Jikkenteki

Actually I like the one synth only idea as well (Synth 1 actually seems like a good canidate too). Maybe Synth 1 and a limited set of percussion samples?

I like the idea, but have been busy finishing a track already. That said, I just finished it so this might be a nice no pressure challenge before going on to the next track. Limiting it might be an interesting challenge too. For percussion samples, you could, for example, limit it to the Nano Records free percussion sample pack. Then maybe pick either a few couple synths (Vanguard, Albino, etc) or else limit it to some commonly available free synths so everyone starts on equal footing (Synth 1 and a few others come to mind).

I've listened to the both versions of your track so far. As many people said, the synth sounds are nice and old school, if perhaps a bit generic. However your biggest problems are your mixing (which FAR more important than the mastering you keep talking about....) and your song development. I'd invest more time and effort in these. You talk about how great your computer is (for the record, my album was made on a 1.7GHz computer that I still use today for making music) but then seem to blame "crappy" Fruityloops for any possible problems. Fruity may have some issues, but it seems obvious to me that the problem lies more with the user than the gear. In support of this, I offer the second track I ever made on a computer (probably about my tenth song ever made in the electronic realm of things) as a comparision. http://www.par-2.com/choons/Jikkenteki%20-...low%20Razor.mp3 This was made on even "crappier" Fruityloops 2 or 3 (can't remember which), using only "crappy" Fruityloops plug-ins on a Pentium III 500mhz computer with 256megs of ram and the internal soundcard run through a boombox. It is also completely unmastered and un eq'ed, has no compression on anything and in fact it is clipping all over the place, but still, to my ears generally "sounds" better due to the mix and (I hope) the track progression. There are a million problems with the track still and I'm not bragging that my skills were shit-hot back in the day (they still aren't now). But I think that it shows that "crappy" Fruityloops 5 isn't really holding you back like you seem to imply it is. Even if I have no interest in recreating old goa. you've got some potential, but more than anything you need to spend less time convincing people your tracks are great, open yourself to other people's advice and spend that energy you waste here on making more and better tunes. Do that for a couple years and I think you'd probably be making some decent stuff.

http://www.par-2.com/choons/Kick.zip Most of these came from the Isratrance kick sharing project, although a few things from other freely shared sources have worked into the folder as well.

I don't particularly think the sound is "goa". Melodic, sure, some "old school" vibes here and there, no problem, but goa...? I personally don't think so, but then everyone hears the same music differently so your best option is listen and see for yourself I guess. As for what sounds similar, I'll leave that to others, the artist in question's music might be a bit personal for me and therefore any opinions I have would be biased.

Did someone say my name? About PAR-2 releases. We have a new comp coming up in the next month or two called "Mainspring Motion", the rough details of which are mentioned in my sig. We are currently waiting on the art and mastering. I've given up on promising exact dates though as things always change so fast. This time around we have a "time" theme and are focusing on bringing together good tracks from all different eras and subgenres of psy-trance. Outside of that, as Abasio mentioned, I'm working on a new album which is nearly finished. This time it's just a one disc more trance related affair. I love making downtempo stuff, but this time around I wanted to focus on trance as a study of incorporating all the stuff I learned while making the downtempo disc of the Long Walk into the trance side of things. Also this album is being made in the memory of Symphonics (ex. Phi) who died right as I was finishing Long Walk. I didn't have enough space to get a proper tribute on that album so its the focus of this. Symphonics was very much a trance-head production wise, so focusing on the trance side of things just seemed fitting this time around. We also have an album from Zekazy in the works. It was planned for this winter, but Zekazy takes his time writing and is constantly throwing out tracks for new ones so currently its on a "it will be released when it's ready" scheduling plan. We'll also have another comp next year I think, but that will be towards the end of the end and the concept hasn't come together yet for that yet. As for the cheap prices... that's easy, no one buys our cds.. In addition to that, the price thing has always been a sticking point for us since we started PAR-2 as we always thought CDs were too expensive. Hence our single disc release will always be $10 US including shipping anywhere in the world straight from us policy. We don't have much control over what other places charge for our cds however and particularly in Japan we have had problems with the shops refusing to sell the CDs at the prices we want them to be sold at ("too cheap, people with think there is something wrong with the CD" is the excuse we always get), but we try to keep the prices as realistic as we can afford for the customer. It hits us pretty hard at times money-wise, but we aren't a "for profit" label exactly anyways so... (shrugs). How's that for more info than you wanted about PAR-2?

I own it and, at the risk of ruining whatever little reputation I may have here, I will admit I actually rather enjoy it. Then again I seem to enjoy a lot of music that somehow isn't cool to enjoy so I guess all you can do is listen with an open mind and decide for yourself.

