MikroMakro

Good for you ! It is also good to get feedback if you are unsure and inexperienced as a producer. It is also worth understanding what level the best music in the genre sits at as you can gauge your own current sonic abilities. It is one thing to be creative and original and another to achieve a good sonic benchmark in tandem with that creativity, which can appear intimidating at first. The technicalities remain intimidating for all, because the music, especially psy trance, is at an extremely high level of audio engineering. It has become one of the most difficult genres of music to produce well. Few succeed and even fewer get signed by a big label and pursue it as a career. I am no technical slouch and still it remains a challenge to do it well. Luckily for me I have run out of ideas for now. 🤣 So I can relax and forget about it for a while that is why I am happy to be on here a bit and chat. Here is a link that will last 7 days of 3 Goa Trance style kicks https://we.tl/t-x87a1pFIQ4

I have mixed feelings about using kick samples in psy trance production as they can cause as many problems as they solve (pitch vs aligning phase of bass) compared to a kick synth like Bazzism/Kick2. But for Goa this is arguably a good idea, a kick sample will take away some pain making the kick although they are actually quite easy, at least a basic serviceable Goa type kick. If I get a little time I post a couple up on here in the next few days.

I would say the leads need the right EQ (maybe cut some lower mids on 1 or 2 lead sounds 270 - 600Hz , but they need to be the right frequencies, for each sound and the combination of the sounds) and different effects, but not overdone. Maybe a little delay, maybe distortion but it needs to be well chosen otherwise it can just become harsh and radically change the sounds. Effects like 2 different but complementary delays that occupy slightly different parts of the stereo image (as a pure example one ping pong and one stereo, one 1/4 note and one 1/8D - experiment and listen to what works, without over doing the delays feedback. Slight panning to opposite sides might help if you get stuck. AP I think constructive criticism would be more appropriate, no one gets better by being fully insulted. We all start somewhere, my first tracks were not much good.

Overall feeling in this is very nice, you have a nice mysterious feel to it. Technically it is difficult to comment as technicality for Goa is a little different than psy trance. The kick sounds quite high pitched to me, it knocks well but could do with some more bottom end thump/sub. The mix is rather blurred together overall (other than your hats) There is something a little too similar happening on the sounds (maybe reverb choice is on to many lead sounds, try and separate them and give then definition and distinction) 03:46 watch out for harsh frequencies in the upper mids when that high res filter sweeps (also it pops/clicks there smooth the automation out) Enjoy it. To add I am just listening on headphones and some tiny speakers on my office PC (Small Presonus Eris)

For myself personally it is a little chaotic yes. There is a lot Goa trance which has a lot of layering going on, much more complex drums and considerably deep programming, yet sounds coherent I suggest you listen to some great music in the Goa Trance style and let that sound in for a while. Which is actually a really nice thing to do... rarely a waste of time to listen to new and good music you enjoy. Just one suggestion try Cosmosis track Moonshine to see where I am coming from. This is his channel.... This is punchy, hypnotic, very psychedelic, super advanced before its time Goa Trance IMO. One of the best tracks of the genre for me. Listen to the drum patterns, the movement, interesting lead rhythms, variations, sections, drop outs, arrangement, balance of freqencies of the mix and most important the overall combined feel of excitement and drive forwards that is created in the track. Listen to 07:48 there is a rhythmic sound there that is quality, genius, trancey and borders on FM (I would guess it is a Nord Lead) it is constantly moving and twisting and giving some warped nice feeling, it sounds rich, Sometimes the moments of less are more but of course we have the entire track before it to expose that wonderful moment. That is favourite tracks all over, a single potential manifestation from an infinite set of possibilities that were locked down into one form infinite possibilities (Like quantum mechanics observation locks down due to observation itself). That is what makes a really good track magic for an individual. One really good tip, if you add something and the track does not immediately sound better for it. Don't add it. If in doubt do nowt as my mum used to say. Try something else. Another tip is to not use all notes in the scale just the ones that imply the correct feel, for the eastern sound. Sorry my musical theory is not deep enough to express what I hear easiest. So based melodies on interesting repetitions of 3-4 notes. Maybe anyway.. that is ultimately a job for us all to work out individually. And there are Goa melodies that use more notes..(Second Room X Dream springs to mind that is a wonderful archetypal Goa trance melody IMO) Also totally amazing on every level... Never let a bit of feedback discourage you either. This music is not easy to make whether you are making Goa style music or Psy trance. It takes a really long time to even get reasonably decent. Recall many producers have been doing this for 20 years or more... some probably near 30. It is great you are drawn to this music as many are. It is so technically challenging that many fall by the way side.(I think even myself) I suspect what happens is the following... many great ideas are expressed for tracks if you have a little music talent, then as each track passes you become bogged down in technicality for which Psy Trance is known, especially the kick and bass wormhole... then by the time you have your technical chops together you have worn your musical ideas out and end up sounding rather similar to many competent but never standing out psy trance tracks. There are only so many Phrygian expressions. Which gives an understanding into why we have implied Phrygian melody in Psy which is overtaken by harmonic controls (filtering of harmonics in order to give a sense of movement even though it is the scale of harmonics - like Tibetan or Tuvan over tone singing for example - The harmonic series - this has a mysterious and spiritual sound of its own... (Close Encounters Spaceship melody uses this if I recall correctly) or you go the Sci-Fi sounds fx) to have something new to play with.

