antic604

It seems to work on Bandcamp quite well:

Tempting! Does that work on their Bandcamp page or ultimae.com store (or both)?

Ok, so if we're sharing our experience, I'll chime in with what I'm doing in the track I work on: - a base oscillator for my bassline is a saw wave, with 12dB low-pass, with both filter & resonance almost at zero; - as an accent on certain notes, I'm enabling a 2nd oscillator: a pulse wave with 24dB low-pass & same filter settings, but I'm still considering out on its octave (currently it's the same as base osc), PWM and detune; - filter and volume envelopes are the same: minimal attack, approx. 500ms decay (not a machine-gun bass obviously...), no sustain; - the sound is mono, with enabled glide / portamento for overlapping notes; - I side-chain it with a kick, using a compressor; - I add a stereo delay, hi-passing the source with different - and actually moving in time with LFO - cut-offs for left & right ear, with different delay times as well; - there's an 8-band EQ added on top, to notch some of the very low frequencies, low/mid frequencies and also to limit the highest frequencies in case I'd want to open the filter / resonance on the bass later in the track I'll post a sample in the evening

Amen to the above. Please carry on with tips & tricks and I'll contribute when I have something useful to say

Well, the basslines of Imba or Ticon (to stick with my examples) are the opposite of "groovy" for me (they're only rhythmical), so maybe it's a matter of preference and definition. To again refer to my dub vs. Jamiroquai example: the bass in the former is just the droning background and foundation, in the latter it's the equally important musical element. I tend to prefer my basses in the latter category. Sure, that's true but then even the best producers always advice to listen to your stuff on variety of devices: speakers, headphones, car, poorly compressed mp3, etc. Also, in my case, I don't ever aspire for my music to be listened by other people in their rooms let alone on a big sound system, so maybe that's why I don't care Agree if you're talking about wide psytrance world, covering the whole range from: suomi, through forest, goa, full-on, prog and ending with dark / tech. But within those sub-genres, I think we're much more "standardised" than we ever were.

Sorry for the rant above Actually the thoughts that triggered it was this Ableton Live tutorial from Mr Bill - who does great, experimental music - on how to "make psytrance": In 8th second of 21+ minutes-long video he says "it's actually pretty easy" and proceeds to make the typical machine-gun KBBB pattern with some swooshy effects track on top. Well, duh?!? Out of maybe 20+ similar videos I saw, at least 17-18 were just like it. Apparently that's what psytrance is sounding like for people. And I can't blame them considering we focus so much on kick+bassline

Heh, reading all that I feel like my own approach goes against the rules. But maybe that's because I actually don't like those surgically sculpted, very controlled and precise basslines in Imba's or Ticon's albums (to refer to more recent releases). They just sound cold to me and don't fit with otherwise warm music (they're fine in dark/tech styles, though). I like there to be some grit, some unpredictability, some chaos even in my basslines. Therefore - once I'm ready to show my new stuff, that is - you'll see that I apply effects and modulations to my basslines, because I like them to be "alive". I think my take is more akin to how old-school goa/psy-trance was created in mid-90's, with bass being an equally important instrument, complementing the rest of the arrangement not only in terms of occupied frequencies, but also musically. Whereas nowadays it is being often relegated to function as a pulsating backbone of the track, sort of like a second kick drum. The discussion I see on various forums on e.g. key of the bassline, phase of the oscillator, notching certain frequencies, etc. are interesting and all, but it's like pianists or guitarists discussing how long their nails should be cut to play better. Sure, I see it can be important - especially in the world of broad EDM - but it will not make or break your music. If there ever was a tune (or even genre - e.g. dubstep) made popular / famous because of it's bassline, it was PRECISELY because it was doing something different and against the "rules". My point is, I obviously try to take all above things into consideration, but I try to get my bassline out of the sight as soon as possible. Once it's functional I try to move to others - IMO more important - parts and I can always come back to it, fiddle with presets, effects & modulations. I'm really fed up with this obsession of goa/psy-trance producers with basslines, because they spend dozens of hours talking on forums about it, in the end trying to replicate the same(ish) sound over and over... It's like jungle music years ago all having to use the same amen break loop - it's admittedly awesome (I almost cried from nostalgia when I recently heard it in Galantis' "No Money"), but surely we can come up with something more creative? Our music got really commoditised (standardised) over the last couple of years, which led to huge homogenisation of how it sounds: just listen to old compilations from TIP, Transient, Blue Room or Flying Rhino and compare the variety of sounds, textures, styles and emotions in there to almost any current compilation. No contest there! It's symptomatic that over the years people making music stopped being called "musicians" in favour of "producers" but it's very fitting in hindsight: the latter obsess with how the product is made, with the ingradients and ways to assemble them; the former were just having fun and tried to channel their emotions via music and were just using synths & drum machines as tools. Sorry for not being helpful and - God forbid - I'm not suggesting that I'm in any way better than this. Guilty as charged. But I still can recognise this as a problem Actually, this preference of mine extends beyond goa/psy-trance: e.g. I like dub music very much because of the mysterious, hazy aura it creates, but I feel like the conventional basslines really limit it and hold it in place. On the other hand there's acid jazz/funk music - e.g. early Jamiroquai albums - where I could literally just listen to rhythm section alone because it's so evolved, intricate and full. I feel bad even calling it "rhythm section" because it genuinely doesn't do it justice - there's more musicality in there than in many other full tracks...

