Psychrobatic

Definitely do! The more people showing psytrance mixing doesn't have to be boring, the better. The change starts in us (?)

I agree on everything. There's no unreleased stuff, only the producers have their own unreleased tracks that they can use during a show. That's fine. Also, it's fine that producers have to get money from live performance. Not a problem at all. Now, good mixing and flow/crowd connection? Why doesn't that happen? There's no impediment to have that. It doesn't matter if you are just a dj playing other's people tracks or a producer, you should be delivering a good flowing set to the crowd. I'll say it again, I don't understand why this doesn't happen on the psytrance scene, where it's much more important to have a good flow and a connection to the crowd than in any other genre, in my opinion. Anyway, it is what it is.

Ok, but one thing is to know what a DJs does, beatchmating, phrasing, etc... and another thing is to have some common sense. If you listen to psytrance, you're used to its patterns, your body is used to those patterns when you're on the dancefloor. If you don't feel something weird when there's an awful trainwrecking going on... or the phrasing is not right and the drop came way before than it should... then why are you listening and dancing to psyTRANCE music, if you cannot connect to it, jump into the journy this music allows? You're better off listening to some trap. Jokes aside, no offense but one doesn't need to be a dj to feel that something is not right. But again, if Goa Gil has so many fans, then I guess nobody really cares and we could just set Spotify with 5s crossfade and we should be good to go. Regarding how I mix, it's not hard at all, honestly. Anybody interested in mixing psytrance could learn it in a matter of weeks. I'm not a prodigy or highly skilled. I just care to deliver a good set as a dj. I'd love this to change someday. Faith is the last thing you lose. Thank you all for contributing to this topic.

Yeah, well, that's why I don't consider him an answer to my original question. But again, I'm not sure if people that don't mix, actually feel how bad that sounds. I know I did 10 years ago when I didn't know a thing about DJing, but there's indeed people that can't noticed or don't care... To me such a bad mix is a total flow breaker. It always was to me. I mean, that was the reason why I started mixing in the first place. I couldn't believe it was so hard to come up with some good transitions in psytrance.

Are you having a bad day at work again? Chill out dude. Again, those DJs you mentioned are not pure psytrance DJs, they mix several genres like techno, house, tech-trance, etc. and are well known because of those genres, where the DJ is indeed known for its work. I couldn't care less about being famous, I have my gigs and I'm happy with that. I just want the scene to evolve and leave that idea that psytrance is not meant to be mixed more than just intro-outro behind.

Yes, that's true. A track is usually a 7 minute journey itself and anybody can get a a controller and some DJ software and mix one track's into onto another's outro and so on. Thus creating several 7-minute journeys and not a single long one. I do not think the genre is what limits DJs to do more stuff. My philosophy is exactly that, the tracks are tools, and not always the entire track, sometimes just some part of it. I don't see a whole track as a the minimum unit that builds my sets. And by doing that, I think there are great things that can be achieved. The most easy example I can say is skipping the breakdowns. In the +10 years I've been in the scene, if I have to single out what I think people can't stand of a set is having a break every 3 minutes (which is usually what happens in most psytrance and full-on tracks, a break in the middle, sometimes two breaks). I think there was a thread in this forum where someone was asking "what makes a good set for you?" and the "avoid having a break every 3 minutes" got many points. I can't find it now though. To me, the idea of creating a set is about extending those different parts of a track, like making a 1 hour track with parts of different tracks. Like, extending the peak high energy part, which usually on a single track, it lasts about 16 to 32 bars (which at 145bpm is just about 30-40s at best). Then right after that, the outro where the tracks starts to come down and where the DJ will usually mix the next track's bassline drop, usually with a bass-swap. And then we're starting over again, with a new track. But, if you mix a build-up there instead, you can extend that peak and keep the energy high for more than 30s. So yeah, I'm a strongly believer that for some reason, mixing psytrance has not evolved as much as other genres did. And finally, yeah, producing is hard and takes a lot of time. It's not for everybody certainly. I've tried it too. You have to enjoy spending days in front of the computer.