Sorry friend, no direspect intended.. the first time I tried the link it would not play. Download is not something some will readily do I suspect. So the first link played just now. You are right there is something not quite right here. The sound that is trying to be bass, that has no bass in it and it triggers at same time as kick which is unusual..The filtered.. "ewwwww.....ewwwwww....ewwwwww" sound does not seem to work with the melody quite, I think anyway,,, so yes there is dissonance and it does not sound right. Actually....are you sure you have not de-tuned your sawtooth / supersaw lead a bit much? That might not be helping, it is a fine line to detune to give the Goa classic lead sound and well... just be out of tune. That is one bad sounding piano by the way, more like a terrible harpsichord.

Reply to Parasphere.. I left Facebook nearly 2 years ago. I feel so much better for that even though I feel I miss the online company of quite a few people. The extreme filtering of people's life is not more real than not knowing anything about what they are doing. It's a highly edited, false representation of people's lives. It is also very strange to have such a wide mix of people that you know intimately, quite well, a bit, very little and hardly at all. I decided to control it and not let it control me. It is addictive in a very strange way and not many addictive things are good for us, hard to think of any actually. I understand it as a business tool and for musicians/artists (still a business tool still in large part) there you can present the persona you need to present and not get overly personal. But for personal use I found it too demanding, addictive and strange to carry on with. Even real life with few people around is better than that, go out and look at some landscape, sky, nature a beach or something with the hours saved doing whatever the hell social media is. Slowly digital is becoming like a prison, a digital prison, like a lot of technology is, when you can no longer do anything in world without a mobile phone we are in great peril, vulnerable, weaker, easy to destabilize and disrupt. This is not conspiratorial it's in plain sight.

If you enjoy sweet incense, as opposed to the more woody / darker tones like Sandalwood/Tibetan then you are likely to really like Nitiraj. It is like Nag Champa classic but even nicer, more natural fragrance. Something changed with Nag Champa, it smells less good than before... cheapened at a guess as commodity prices increased. Of course be very careful to extinguish fully like any incense. It is amazing how Nitiraj can totally make a different feeling in a space, it is top quality.

I love E-Mov.. I think it might be 2 people...here are some classy tunes. Again I tend to favour earlier tracks... I enjoy melody and I love the way the tracks are put together and very nice sounds and synthesis.. there is a great sense of positivity in their music.

He seems like an artist who did his own thing, not really following others but doing his own style, that deserves massive respect in this genre. There is a real vibrancy to the kick and bass in Healing process, the slightly unusual deep low kick gives immense warmth and bounce. Something very satisfying i have looped that track for an hour before and enjoyed that 1 hour fully. Just soaking up that feeling. Nice analogue feel, if not actual analogue more organic synthesis less reliant on pure SFX and metallic textures.

It is amazing I agree, hypnotic and just has a very deep groove, also intense. Energizing !

He is one of my faves, kind of low key for a long time, maybe not getting the respect he deserves actually. You need to listen a little he likes his kick and bass up front which I personally like and behind melodies, melodies, melodies. I would be surprised if he does not know music theory or has some real musical knowledge either that or he is just great at intertwining track sections. Myself I love his earlier sound it;s more colourful for me. Do you know who you are ? is great, the next album is warming on me but the more melody the better. And yes actually psychedelic, he has these small moments, special transitions you don't hear much... not just a...... riser and a cymbal. I tolerate his high tempo's as it is energizing, he keeps just the right balance, just. Love him.

