Lemmiwinks

yeah I'll give that one a try this week and tell you what I think hum yes but the line between categories 2 and 3 is VERY blurry if you ask me... for example I have also seen a more serious documentary cross-checking the 9/11 conspiracy plots. It was made for Belgian public TV so I found it was quite unpartial and thorough (after all, Belgium was only one of a handfull of countries that didn't hesitate to publicly condemn the war in Irak BEFORE it happened so I wouldn't consider the Belgian media to go hand in hand with US public propaganda). So they basically took the 9/11 "facts" that stirred up all the controversy and found that quite on the contrary there were very plausible explanations for them and that most of these theories were actually launched by some cook known for publishing anti-semitical propaganda all his life (the jews control the economy, and through the economy the whole world kindof guy... I mean, the last time that a whole nation was convinced about that ie. Germany in the 1930s we all saw were it led us). So yeah, after watching that one documentary I realized that all those hundred conspiracy ones on 9/11 were crap made by people who a. were looking for fame or a quick buck or both (hello Michael Moore...) or b. outright crazy people who will link just about anything to promote their own theories. But yeah that doesn't mean that ALL such docs are wrong, indeed docs from your 3rd category are good, and 2nd category have the merit of being thought-provoking even if mostly untrue

oh yes I was simply talking about 2012 because I've been doing a bit of research on the subject recently. And no I didn't say that one should dismiss these kinds of theories entirely, there is always that 1 in a million chance that the theory is actually true, and even if it's not, at least it makes us think about matters differently. What I'm simply saying is that one should never think that if something is presented under a documentary form that it actually is true, and that when presenting such speculations one should always have a big bullshit meter hanging around, and be on the lookout for hidden political agendas. Most of such "documentaries" just so happen to end by referring to some society or books (Venus Project anyone...?). Like I said, the biggest conspiracy of them all is that a handfull of writers make a lot of money by selling naive people bullshit and cross-referencing their books as to give the impression that they are based on anything else than overactive immagination. So most of all, ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SOURCES!!! Just because some informations are repeated from one source to the other and you end up with like 10 different "documentaries" presenting the same theories, it doesn't necessarily mean they are true...

I guess that one can argue that Kenny's death and the apparent indiference that the other carachters have to his death (not to mention that he's back again the next episode) is clear evidence that Kenny is an imaginary carachter, caused by spontaneus hallucinations, probably from smoking Cartman's cat catnip . A dead give away that Cartman is the main figure behind these psychedellic experiences is his claimed hatred for hippies. Of course he pretends to hate hippies, so he won't get uncovered and busted by the cops for drug possession, it serves him as a great cover: who'd ever suspect someone who hates hippies to actually have psychedellic experiences of his own? So the 4 kids in South Park are actually 3... Lately Kenny doesn't die anymore (except for very rare occasions) because the boys have turned to a new phase in their mental growth, realizing that death is a serious matter, even with imaginary carachters, and they prefer to concentrate their hallucinatory powers on more important things like unravelling conspiracies in America

ok I haven't see the Zeitgeist docu so I can't comment on that one, however I've seen quite a few 21st of december 2012 doomsday documentaries lately (those were mainly what I thought of when writing my initial comment). They all present a pretty convicing story that made me get off my lazy ass and actually do some research on the subject. And I'm glad I did cause it ends up that there's a conspiracy indeed: that of a handfull of authors who make lots of money off naive uncultured people by selling them just about anything. Did you know that the ONLY factual information behind the "mayan prophecy" is simply the fact that we're entering the 13th baktun? Much like our christian calendar entered a new millenium and the date passed from 1999 to 2000 (thus resetting the digits from 9 to 0), so is the mayan calendar going from 12.9.9.9.9. to 13.0.0.0.0. and THAT IS IT!!! Only ONE writing left from the mayans specifically mentions that something will happen in 2012. It contains 8 lines of text, of which 3 are partially erased (thus you can fill in the blanks with just about anything...). I mean, you'd think that if the mayans really thought it was some great change in the World they would've dedicated more to it than a 8 line text... The rest of the texts and drawings are simply stuff that the authors THOUGHT were referring to 2012, but they could refer to just about any date, or could simply be part of mayan mythology, never intended to actually be interpreted literally or to predict some absolute truth. Ah but what about the galactic alignment you'll say... well it turns out that because of the size and distance of the celestial objects involved, this is a process that lasts 36 YEARS, most of us have actually lived in the galactic alignement for most of our lives... Moreso the mayans never actually said that this allignement would occur precisely on 21st december 2012, it's just that some new age pseudo-scientists saw that this allignement would happen more or less around 2012. And it's the more or less that counts here, cause the most precise point of the allignement already happened in 1998. Now if you would actually believe that the mayans inherited this great knowledge in timekeeping from aliens you'd think they would've got the date precisely and not be 14 years off (but again, that would be considering that the mayans specifically mentioned that the most precise point of the alignement would be in 2012 which they didn't...). When you think of it, our Christian solar out-of-synch calendar was closer to the exact date (2000 instead of 1998, thus a 2 year-delay) than the mayan one... Anyway, I'm probably ranting a little here and maybe 2012 is not exactly what you had in mind when writing this topic, I was just giving an example on just how one can be fully convinced by a handfull of documentaries presenting "the truth" (most of them just copy the "information" from one to the other without ever bothering to actually verify the legitimacy of their sources), and then see that it's just a bunch of misinforming crap when you actually do some research on the side. Agreed. But research is one thing, suppositions based on thin air is something else... I could very well come and tell you that my toilet makes a peculiar hum when I flush it and that it is my opinion that it actually echoes the spirit of Osiris who is calling for an alien invasion to happen in Alaska, that will use energy from the geysers to beam to Earth, passing though the energy fields of Stonehege to recharge their shields and that by taking a crap every morning I manage to lay off the impending catastrophe by a day (heaven forbid I'd actually be constipated some day or we're all doomed). Anyway, all my intense thoughts and speculations on the matter amount to 0 when confronted to actual hard data: my toilet DOES make a wierd noise when I flush it, and Osiris, Alaska, geysers and Stonhedge exist but there is no actual link betwen them and there are many more probable explanations to the noise that my toilet makes than my theory, thus the "documentary" value of my theories is worthless...

