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Telling psytrance apart from trance?


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Guest d!abolic

Ok, i'm new to this and i must say that i'm having trouble telling psytrance apart from regular trance. In fact, i think that some songs listed on this site aren't even part of the same genre. Take Astral Projection - Enligntened Evolution for example. Sounds like trance to me.And Infected Mushroom - Bust A Move doesn't even sound electronic! What am i missing here?

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There are lots of "music experts" (no irony here btw) on this site who'll let you know what precisely lies behind the general term "PsyTrance".

Everyone has his own definition : A general state of mind, deeply rooted in the general psychedelic movement, the effect this music has on you (not even taking into account whether you're under drug influence)...

The two examples you gave are for me two of the best Psytracks ever. Some will say there are a bit too cheesy to properly represent the whole Psytrance music. That's for sure.

Anyway, Psytrance is for me the combination of two main factors (at least) you'll find in those tracks :

 

1. Powerful, surprising and distorted sounds. So you say that bust a move doesn't sound electronic. But combining "electronic" sounds with more conventional ones can be a way to achieve this first factor. Just one word : Shpongle... I don't think you'll find so many research for the sonic effects on your brand new eurotrance anthem.

 

2. Powerful, surprising and distorted melodies. Some tracks from Infected Mushroom (i.e. Return of the shadows) which certainly cannot be referred to as "cheesy", lots of Pleiadians stuff, early productions from Astral Projection : you just gotta stand up and dance when you hear so uplifting tracks !

 

Maybe you're more into the minimal style ?

 

As the saying goes, my 2 cents. Let the voices of the experts be heard now !

 

J.

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what your missing is knowledge obviously...

 

Bust a move isn't very occilating and beeping track. but it's definetly electronic and it's from israel and quite psychedellic at times... Astral projection... well they have their lame tracks that sell for $$$... All of this is "trance" but not the MTV top 10 trance. (i'm sure they've got it by now...) This is goa and psy....

 

Goa:

Total Eclipse - Violent Relaxation CD

Psy:

MFG - The Message CD

 

I call most melodic: goa... and psy: the darker stuff.

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Guest zzzzzzt

Like anything else, there are grey areas and fine lines. mE said "what you're missing is knowledge obviously..." Sounds critical, but is probably true. If you spend some time reading reviews and listening to a variety of trance music, you will eventually know what is what for yourself, thus doing away with the need to ask which is which. Once you catch on, it will be painfully obvious to you the difference. It may help to consume your favorite psychedelic drug a few times during your exploration, but I don't want to start a drug/anti-drug debate. That's just a suggestion if you're already into that sort of thing. Also, buying the actual CD's and listening to them on a good sound system is essential. Hope that helps. And really, as a final thought, who cares anyway? If it sounds good to you, then listen to it. If not, don't ;)

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Guest bugbread

"And really, as a final thought, who cares anyway? If it sounds good to you, then listen to it. If not, don't" Yay zzzzzzt!!

 

Just for reference, some people who do psy tracks also do non-psy tracks (i.e. Yahel). And a lot of music is called psy because of what the artists primarily do (a lot of Juno Reactor is ambient but gets called Psy because it is by Juno Reactor). So don't worry much about the genres.

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Guest Avneesh

Also, a lot of stuff may be called psy cauz they're released on what are traditionally known as 'psy record labels'.

 

I think (or at least all the music i've been exposed to) you really wont find any melodies in major keys in psy/goa..which is where euro differs

 

correct me if i'm wrong

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Call it what you will.

 

I mean categorising music is kinda bad because with all the deifferent sounds the genre is always crossing over from one type to the next. And so many artisits do what they feel so theri sounds can move to many directions.

 

****

progressive

psy

acid

minimal

goa

 

****

 

enjoy the grooves and dont start boxing them. Its silly.

 

peace.

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Guest d!abolic

It's not that i won't listen to tracks that i can't categorize. I listen to everything i like. It's just that i like keeping my mp3s organized, and i'm trying to figure out if i should just dump Astral Projection into /trance and Infected Mushroom into /psytrance (currently empty since all this stuff is in /uploads).

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for what its worth-- when I'm trying to tell people about psytrance, one thing that seems most prevalent in it compared to "trance"; maybe; is that psytrance (at least the prime example of hallucinogen, pleiadians,etc) is that there are lots of layers of sound and the melody moves between the layers.. seems like other trance tends to be a steady beat with a little bit going on above the beat; whereas psytrance has lots going on above the beat, and, like someone else said; psy trance seems to have lots of little wizzy chirpy weird noises coming in and out that add to the whole layer thing...

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Guest bugbread

Ah, for that I'd say listen to Astral Projection for a classical "goa trance", GMS for "full on", Atmos for "minimal trance", and then realize that no matter what you do there is going to be stuff that screws up your categorization system. I know the genres, but there's TONS of stuff that gets put in my "misc" folder.

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