May I make a suggestion.. Nitiraj "The original Masala incense" is certainly my favourite. That is a top tip, it is even better than that old trusty "Satya Sai Nag Champa" which is not as nice as it used to be. It is a premium price but the Nitiraj scent is amazing... you should be able to find it a bit cheaper than this, it's worth trying to find. I found it for 3 packs for £12.00 somewhere which given how long it lasts is pretty good value. You can burn it for 2mins and extinguish and the beautiful floral scent is there for hours. Instant transportation to the sub continent. This sent has been going since 1979, so you are lighting up a bit of nasal sensory history, it seems to be made in India under some agreement with a company based in Florida in the USA. It really is a cut above any other incense I have smelt.. and let's face it we like a bit of the old agarbhatti right ? We may as well smell the best one. https://www.incense-man.co.uk/products/nitiraj-original-natural-masala-incense-sticks

It's important to share when you love something, if you can also transmit the feeling. This dude is class, a committed artist. Up tempo often, likes a key change, likes to send hairs up on arms, loves a gorgeous pad, light and dark mixed together.. early stuff awesomely melodic. Old and very beautiful. Let this one inside and you will not regret it.. warm and thick in the lows. in my Top 10 psy tunes ever : ) Superb album.. a bit faster than I normally like but it's awesome... This album warms on me, so many subtle beautiful melodic moments, has a truly mind opening psychedelic style.

For the SFX style of psy he is one of my faves along with Ajja. I guess nighttime/forest if I have my sub genres right. Has his own style and love the sound design. I walked into a tent after a 8 hour drive once on a windswept field in the west of England, stone cold sober and I am pretty sure either he was playing or someone was playing one of his tunes (event was Triplicity) the energy was pure WTF so I just bounced along...strobes and lazers in a tent, grey windy weather, and a bonfire where the wind blew the smoke directly into the side door of the tent from about 300m away. No food onsite cause the wind was blowing so hard people could not get their tents up properly till the day after. Really bad weather for a festival in early May in UK, was like raving in winter but just slightly warmer about 13c temperature. A moment I won't for get, surreal and uncomfortable. Sometimes an artist really fits the entire feeling of what you are experiencing. I love his phaser kick and bass sections as well.

I pop by to have a look once a week at least. Lots of re-evaluation of what is important in life means different interests come and go and have different free time given to them. I am floating around and less committed to many things other than work these days. I will always enjoy a psy trance party but believe I am mellowing out a bit, enjoying a walk as much as anything. Most things you like are as good as any other thing your like, the focus changes day to day, week to week, month by month and so on. I am off the music making for now, I have exhausted everything I have to say in psy trance for now. It is not necessarily the end of music making or listening, just breathing other areas of life in, nothing particularly exciting but more relaxed I supposed, no words of wisdom to share. That's life I guess.

Nice tracks Padmapani, especially Dawn Razor ambient break giving the empathetic feelings. The last track.. it sounds very much like 8 years ago remix.. is played plenty in the car and it is a really good track for driving, gives focus and has a strong hypnotic drive, it is not overdone, not too much at a time and builds really sweet... but very hypnotic in a non distracting way. It sounds very similar.

I am not so sure about AI bringing much to the genre of psy trance, though I am no expert. Good psy trance is really hard work, I think many producers go for a few years and then give up. For a few reasons, technical frustration, lack of interest from the larger labels for I am sure a variety of reasons. Getting to the level where an artist has worked 20+ years is a serious commitment of life hours and actually a decision in life to pursue that one end. I respect that but it makes the genre rather impenetrable unless you are basically living it 24/7. From my very first experiences in 1996 it felt like a closed loop, cliquey, cautious and a little elitist. I do not moan about this, there are some good reasons for it to be so. I type psy trance into AI music engine it was pure garbage. Unless AI filters out weak music it is going to just create things that are unusable. Not to mention many other technical factors, limited audio bandwidth, inability mix properly, after 10 years we can certainly argue it cannot even master music properly, nevermind produce and mix a ridiculously technical genre with many super picky sets of underground genre ears. I would say AI psy trance is going nowhere. Maybe I am wrong though. It will always have a place in my heart, but it's not my life. It is a part of it, that I can enjoy. Overall I view it very positively, it can be truly wonderful and we should look after those things as they appear to become less and less in this modern world.