Yes, Boom Shankar is one I like. Well, the only reason his live was perfectly on point is because it was pre-mixed in the studio, nothing live at all. Obviously it will sound better than a DJ set. But let's agreed that there's nothing live on that, certainly no more live than a pure DJ set. I also agree that bad mixing is kind of the tradition in psytrance, I've seen Goa Gil pressing stop/play on DAT players 10 years ago in Argentina. But he's "the father of psytrance" so we cannot say anything to him... I wish this "tradition" would end at some point. I don't think psytrance is extremely hard to mix. There are some sub-genres more difficult than others (old-school goa is hard), but is no more difficult than a pure trance mix... And certain sub-genres allows for more creative mixing than just mixing intros into outros... I know this is not the DJ Promotion forum, but if you head to my Youtube channel you'll find videos showing how I think there's a lot of stuff to do while mixing psytrance: https://www.youtube.com/c/psychrobatic I don't know, I just think a good psy set should keep the flow going, even if the tracks are not the most amazing or the latest unreleased or ultra head-bangers...

Those are trance djs... They often play something usually called "Psy Tech-Trance" a lot of people don't consider psychedelic trance. I meant Goa Gil is more than a DJ not because of his productions, but because he was there when the whole psytrance scene started to become something. The others you mentioned... I have no clue who they are. But googling them around a bit, they mostly don't seem to play psytrance at all... and I'm guessing they are not popular enough to play in Ozora, Boom, Universo Parallelo, etc...

I knew this one would come up, I should have include that exception. You know Goa GIl is not just a DJ.

In pretty much every other genre of electronic music there is people that got very popular because of their skills as a DJ. This doesn't seem to be the case in the psy scene (name one famous DJ that got his fame because of his DJ sets and not his productions). This is something that after more than 10 years in the scene I still don't understand. To me, a good set is much more important in psytrance than in any other genre (where DJs can just cut and drop the current mainstream hit and everybody will be happy). Psytrance is about creating a story, taking the crowd into a journey. And, in my opinion, that can only be done with proper technical skills, good track selection and the ability to read the crowd. When I'm part of the crowd and I'm really into the playing track, really into, I always get disconnected by a choppy or off transition. Like I feel I'm getting deeper in trance and suddenly somebody pulls me out and now we're starting all over again with a new track. This happened to me in most parties, every 5 minutes when the DJ is mixing the next track in. This is the reason why I started mixing in the first place. The best parties I experienced where 10 years ago. Outdoor events (not huge) where everybody was on their own, dancing and feeling the music. Not everybody was facing the DJ as he was some kind of god. A good psytrance DJ should pass unnoticed in my opinion (and I say this as a DJ myself). But it seems like psytrance is getting more and more similar to the mainstream EDM genres where everybody is idolizing the person standing behind the decks, even is he's just waving his hands while the pre-recorded set is playing on the computer (but let's not get into this topic now...). Am I alone on this? Do you guys not care at all how the set is build and mixed? Are you just happy with a pre-recorded set and a guy waving his hands for the entire time? And please, don't get me wrong, producing psytrance is extremely hard and I value the work of the producers that spend whole days working on them. I'd just like that when I go to an event I get to experience a good well built set and not just a a showcase of the producer's latest tracks without any coherence.

Like this:

You may have a point there mate, but I've heard lots of "live sets" in which there are no smooth transitions, just basic intro/outro fading. Anyway I'd like djs to put much effort into their mixing. I truly believe a solid and well mixed dj set can be really amazing. I'll keep doing my thing, maybe someday this will change.

Yeah, it's a lot harder with goa, a lot of synths layers. But it's possible with full on and psytrance if you do it properly!

Yes, I'm not saying all psytrance DJs are like taht. There are some really good DJ acts with really good mixing techniques and that you can tell they are into it. Anyway, I believe is a matter of time and new generations. Goa Gil doesn't mix, I've seen him live and he plays with 2 DATs and just press play in the other when the playing track ends. But it's ok, I'm not asking him to evolve and get used to new technology. --- What about the "Live acts"? I guess you already know why I'm using quotes. I've seen many "live acts" that has less live that a DJ set. Most of them have a pre-recorded mixed set (and not very well mixed, just plain fade in/out or filter in/out) of their tracks and they just play with the EQs and/or filters. Those who doesn't play a pre-recorded set just do what I like to call "Producer Set" (just like a plain DJ Set where the DJ happens to be a producer and he's mixing his own tracks). It's pretty hard to find really good live acts, with producers using Ableton Live for example to remix and re-edit his tracks while adding synth loops live and stuff. Nowadays the definition of "Live Act" to me is just a producer showing his tracks, with bare mixing (if none at all) and nothing really Live. I don't know about average crowd, maybe they don't know or they don't care but I do. I don't like to be lied in my face when I'm paying for a Live Act and I'm getting a pre-recorded set... What's your thoughts on this?