Yes, I'd buy all of those. Could you give us a clue as to what it is?

Great, can't wait to purchase it!

Hmm, Bluetech's "Horsemen of Electrocalypse" or Kaya Project's "The Ambient Mixes"? I'd buy those in a heartbeat

Yeah I figured, but the -15% offer was applicable to the full catalogue.

Sorry, but as I said I only noticed it and immediately posted the thread. You can also take care of yourself and follow them and Bandcamp to receive e-mail notifications on new releases and discounts... BTW "six of the seven"? They have 100+ CDs on sale, so not sure what you're talikng about.

BTW, anyone know how to link Soundcloud playlists here? I can't seem to make it work - it's always the 1st track that's visible...

Thanks! I recently purchased a MIDI controller and full Live 9 Suite and I'm slowly working on new music - for now I'm getting to grips with new way of composing (clips + arranger timeline vs. tracker patterns is so liberating arrangement-wise, but it was easier in tracker to get basic melody or bass going) and learning the quirks of the software and tools, i.e. the Live 9' instruments and effects. "Luckily" my son recently hurt his leg - nothing serious: a light sprain in the ankle - in school and we spent 5+ hours in hospital for it to be checked so I had the time to go through Live's manual, which helps me a lot right now! BTW, check the rest of the psy/goa tunes: https://soundcloud.com/antic604/sets/psychedelic-goa-trance

A modern day X-Files. Too bad it ended up so abruptly

Indeed, he was only credited as a producer. Still, it was a very fun flick as long as you approach it as a 'family movie' and not hard sci-fi or horror

Anyone managed to take advantage of the discount? I got myself those:

Sorry I'm putting this up so late, but I also only noticed it in my e-mail... http://arabesquedigital.com/ is having a 15% discount on all purchases - to use it, type 'weekend' in the discount box when purchasing something. There's a lot of new & old stuff on CDs there and they're getting added to your bandcamp.com account Hurry up - 2 hours left!

Purchased! Thanks you

Let me order it already!

Well, from the outside it LOOKS like they are. In the end it's probably the result of that sound being really popular & effective, combined with the artists exchanging patches, tips & tricks, or straight up collaborating and picking workflow ideas from each other. Still, it is kind of sad when you hear V/A "A Taste of South African Psychedelics" with 20+ artists and it all basically sounds the same. Yeah, that was my 1st thought when I saw it! Mad Tribe album is really great - simple, slightly formulaic but you can tell those guys have years of experience working the dancefloor and they just know how to build a tune. One of those days I need to get around to writing a review for it, because it is criminally overlooked

Awesome! Good luck with promotion, sales & gigs! BTW, the reference to Nano Rec. wasn't a criticism - the things that you take inspiration from are the solid foundations, that work great. The issue myself - and many others - have with Nano is that 1) they don't do much to build up interesting stuff on top of that foundation, 2) they somehow force all their artists (with few exceptions, e.g. Loud) into this template: just listen to their recent compilations and you could easily fool me they are artist albums. Your music that I heard is nothing like that: it's much more funky, full of creative sounds, rhythmic and musical ideas, very individual and characteristic. Keep it up

That's your answer right there - the movies Stranger Things draws inspiration from (ET, Goonies, etc.) were beyond your time. In recent memory Spielberg's "Super 8" was in the same vein, so if you didn't like that one Stranger Things is likely not for you as well... It's also a throwback to family movies of the 80's, which they don't really do anymore, that's why it's not very scary or thrilling - it's supposed to be fun for everyone. Oh, and for me a Tron-esque electronic music theme was a bit plus

And so, a long awaited (by me, at least) full-length from Martian Arts is about to be released by TIP Records. The cover is typically cheesy & fun TIP stuff, but I'm certain the music will more than make up for it - his style draws the energy from the typical Nano Rec. templates (bass+drums), but greatly expands upon it using lots of analog, modular hardware synths and effects, which makes it stand apart. No track-list is available at the moment, but - considering his track records - I'm sure we'll find several interesting collaborations on there, which is always a positive thing ensuring some diversity. I'm eagerly looking forward to it!

Yes, this one in particular is incredible!