Good detail in your response Parasphere. If you engineer your own kick and bass from synthesis it is many hours spent (even with some significant experience) to get 1 modern sounding ish kbbb working in 1 key note. Key changes are a new level of auditory challenge as you suggest. Even additive synthesis is no help here if your kick drum stays at the same pitch, there will still be phase shifts when you change bass note. Unless you program the kick in additive synthesis as well and shift its pitch. This is no small engineering task. The phase alignment is important to a degree as it gets you in a ball park.. but it does not take into account the kick and bass groove which is really important although admittedly both extremely miniscule changes and a hugely finnickety process. At one time I would have maybe looked (listened) to the Spirit Architect track's kbbb (sorry it's in my "that thing" thread) and thought it was a little off timing wise.. but the "effect" of it is amazing. I love the effect it has that the track is almost running away with itself... falling forwards, sounding faster than it is.. the energy it produces is amazing. Psy kick and bass in modern style can be astonishingly good and also "brown or grey bass" which is a strange term I use for this more dull, lacking vibrancy, the short rat a tat tat notes (almost like 4 kicks in a row) with no colour/tone and blurred pitch. Very hard to explain when you get down to such minuscule detail, either it works for you or not I guess. Chatting psy is fun for producers, ultimately a little lost in language at times at least the "art" part of it, the science / phase etc.) is easier to convey... but it is that is ? Just the science ? No, it's music and whilst it is invariably highly technical it has to connect with human ears, minds and bodies. Otherwise it is psy for what ? Robots ?

02:51 onwards, amazing... they seem to be getting it : ) you just get this moment where you go YES YES and it spread around to everyone and everyone smiles back......it does seem easier to "get it" when there is a sense of scale like an awesome sound system in a tent with no bass build up in the corners... just goes through the tent listen how good the sound is on just a phone/camera.. I love that phase shifting effect when you walk around a bit at psy tents/outdoors. I come back to this video when I want to feel that feeling...

Archetypal Goa Trance moment Trolsk.. it's a yes from me. I look for those hairs up on arms moments. Sometimes they come on the dancefloor where everyone just locks into a moment and everyone gets that elated energy and sometimes sitting at home with headphones on. It is to be celebrated. I am a bit of a sucker for the darker kick and bass moments that are a little scary like being sucked down a hole.. 00:26 for me one of the best kick and basses I ever heard including on the modern stuff... it's not just about how clean you can get something IMO. All boxes ticked, makes track sound faster than it is (falling forwards unstable feeling = life), extends the kick in lows for boing, boing, boing effect, has the defined choppy mid range clicky 3 note thing and the dugga dugga, adds up to more than sum of parts ! And of course just a blooming great track.

This track gives me the "thing".. at 06:43 This is a favourite of mine, top 10 personal do you get the thing or is it just me.. I am wondering how much each of us get the "thing" on each others tracks we like to hear... where you get the thing.. maybe post you tracks where you get it and where in the track and we can see if get it too, might be fun !

In which modify the notes that clash, though I don't see why if it is the same arp up an octave why they start to sound dissonant.

As you rightly point out chords are not typical. I would make "chords" using 2 from notes in the scale usually.. so maybe you can strip back your chords if triads and remove any notes not in the scale/key you are working in. Good luck with it.

Proto times was a very eclectic mix of tracks from far and wide I was too young to be there for those times. I have been reading into the history a little more and it is very interesting indeed. That is me on the beach😎 long ago. Goa always reminded me a little of being on Mars cause of the red earth/rock. No where quite like it. It must have been breath taking to have turned up there in the late 70's early 80's. Empty, lush and wild, a beautiful paradise. There is something about the place, beautiful, bright, timeless and temporary at the same time, enigmatic, also a touch of sadness is there in the air, maybe a sense of being temporary, slightly scary and remote. Never forgotten once felt. I think this might have been Arambol, Vagator or even Anjuna, that little house might give it away though from the past. Maybe coastal erosion and development makes it difficult to identify places.