So I'm not the only one that have thought about that then. Again, I'm not saying I have the truth and my mixing is perfect, I'm just experimenting. Why do you think psytrance DJs haven't evolved the same way DJs from other genres have? Psytrance scene is so producer-driven, the only thing that matters are the producers. Nobody seem to care how a DJ set is built and mixed, most of them just do basic fade in/out at the end, or mix in the breaks. Why's that? Am I crazy for thinking that psytrance should be mixed very smoothly, without making too obvious when the transition is happening? I mean, when I'm the crowd and I'm dancing, connected to the music... I always get distracted when I hear the awful/obvious change of track. It should be a continuos sound, a long trip, not lot of mini-trips of 6 minutes right? Again, is this crazy thinking? I'd like to keep discussing about this if you're interested. Haven't found any other forum/community that's interested in this subject.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. - Yes, it's only useful if you have tracks that are compatible. - Yes, I can perform this live and have done it. Regarding the track selection, I've pre-selected the tracks to record that video but I have a tagging system (plus my memory =P) that allows me to know which tracks work well together. So if I'm playing Track X I have several options to mashup with. - For that particular video yeah, I don't have time to do anything else but to use the controller and help my memory by looking at the waveforms. - Yes, there are some parts I didn't like how it sounded, and it has a few details like I said in the video description but honestly I prefer a DJ that tries to be creative and makes some mistakes than the boring "cut and drop" that doesn't do anything. - But it has some advantages: you can create build-ups on the fly and you can decide where you want to throw a break. If you're mixing one track after the another, then you're having a break every 3 minutes (most progressive and full-on tracks have 2 breaks and lasts aprox 7 min). I don't think that's good for the crowd. The DJ needs to decide when to build-up and explode, when to break and lower the energy, etc. This video is over-exaggerated, I mean, I don't play a 1 hour live dj set like that, but I just can't do the "play and wait for 5 minutes to mix the next track", It just too boring to me. My objective with that video was to show that psytrance can be MIXED in creative and interesting ways. As you may know, most psytrance DJs haven't evolved with technology, haven't really taking advantage of it, they are stuck on mixing like if they were still doing it on vinyl. While on the other hand, you can see lots of DJs from other genres that do lots of crazy mashups, mixing techniques, looping, cue-juggling and anything they can think of. But the psytrance DJ only mix 2 tracks for a couple of seconds, swaps the bass and it's done (and that's the best case scenario, others don't even touch the EQs, they just slam the crossfader to the other side and that's it...) I'm not saying my mixing is perfect, not even close. I'm just giving my contribution and hoping djs would try to evolve in some way. By the way, I have some traditional mixes in my Soundcloud/Mixcloud/Youtube, check them out if you want. Again, thanks for the feedback!

Hey there, wanted to share how I mix psytrance. My approach is different than the traditional way of mixing one track into another linearly. It's more like a mashup, where I try to layer two or more tracks at the same time and also I get to decide when to create a build-up, when to throw a break, etc. Hope you like it and I'd like to see more psy djs going crazy in the mix, instead of the same old boring intro/outro transition. Thank you, Namaste!

Psychrobatic is Emiliano, an obsessive of psytrance mixing. Trying to move forward and create nonstop sets that won't interrupt people's trance during the mixing. He's all about seamless and musical transitions. Looking for new and creative ways of mixing tracks, adding loops and samples live. He wants to reivindicate the figure of the psytrance DJ. His desire is to listen to new and nice sounding sets from DJs all over the world. Psytrance DJing is so backward in comparison to other genres and that's it not because the style make it impossible. Hoping he would find friends with the same interest along the way. ► Listen to him: https://soundcloud.com/psychrobatic ► Contact him and be in touch: http://facebook.com/psychrobatic ► Watch him and learn with his tutorials: http://youtube.com/user/Psychrobatic Thanks! Peace.