I'm in the mood for some totally simple. commercial, cheesy fluff trance so I decided upon... Ubar Tmar - Macrometasomakosmos

Yeah, I miust admit that after a couple years of listening I think Labrynth is my favorite Juno album too. Good stuff there.... Switched to the OOOD here.

This album was recently recommended to me... Actually listening to the new G.B.U. album. Unfortunately it isn't holding up as well as the new OOOD album, although the first track rocks.

The new OOOD album which was delivered about 20 minutes ago. After that, the new GBU album!

I think more often than not it's just a scapegoat. Its easy to notice and you don't have to give any real thought or substance to your opinion that XYZ is not a good track because you can just say "oh, its got a full on bassline" and everyone else will just nod in agreement. That said there are a lot of tracks where the bass is a problem. I think, however, that it's more coincidence that they have a "full on" bassline when really the problem is the bass is placed too far forward in the mix for my taste or the sound design on the bass patch is simply lacking. I think this is more often than not more of a problem than the bassline itself, especially seeing as how the "full on" bassline has been around since the goa days, the main differences being mix prominence and sound design. I personally have no problem with the full on bassline itself, however I tend to think its much more effective when you start with something simpler and funkier and then work up to a fevered pitch with a full on bassline. But like everything it is really case by case.

VA - Adapted Vision A little Misted Muppet action going on at the moment http://www.discogs.com/release/596189

I got it. Very good album. I prefer it to the newest Protoculture album which I bought at the same time.

Chromatone and Random - Empty Oaths... for like the 2000th time this week. Something about this track just does it for me.

I've gotten some vocal type stuff out of my Nord Lead as well. Also the Korg Legacy series has some vocal filtering type patching in the effects that work wonders. I seem to recall a Reaktor filter that did a similar thing as well, but can't recall the details at the moment. If you want the complete opposite end of less robot and more natural vocals the obvious choice would be any of the Yamaha Vocaloid synths.

Chromatone and Random - Empty Oaths

Since you brought mainstream music production into the conversation I'll point out that your use of the word "producer" is incorrect. The producer is technically the person in charge of the recording session and is more often than not, not the person making any music. The guys making and performing the music are the artists.... sorry this has just been a pet peeve of mine for ages. As for what is mastering, the above posts summed it up pretty well, but you can think of it as a good wax job on a car. On a fine car it will make it shine just that little bit more, but on a piece of junk... well, its still just a piece of junk and everyone can see that.

Not every cd needs to be revolutionary or ground breaking. In fact I'd argue that if every cd was, life would be pretty boring. But just because a CD doesn't completely change all the rules doesn't mean it can't be damn good. U-Turn doesn't really give me anything where I go "damn I've never heard something like that before", but it gives me a lot of moments where I go "damn that's good". In the end I don't really care what an artist does as long as they do it well, and I think Koxbox did it well here, elsewise it wouldn't keep getting into my CD player.

A second physical drive only for your audio programs may or maynot be overkill. The most imporant point that is that you go out and buy a second actual hard disc for the audio files drive. Creating partitions on one actual physical hard disc does nothing for you. My computer's kind of old, but I have one 40Gig hard disc for my C drive will Cubase and all my vsts and such installed on it. My second hard disc is a 250 gig one as my D drive that has all my samples, track folders and such and all audio gets recorded to and played back from this disc. With his set up I've never had any disc reading speed issue ever.

Shiva Chandra has been progressive since back in the days when progressive was called minimal.

Having two separate physical drives, one with your program data and one with the audio file data is a good idea. Doing this enables the audio data drive to focus purely on writing and reading the audio data and other drive deals with only the program aspects. Having two partitions on a single drive however negates any advantage at all as the reading aspect of the hardware has to constantly jump back and forth between partitions.

How about rephrasing the question into something you actually can ask with out completely slapping them in the face ? For example... Being a group with a very identifiable sound, how do you approach balancing the pressures of maintaining the original Astral Projection sound vs the pressures of progressing and updating it?

Hydraglyph are my favorite.

I'm only guessing but more likely they had the Japanese distribution deal in place and then something happened to the rest of the world's distrubution deal (or deals) and they had to find some new deal for it elsewhere. Just a guess though. We had a similar problem with our first release where a certain unnamed distribution company agreed to take several copies, but when we were ready to send them they stopped answering our emails for several weeks at a time and started dragging their feet until three months later they finally said "well actually we've changed our minds". The experience was bitter enough for me that I haven't bothered looking into other companies since and have been doing it all myself (which would pobably explain why we are losing money hand over fist... )