please, documetaries and conspiracy theories are 2 opposite sides... the meaning of a documentary (a REAL one, not the kind that Michael Moore have got us used to) means by definition that it relies on FACTUAL information. On the other hand, conspiracy theories rely on suppositions based on thin air, most of them factually innacurate or outright wrong. Once you climb the ladder to see just where all those ideas came from, they usually end up to some crazy cook who's been known all his life for saying stupid/ racist/ antisemitical things or outright crazy. Now, I'm not saying that some conspiracy theories aren't interesting, if only to make you think about things differently, I'm just saying that one should never make the mistake of mixing up documentaries and conspiracy theories...

yep while I was watching it I was thinking that your description fitted the movie best

Ah i finally saw it the other day and was pretty dissapointed... It was NOT a movie about the mayan culture but simply about a tribe being caught and one of the tribesmen escaping... If it weren't for the 15-minute scene where you barely see the Mayan city this movie could've just as easily been about any tribe warrior in any part of the World. And the scene of the arriving conquistadores didn't have its place at all IMO, it was merely a link meant to give the movie some historic legitimacy. So yeah it's a cool action movie in the jungle but that's about it... I understand better why this movie wasn't much mentioned when it was released.

How can anyone mention psychedellic movies and not mention Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? :posford: Other than that: Naked Lunch most of David Lynch's movies (Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive, Twin Peaks, etc...) probably many more but I'm drawing a blank now... will complete later oh yeah and the most psychdellic of them all is... Teletubbies!!! No, really, just try watching an episode when high, it really takes you to another level!!

haven't seen the movie but indeed Keith Flinth ripped off the Sex Pistols' look big time. I remember seeing a documentary on the Sex Pistols a few years back and thought maaaan now I get it where these guys took their inspiration. Also the whole Prodigy sound in Fat of the Land was kindof punkish when you think of it.

well make the videos only available for psynewsers then, at least we apreciate your efforts

hey wait a minute here... unless there's some hidden topic I didn't see there was only ONE slightly negative comment on your proposal (Veracohr's), and even his was more of a general remark rather than a direct attack. The rest are either positive comments or neutral like simply recomendations on what to do (and you DID ask for recomendations, didn't you?). I don't see where you see all the negativity? Please reconsider your position, as I said, personally not only would I like to see such tutorials but I'd be prepared to PAY for them!!

what they're making Futurama movies now? Man I really must be lagging behind here... I found it enjoyable but at the same time, knowing it was made by the same people as The Simpsons I couldn't stop comparing it to the Simpsons all the time, and thus always found it was somehow lacking something. Still as far as Sci-fi cartoons go, it is definately the best

Colin OOOD will do a sample for free and full mastering for 30€ per track which is quite a bargain IMO. He'll also be honest enough and tell you if he find the track to be just too amateurish to be worth the effort of mastering in the first place. what is the name of his album?

don't know why you guys are so optimistic about 2009, with the economic crisis going on I have noticed a clear slowdown in the quantity of releases and lables seem to stick only with well-proven names and remixes of already-famous tracks rather than take any chances releasing stuff that is more unconventional (and which I find more rewarding to listen to). Out of everything I've tried, only Merrow is REALLY good.

