Jikkenteki

Yeah this has nothing to do with Twisted. Most Japanese distuributors (in all genres) insist on getting first release about 1 month before the international release. The reasons for this have to do with the fact that CD prices in Japan are nearly double that of America and many other parts of the world so often it is cheaper for a Japanese buyer to buy an imported version from overseas and get it mailed to Japan than buy the actual Japanese version (for example in trance terms a TIP World release in Tower Records usually costs about $28 USD compared to $13 at Saikosounds). With it coming out in Japan first all those "I must buy it right away" types don't have the option to get it overseas and thus buy it in country at the higher price. This is also a big reason why Japanese versions of many cds have bonus tracks, so to further convince the natives to buy local as it were. This is slowly changing, but you can still see this policy popping up a lot.

Just noticed this today. Possibly old news, but DiscoDSP (makers of the famous Discovery vst) are giving away a pretty nice sampler Here. Just started playing with it today but I'm finding it very useful for percussion lines and bang type sounds....

Another useful tip (not just for bass but for everything) is do the majority of you patch tweaking while the rest of the track is playing. Most of the time when you spend hours working on a patch solo'ed and get it "just right" you drop it into the mix to find that it doesn't fit at all. Working with the whole thing going from the start helps you get the sound you really need much quicker.

I've always suspected a large chunk of those samba samples came from sample cds as I have heard several of the key elements in different commercials and such for a few tv stations back in the US. It might be possible the track you heard is uses samples from the same source?

Living Colour - Visions

Interesting question, I've never really thought about whether I listen to different music in different seasons, but I seem to recall last winter I was listening to more rock and heavy type of stuff I used to listen to when I was younger than usual. Today it was bordering on snowing as well and for some reason I started listening to Korn for the first time in years as well. Maybe its the weather, or maybe its simply because I'm busy writing an album again and often when I am writing a lot I tend to not listen to trance as if I'm going to be inspired by music I'm listening too I'd rather pull in something from outside the genre so to speak. ????

My reservations about USB are due to my old USB audio interface and more recently (back in Sept) having my midi controllers moved around by other djs during the tail end of my live sets and having the connection fail on me and having to do the rest of the set via mouse (luckly it was the last track). I'd trust firewire before I would USB, but I've seen firewire run the range of experiences, from one artist having the table is gear was on collapse and the computer/soundcard not miss a beat (that was a Mac with a MOTU 828 I believe) to having the connections suddenly and regularly go out for no reason.

Personally I stay away from both firewire and usb based cards for laptops as I've seen to many get their connections knocked out with bumped cables (although I will say that firewire on Mac seems to be pretty stable). I personally prefer pcmcia based cards as they are much more stable. Depending on what you want it for there are some good options. If you want something easy and portable for playing out live with little fuss, etc, the Echo Indigo cards have been very good to me and have never failed me live. If you are looking for a more "studio" like card, I can also recommend the E-MU 1616M. The mixer takes a bit of getting used to, but its a good card with a wide range of contective possiblities and it also has been very stable for me. I think it is one of, if not the best card in its price range and it has a mess of good free software included as well. RME also has a few cards with PCMCIA adaptors as well. I haven't tried any of those but they are a quality company and if you have the money you probably wouldn't be disappointed.

Or its delayed and they haven't updated the website. Although such a thing would NEVER happen in the psy-trance industry!

In the Japanese towards the end it says their "..newest album is planned to be released world wide on Solstice in 2006"

Wizzy Noise - Sabotage Part 2 to get me in the mood for work...

Checking some masters for PAR-2's third release "Mainspring Motion" right now... Prosect makes some good stuff doesn't he...

Hmm, now you guys have got me going through my rock and metal folder on my hard drive now. The current play list features some of Rush's most influential (on me) songs. Namely Territories, Middletown Dream and Mystic Rhythms from the excellent "Power Windows", The Pass, Scars and Available Light from "Presto", and Bravado from "Roll The Bones". Mystic Rhythms, Territories and Scars in particular have had a huge influence on how I approach percussion. Actually a thread about how certain non-electronic tracks have influenced various artists in certains would make for an interesting discussion I think....

