sample pack - there are tons of them available, filled with generic sounds - question is if it makes sense to make another generic soulless content ...
I'm a learning about the trance style like others but I am pretty sure their must be other area to be creative other than your kick and bass sound design. At least I would hope so.
I hope my psy trance don't end up sounding like pie trance instead.
I am way more techno & house but can appreciate Psy.
@dendy has it right. Extremely tight short kick and digital lead sounds that have that comb filtering thing going on.
That was a big WOW! Such flow when working on a piece of music I can only dream on, I have that flow in Photoshop so I know what it feels.
Going to check out more of his videos even if it's not my music exactly (maybe it will become..) Thanks.
Awesome option but very hard to tame, so fun though!
@dendy you're awesome mate! Just wondering besides Drambo, could FAC Drumkit produce a proper Psy Kick that can be printed to audio?
Then if you have more tips about other sound design outside of the kick and bass, I'd love to hear them.
And thank you all for your insights. Keep them coming, and if anyone has more tips, videos, tutorials, interviews, etc, link me up!
I've tried to get a proper kick and bass going. I'd say the kick is the toughest thing to figure out lol.
That used to be my position. Then I realized I had heard so much great music made by people recycling downloaded loops. It's the artist that matters, not the tools or methods.
Well, not much ... you can get a kind of close with FAC Drumkit but no matter how hard i try i can't get exactly there .. with drambo i made literally in 1 minute perfect kick which i was SUPER satisfied, with FAC Drumlit after 15 minutes of tweaking i was still like "nah, it's not completely unusable, but it is missing something"
No idea why .. on paper FACD should be perfectly capable, but somehow i am unable to make the pitch curve to sound exatly as i want even when i throw plethorra of points on it. . in Drambo i added just 4 points on Graphic Env, feeded it into sine oscillator follwoed by amp again with Grapnic Env - and that's it. Perfect kick in no time.
Now I see mate.
Well I've started work on something else that isn't Psy Trance just for the time being. I feel so lost trying to work out a proper Psy kick lol.
Anyways the project is a cover of a Sash! song from their "S4! Sash!" album. Not sure you've heard of Sash! or that album. If you know both the group and the album, guess which song. 😉
so, I came across this descriptive article on /Psy Trance/ only to find that it has a few sub genres, 20!! to be exact (well, the ones listed in this article anyway). I find this very confusing and borderline stupid.🫤
Yep… totally mad. Seems likes all you need to do is add “psy” to another genre (or country!) and you’ve got a whole new Psytrance genre. Time to start a genre folks…. I’m going with Scottishpsy… bring on the acid bagpipes
(yep, I’m Scottish)
Ha ha, if nothing else it most be the seed of many horrendous discussions, like: 'Is this Psy That or Psy This?' 'Psy What now!?' Instead of listening we have a debate😂
Here is a fine example of something-trance from the days when I was listening to it. I won't go further than this type of trance, surgical psy is too much for my taste.