ah wise words, especially since I felt the same way when I started to make music. I actually decided to steer clearly away from Cubase and FL prescisely not to be sucked in to the VST trend and create my own sounds. But the thing is that if you make stuff that sounds like nothing else... you'll probably never get a record deal in the first place. In most scenes it's the same: people do NOT want originality, they listen to something that sounds good and then want everything else to sound just like it. That's kindof why trance split into a million different subgenres when in the early 90s it was just trance (mind you, this happened to just about every music genre around). So if you want to get past square 1 I rekon you simply have no choice than to make generic stuff and just limit your creativity to making your track a LITTLE different to eveything else, not completely different. That said, already making generic stuff is no easy feat, once I actually started producing stuff I realized that it is much more of a challenge than I thought. Also point no. 2 is that you have to start SOMEWHERE. A remark that I read when starting to make music and stuck with me is that when you learn how to play the guitar, you don't start composing stuff on it right away, you start by playing a riff that you're already familiar with, THEN, once you master the basics you start to experiment. With synths this is even more complicated since it's not only a question of melodies but how the synth sounds in the first place.

not saying it's not great in HD, just that he'll probably run out of bandwith quick that way, Andi Vax is already out of bandwith in like the first week of the month and he only has ONE video online... Imagine 100 people dloading 10 vids of 440Mbs each, that's 440Tb!

hehe I never would've imagined you have such a deep voice Took a quick look and it's great, will actually follow the steps later on when I have some more spare time. It is great for me cause more of the time I've fiddled around in Reason and was looking for an easy way to start with Cubase Just one recomendation: if I were you I'd cut the tutorials in 10-minute clips and put them on youtube, your popularity would be sky high! If you want to make some money off it, you could put some basic tutorials on youtube and send people to your paying site for more in depth tutorials. Personally I'd be more than happy to pay for this kind of information and I think others would too (supposing you're asking an acceptable price of course )

great, dloading it right now PS 440megs just for the first part? Either this is particularly comprehensive or it's not too well compressed... I rekon you'll be out of bandwith pretty soon with that kind of volume.

that is great news mate, I would gladly pay for video tutorials aimed specifically at making psytrance!! A big question that is still unanswered to this day: exactly how does one use an "oriental scale" to make melodies? Other stuff I've struggled with in the past and seemed easy once someone actually explained it to me: - difference between the kick and the bass (most people improperly call the kick "bass" so it's a good idea to get that confusion out of the way for starters) - explaing the whole concept of "building" a track (what are bars, where is the kick supposed to be, building phrases etc) - explaining the whole concept of envelopes and filters (especially the resonance part), best is to show a small graph of different filters and envelopes - explaining the kbbb formula used in most psytrance - using pads to fill up the space in a track; insterting wierd sounds and FXs here and there to make it sound "psychedellic" - using arpegiattors - finding the right synth presets, especially knowing that most (old) trance sounds were based on the sawtooth wave; easyiest way to emulate a 303 - paning sounds to make a wider soundstage - using delay and reverb - knowing that a kick also had a high-frequency presence (click) - playing different synths in different octaves so that they don't naturally interfere with eachother - cutting off the low bass frequencies so that they don't interfere with the kick and generally EQing sounds so that they don't interfere (actually I'm still having trouble with this part...) - using side-chain compression, and explaining just what a compressor does in the first place oh yeah and like supergroover said, once you've done a track and are happy with it, how do you actually get labels interested in your stuff?

actually I was so dissapointed by this album that I sold it last week so I can't help you more than that... BUT I can tell you that the tracklist that you guys have and on discogs is the promo that is going around p2p sites. AFAIK the official version was barely released last month in Japan, I don't think there's a European version out yet. But anyway, who cares about all these details when the album is crap anyway? lol

yeah that's exacly my problem: they take months if not years to master and in the end you can get most of those sounds (or sounds that sound VERY similar) out of already-existing synths anyway so it's all kindof a waste to me. You're MUCH better off trying to master an already existing synth and getting the exact sounds you want out of it rather than spending your time building a new one. And then, getting the right synth preset is but a tiny fraction of music making. Creating melodies, song arrangement and mixing different layers are MUCH more rewarding in the end. For example I bet you're never heard of a dude named Tadao Kikumoto, yet he is the one responsible for designing 2 of the most popular synths in electronic music, the 303 and 909... note that even though a LOT of chart toppers where made using these 2 machines, Kikumoto has never ever made a single song himself... On the other hand, most artists don't even bother designing their own sounds, they just use VSTs and concentrate entirely on the music-making part. Like I said, synth design and music making are 2 VERY different jobs.

psyshop, obviously

hey I never said it was classic material, I just said that I found it enjoyable

Don't mistake designing synths with making music, those are 2 VERY different jobs