Otto Matta

Holy crap, I can't believe Kenneth Abildgaard just posted here today. The Colorbox album is still in my top-5 all-time fave psy albums. Yay. I feel like a little girl.

Good stuff, man. Thanks. A PM is on its way.

Maybe you could attach two samplers to a vocoder, and turn up the vocoder at the point of blending so that at least the voices sound similar to each other. Still, it sounds like something too complex for traditional software.

Ka-Sol Samples @ Suntrip Try not to ejaculate on your keyboard.

Hehe. I agree. I'm always hyper-productive at the beginning and the end of relationships.

Definitely the Ka-Sol album. I honestly believe this is going to be the best album to hit our genre in at least five years. I'm also curious about the geomagnetic.tv releases. I also need a copy of Stereopark and Broken Toy.

Great advice! I never thought about, for instance, routing some of the Redrum drums through the Malstrom. Can you route them through the Subtractor, too? Also, do you find many advantages - related to the discussion - in using CV/Gate routing? And yeah, Cubase is next on my purchase list. What would you say the advantages are to an external analog mixing desk?

Yeah, I think that's why lots of people still enjoy the analog and vinyl sounds, because they have the capacity for warmth while still being synthetic. It speaks to the human as well as the robot in us. The first software track I made a couple months ago shortly after purchasing Reason I feel is the most successful simply because I was "winging it" with the production. The more I learned about production the more sterile my work got. I wish there was a process of unlearning a lot of that stuff. Or perhaps if I can get to the point where I know the art of production so well that I can at least emulate the organic aesthetic then I would be happy. I'm currently at a very awkward middle state. Which means I don't really have any good advice. I watched Logan's Run last weekend which was made in 1975 and has an analog synth soundtrack. I paid very close attention to it to see what it was about that sound that was so organic. My assumption was that it was maybe a lot of reverb, but when I listened closely there really wasn't much reverb on the sounds. I wouldn't know how to emulate it, that deep, warm, wobbly sound. I think one of the reasons Boards of Canada is so popular is because they have been able to create a warm, analog, yet very synthetic and still accessible sound in their music. They were able to find the balance. Isan does the same thing. If you listen closely to the first track on Meet Next Life, for instance, you can hear that magical balance. Another great example is Casino Versus Japan. One trick I use to give a sound warmth is to turn up the noise a little, add some portamento, detune poly sounds, and maybe a little vibrato. It could be the the difference lies in small effects that the ear notices, but not the brain.

I like how the article starts off talking about a later Talk Talk album. Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock are both truly great albums, and when he talks about all the extra, "natural" noises in them I know exactly what he's talking about. And yes, our music, especially electronic stuff, tends to lack that natural aesthetic. Psytrance especially, at least in my own collection, is a major culprit of overly compressed and overly sterile music. Which is why, in part, I really enjoy the Schlabbaduerst sound, as they don't seem to over-produce their work. There's still some rawness there that I appreciate a lot. In my own work, which is not trance but more IDM/electronica, it has become a goal to make it as organic as possible. Not an easy feat. Especially since there are lots of ways to make music organic, but hard to actually achieve a good balance with it. For instance, I would call the majority of Autechre's work organic, even though it's highly synthetic. It's like an old pinball machine where the score is so high it eventually goes back to 0. But do I like their later work? No. I appreciate it, but I don't like to listen to it, and that's a problem. I want to make listenable music. They peaked in the middle somewhere, I believe. So I'm working on it, and I very much appreciate that article. Thanks.

It depends on the amount of inspiration I have. When I'm truly manic about it, I do it every spare moment I have. Usually, though, the bulk of it is done at night, from about midnight to sunrise.

I find I go through phases of productivity and non-productivity with music-making, and I want to be more consistent. I mean, I really have an urge to write some stuff, but somehow my brain lacks the drive. I hate having to wait for fits of manic inspiration to write. Any tips for speeding up the process? I'm thinking my diet might have something to do with it, so I'm going to try and start eating better. Also, I'm going to start drinking more water than I do. Perhaps my brain needs more nourishment. Opinions?

I'm no expert, but what comes to mind is maybe some resonance combined with some flanger and then reverb.

Here's one of those dubious Children reviews. Anyway, I agree. The album still really holds up as a classic in the genre. One of my top 5, for sure.

Now that's some stuff I want to hear.

The way I started (with software) was downloading the trial version Fruity Loops (FL Studio). It's a surprisingly powerful program. The only problem with the trial version is that you can't save your work, although you can export the file as audio when you're done with the song - but you can't turn off your computer until the song is done! Anyway, it's a simplified version of the larger programs out there, and in some cases people prefer it. Might be a good place to start. It's not that expensive, either, to buy the basic setup.

I really enjoyed working with FL Studio. It's a very simple program to use, and you still get some pretty cool sounds out of it. But upgrading to Reason has been great - there's more complexity, but the complexity is in order to create more subtlety and richness. It really depends on what kind of music you're making, I guess, but I'm in love with Reason and can't imagine ever going back to FL Studio. I'll probably feel that way about Reason after I get SX.

I like the cables, too. Kryptum - Can you tell me what you're using those CV/Gate cables for? I still haven't really experimented with them.

Hey Daze. That's some serious madness you got there for sure. Maybe a little too much madness for my personal taste, but that's a bias. And if it's forest music, it certainly doesn't sound like a forest on this planet! More like a forest made of strange organic metal alloys on some other, alien planet. Lots of really cool sounds, and yeah, the bongo part is cool. To be biased again, I think it's important for a track to have something for the ear and mind to cling to, something to remember after the track is over, something like a catchy vocal in pop music that gets stuck in the head, that makes a person want to listen to the song again. I missing that here. It doesn't have to be a melody necessarily. I don't know exactly how to describe it. Your track has a lot of cool technical stuff going on that other electronic musicians can certainly appreciate, but not quite enough for the average listener to take away from it and lure them back. And as far as the forest thing is concerned, I think it could use a little more thickness, if you know what I mean. Still, very impressive from a technical perspective. Keep 'em comin'.

I liked your track, VS. It's understated and restrained yet still punchy and tight. I personally like more melodies, but your structure and flow are convincing anyway. It's sculptural and I appreciate that. I also like how the last minute and a half build. If I had some criticisms, it's a couple minutes too short at the moment, and maybe a little fast, but that's about it. Nice work.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone. My personal list is comprised of those memorable experiences I've had with albums that I listened to once, was thoroughly disgusted by, and literally threw in the garbage. There haven't been many, so my list is precise. I could also throw in Spiritual Healing and Quirk's Machina Electra and Fornax Chemica, but that would make my list seven items. I still have and like that Ishq album, though. Matt's sound is unique and almost always beautiful to me.

Well, I personally think a lot of his stuff is overrated if not poor, but it's certainly not bottom material.

I agree. That was disappointing. I wouldn't put it in the bottom five, though. Here are some: Skazi - Storm Son Kite - Perspectives of... XV Kilist - XV Kilist Hara Gobi - Party Junkies Kopsses - Kopsses

Hmmm...MTIFOTBOL. I think that could catch on. MTIFOTBOL! Empty football?

Sqwark is a badass track. That's all I've heard of ECT. But it's still badass.

I agree to an extent that some of the older stuff doesn't hold up over time. It seems to me this has a lot to do with advances in technology, however, rather than lack of artistic talent. I find it difficult to listen to a lot of older Total Eclipse, for instance, not because their music isn't innovative, but because their sound is somewhat thin compared to newer productions. And I have to admit that it's frustrating and sad to not be able to enjoy older music like I once did. However, there are some old albums that have held up really well. Astral Projection's Trust in Trance is a great example.