Veracohr

That sounds like a pretty weird use of ducking. Usually one might duck a bass track with a kick track (so that the bass lowers in volume when the kick hits) but not usually the entire track. Hell, just putting a compressor on the entire mix will do that for you, if the bass and kick are high enough in level. There are a couple better methods. One is to write your song so that each instrument occupies it's own frequency space. I think this is somewhat less common in psytrance, so another method is to EQ each track to occupy it's own frequency space. So you listen to your kick sound and determine where it's fundamental frequency lies (using a parametric boost if needed to find the right frequency), and then make sure that no other instrument has an abundance of energy in that range. Also do the same with the bass, although the frequency range should be larger unless you have a boring one-note bass line. Sometimes, this should be done for all sounds, so that all sounds in a song occupy a unique frequency space, but in other songs frequency masking of mid-high frequency sounds can be a happy accident. I think this "happy accident" situation can happen more in psytrance than in something like rock or metal, where separation of instruments tends to be more important. It all depends on the song.

Are you talking about the "Stalker" movie by the director of "Solaris"? I just saw that when I was going through Netflix and thought about renting it. I just saw "Solaris".

I loved the first book, and I think the second. I started losing interest later on, and I think I stopped reading around the middle of the fourth book, "God Emperor of Dune". I haven't read it, but it does seem to be claiming a place as a modern classic. I think I should read it. Definitely a must-read for anyone interested in the psychological and/or metaphysical realms. One of my all-time favorite books. Not overly-heavy, but full of emotion at the same time. The sequels are also good, but in order of decreasing quality. Orson Scott Card is a great author, I've read a fair amount of his books. He has a stand-alone book "Wyrms", very good, that is about dragons (which I like). I also like his Homecoming series, which is basically about the journey of humans back to Earth from the world they fled to after they destroyed Earth so much they could no longer live there. He's a great writer, but my one criticism is that he often lets religion become too important in his books. I understand, since he is a religious person himself, but the last couple books of the Ender series, and pretty much the entire Homecoming series, are in my opinion way too inundated with religion. I like some sci-fi, but a lot of it I don't like because it seems to have no feeling or human character. Like the authors come up with interesting general plots, but don't have the insight into humanity to make the plots truly interesting on a personal level. That's why I like fantasy so much, because fantasy authors tend to incorporate more actual human emotion and human psychology into their characters. In general.

If the volume of the helicopter sound is pushing the mix into clipping, it would cause distortion which could mask other sounds, but not really push them down in level. That would require some kind of compression. I don't think it's out of the question for someone inexperienced in music production to read somewhere on teh interwebz from someone else inexperienced in music production that you should compress a mix, so they just pop a compressor on the mix bus by default.

I know a fair amount about production, a little less about music theory, but regardless I am able to turn off my analytical mind when I want and just enjoy the music. When I was in school for audio production I had a class about audio for film and video. The instructor said (joking) that it was his goal for everyone in the class to never be able to enjoy a movie again. The inference being that once you know how all the sounds are made in a movie, you would always after be thinking about the sounds whenever you watched a movie. I can do that if I want, but I can also turn that part of my brain off and just enjoy the music as a listener. It's easier for me to do that when the music is good, somewhat less easy when I don't like the music. And then sometimes I get so caught on a certain sound, I start trying to think of how they made that sound, and I completely abandon listening to the music because I'm trying to figure out how they made that sound.

"The Nexus" isn't bad, but honestly I like the other songs on the page a lot more.

Maybe you could explain a little more how you created the sound. Is it a sample of an actual helicopter, or some sort of synth patch with a helicopter-like sound?

I'm pretty curious to know if you have a compressor on the mix, because I don't know any other reason why everything else would lower in volume when the big helicopter comes in. Distortion, yes, but level changes would be weird without some kind of compression going on. In my opinion, you shouldn't strap a compressor on the mix until you're done writing and mixing. Full-band mix compression really shouldn't happen until the mastering stage.

Nice title. It's been a while since I've read that series.

For such a short book, that one really had the most impact on my life of any book I've ever read. I've read a lot in the spiritual/religious/realm of consciousness vein, but none have been as influential as Siddhartha. I have DMT: The Spirit Molecule, and enjoyed it. How is this one? At the moment, I'm reading Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan, book 9 of the Wheel of Time series. I read this series at least once a year. Next up on the plate are South of no North by Charles Bukowski, a book lent to me by a friend who assures me I'll like it. We'll see. I don't remember what she said it is about. Also on the plate are a couple of electronic circuit design books, one about op-amp designs and one about filter designs. Not quite as exciting, but necessary. I also was just thinking yesterday that it's been too long since I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

Low frequencies have a lot more power than higher frequencies for the same perceived loudness. If everything else got distorted and lower in volume, it sounds like you've maybe got a compressor on the mix, and the low frequencies from the helicopter sound were doing the wacky on it. Put a high-pass filter on the helicopter.

It's useful to have a mixer so you can have a good volume control. I have a little Soundcraft COMPACT 4, which was about $150.