Good song. That is a regular in my play list of songs I play on guitar in a Floyd marathon I often play just for fun and to generally keep my skills up a since I don't play as much as I used to. It's usually right after Shine On You Crazy Diamond (the first half) and then goes straight into Keep Talking before going off into Comfortably Numb and Run Like Hell. Usually after that I'm warmed up enough and the Dream Theater cds come out... lol Sepultura, that's brings back some memories (another band that we used to cover back in my younger angst band days). I saw them and Fear Factory on tour on Chaos A.D. tour. actually that show ended up being released as the live show on the Blood Rooted CD that.

Could be worse, could be the new N'Sync album or something....

The Misted Muppet - The Missing Sun.... great stuff

Corona - Photosphere.... one of several new arrivals yesterday.

I agree. Supervisor, minus a couple choice tracks wiped the floor with C.V.'s trance side.

The new Eskimo album.... Yeah I know its not cool to listen to Eskimo, yadda yadda yadda, but I like it, (and a lot of other music I probably shouldn't like either)... Some people like this kind of stuff when the time is right, get over it. I especially like how he's taking a lot of sounds for other banging forms of dance music and adding it to the far too stagnant (in my opinion) full-on genre. Its not perrfect by any means, but for what it is, it is damn good and I have a lot of respect for any artist that has his own instantly recognizable sound.

Don't worry, the next album won't be hip-hop. The next one will be all trance this time around, but those who like my brand "journey tracks" (trademark: Death Posture) will possibly be happy to know I'm 52 minutes finished with the album spread over 3 tracks (one of which is over 30 minutes long). Probably two more tracks and its finished, although I'm working on a remix for someone else at the moment. As for what albums I want to get, I forgot to order the Ace Venture compiled Comp on Hommega so that will be next on my buy list.

Today's delivery included... Corona - Photosphere CD Various Artists - Adapted Vision CD Various Artists - Dexterity In Motion CD Various Artists - Urantia Rising CD Wizzy Noise - Punk City - The Single 2xCD Wizzy Noise - Sabotage Part II CD 1200 Micrograms - Remixed LP Jocid - From Meatware To Hardware CD Eskimo - Balloonatic Part 2 CD Various Artists - Far East Technology CD A large part of this order was getting all the Sanskara releases I didn't have. I also had a promo of Far East Technology, but wanted an original so....

That was just the working title, it's been officially changed to "Da Next Walk Homez"

Actually listening to it again it seems only a couple of tracks have the hip-hop thing going on. It was actually better than I remembered it, although the Save The Robot stuff was still better...

There is no single solution. Different pieces of music require different tools. What might be perfect for one track might be the completely wrong choice for another.

Most people use samples for kicks, either self-made or from other sources. Isratrance's music production forum has links somewhere to a collection of shared kicks various people there made that will give you damn near more kicks than you'd ever need (check the mother of all kicks thread). Making your own kicks by various means is a good idea, if only to get your head around some of the ways to do it (ex: search for Infected Mushroom's kick tutorial on their site), however a lot of the artists I've talked to seem to eventually reach a point there they have so many kicks that it becomes a matter of just finding the right one and layering, pitch adjusting, eq'ing and compressing it to perfection rather than making new ones (for example, I have about 800 kicks on my hard drive now. Chances are the kick or the elements for the kick I need are probably already there somewhere....) Ah the hell with it. This zip is from the above mentioned sharing project. Since it was a publicly shared thing there I can't see anyone complaining about it being hosted here for a bit. Most of the kicks are from there but a few other samples and stuff seem to have floated into the folder over time as well (Such as the free samples Nano Records had on their site). http://www.par-2.com/choons/Kick.zip