Paul Van Dyk's 45 RPM - 1994 TIP Records Yellow Compilation - 1994 Goa Vibes 2 - 1995 Hallucinogen's Twisted - 1995 That's not to say I got any of these when they were new. I've had 45 RPM the longest, around 10 years. The Yellow Compilation I've had less than a year.

Excellent!

It's true they don't extend as low as some monitors, but there's a few things to consider: 1. Do you really need them to? Are you going to be making bowel-shaking basslines in the line of hip hop or drum & bass? If not, you probably don't need frequencies that low in your music, so you'd be better off filtering them out anyway for a cleaner mix. The A7's are nearfield monitors; nearfields aren't intended to be your all-encompassing magical monitors. If you want extended low frequency reproduction, you have to step up to midfield or main monitors, like ADAM's S series, for quite a bit more money. You should always be checking your mix on multiple playback systems. I have a pair of headphones that are good for checking low frequencies. 2. Unless you've spent thousands of dollars on room construction and/or acoustic treatment for your studio, your room will likely do more damage to the low frequencies that are played back than the monitors. Low frequency reflections are not super-easy to control, especially not without knowledge. 3. The A7's may not extend as low as other monitors of the same size, but what they reproduce in the lowest octave is often better than other monitors, because of a good woofer design. The woofers are made of a carbon composite material, as opposed to the paper most monitors woofers are made from. Paper woofers distort more easily on low frequencies, so with ADAM monitors you have tighter and more accurate low end. That last one was me repeating what was told to me when I asked the exact same question at Harmony Central before I bought mine. And I found it to be absolutely true. There's still argument about the effect (or lack thereof) of frequencies higher than 20kHz. Some believe as needle ninja's post, others say "no, there's absolutely no perception of frequencies above 20kHz directly or indirectly". And for that matter, even 20kHz is too high for some to hear. I'm not really sure where my opinion lies, I don't know enough to really make a decision. So either the ADAM engineers believe frequencies above 20kHz DO play a part in our perception of sound, or they use it as a marketing point for those who do believe. Also, if you're using a sample rate of 44.1kHz, you're limited to frequencies up to 22.05kHz. Although I think the anti-aliasing lowpass filter is even lower than that, I just can't remember exactly where right now. So anything above that requires a higher sample rate. I've never looked into it, but I'd be surprised if many hardware synths could produce frequencies higher than that; there are physical limitations of frequency with circuits, and to stretch those limitations much would probably make synths prohibitively expensive.

Well sure, there's more useful things to bend than a Speak N Spell, but since that was the topic...

Don't worry about it, you don't really need to know as much as I explained. Just know that balanced=less noise. I love my A7's! I haven't really heard much else in the same range, though. When I got them, I think I compared them to a pair of Dynaudio's in the same price range, but I pretty much went in with the intention of getting the A7's, so I'm sure I didn't really give them the listen they probably deserve. Before that, it had been years since I'd heard anything better than my old Alesis monitors, so I didn't really have a good frame of reference. But yeah, I'm satisfied with them. I wouldn't be surprised if, sometime in the future when I can upgrade, I stay with ADAM.

What's EQ panning?

RCA connections are inherently unbalanced. A balanced signal requires three wires: two for the signal (180 degrees out of phase with each other) and one neutral. Unbalanced signals only require two wires: one for the signal and one neutral. XLR connections, since they have three wires, can be used for either one-channel balanced signals (like the input to the A7's), or two channels of unbalanced signals. Balanced connections are better for reducing RFI and other externally-produced noise in the signal. That's the only purpose. Noise that is introduced into the signal during transmission will be the same across both signals. A balanced input goes into a differential amp, which amplifies the difference between two signals. Since the two signals being transmitted are 180 degrees out of phase (one swings up while the other swings down, exactly opposite of each other), the output of the differential amp will be the original signal (the difference between the two opposite signals), but the noise introduced during transmission will be in phase in both of the signals, so it is NOT amplified. This is why one of the specs you will see associated with amplifiers is CMRR, Common Mode Rejection Ratio. It's a ratio of how much a differential amp will amplify the difference to the amount it amplifies a common signal. If you have a short run from your mixer or converter to the monitors, it probably won't be a problem.

The Audiophile USB has RCA analog outputs, right? The A7's have an RCA input (that's the unbalanced input), so you're good to go. The Audiophile USB has DAC's, that's why there's analog outputs.

Here's another circuit-bent Speak and Spell:

I just picked that up last year.

Look up Freq Mastering. I had both my albums mastered there, and he's a nice guy and good at mastering. Right in downtown Portland.

Well, that 'line' is completely subjective. Wherever I draw it doesn't really have any relation to where someone else might draw it. And no, I haven't noticed the intro thing. Although now that you mention it, I'll probably start listening for it and become annoyed. And honestly, where I draw that line varies depending on the day and my mood. I suppose I'd have to hear it to form an opinion, but it sounds like the same thing I'm talking about with goa, so I'd probably call it a cliché.

Hey, where are you in the NW?