Astral Projection new album

[Procyon]

I recently discovered that there are "synth purists" in the psy/Goa scene that agree or disagree on almost every aspect of a track. I really can't understand that , but I accept that if you have a certain level of knowledge then it's natural you fine-tune your ears and starting seeing minimal details in a track. But mostly, I think this a sterile debate. Astral Projection, for instance, I think that they are superb in arpeggios and sequences, and I don't really mind if they're using analog or digital. They can use an empty sardine can to write a track, IMO, if the result is a great track.

[radi6404]

That is my point of view aswell.

[Tiny Unit]

That is not quite true. Nowadays most hardware sounds can be generated with good software, will you say my tracks have bad synthsounds? it is very bad to hear that artists have to have expensive hardware, that implies that some beginners who try to produce goa and do not ahve money for expensive hardware are bad? Good Software synths can produce great sounds, also very analog. JX 16, MS 80 v, Minimoog, Monimonsta and many more are great for that. If someone is talented by the way he will produce great music even with simple freeware synths and tools. The hardware does not tell if a musician is talented or not. Great hardware will help the artist, but if the artist is not talented no hardware will help. Astral Projection are not that good because of their hardware. Today's cheap softsynths can copy almost all of their sounds. A guy on KVRaudio created a preset that sounds like the main synth in Searching for UFOs on the Novation V-station softsynth and it was basically the same. Astral Projection are great, but because they have the ears and mind to produce beautiful music, not because they own expensive hardware.

 

Hardware is not so expensive now-a-days. Arturia minibrute though designed for bass makes really great old Goa & Psy lead sounds for under $600. The Korg-MS20 mini also is around $600. Even Moog are putting a new pretty much pure analogue synth with enough knobs to make the biggest porn addict happy for $1000.

 

You can buy an amazing fully anaologe modular synth from Pittsburgh Modular called the Foundation 2.0 for around $1500-1700. I can tell you now having played on my mates one that you would never need to buy another synth EVER soft or hard.

 

Personally I'm currently spending $2000AUD on a custom designed modular set up from www.equinoxoz.com. I have produced music in the techno, house & drum & bass scene in Australia for the last 5 years using software. Even including the incredible Omnisphere nothing soft comes close to a proper 100% analogue synth or drum machine. Do you really think software can duplicate the patching "mistakes" & artifacts that modular synth can make? A moudalr synth changes just from slight temperature variations in the room. I can spend a day patching up an amazing lead, then come back the next morning whenit's been cold overnight to find it is outputting a completely amazing new sound.

 

No software can give you the kind of inspiraton that patching & tweaking a proper analogue synth can.

 

I really couldn't care less about AP. They were great in the 90's and even early '00s. They have had agreat period & owned the trance scene in general for along time. It's time to let the new breed take over. Despite some new acts getting a bit stuck in one style, there are some amazing sounds being made as well and I think the scene needs to move on.

 

I prefer to have someone buy their old DATs and put them out. I;m sure tye have hundreds!

[radi6404]

The sounds are the least concerm an artist should ahve, especially if the hardware produces great sounds since a lot of goa trance tracks have similar and rather boring patches anyway. The old Dragonfly releases, youth, old Total eclipse, Ayahuasca, they have intereting really analogue sounding patches, they are analogue synths. But a lot of the later stuff is just simple supersaw setting, many Astral projection songs aswell, especially the more unknown artists have simple patches which can be generated by good software with effects added over it. Astral Projection has good sounds indeet, also Electric universe, the sounds that can be heart on Alien Encounter are true goa sounds, but the unknown artists use symple patches in my opinion which can be generated easily with software.

 

So hardware is great, but only when people really make use of it.

[Djuna]

I recently discovered that there are "synth purists" in the psy/Goa scene that agree or disagree on almost every aspect of a track. I really can't understand that , but I accept that if you have a certain level of knowledge then it's natural you fine-tune your ears and starting seeing minimal details in a track. But mostly, I think this a sterile debate. Astral Projection, for instance, I think that they are superb in arpeggios and sequences, and I don't really mind if they're using analog or digital. They can use an empty sardine can to write a track, IMO, if the result is a great track.

 

I love analysing tracks actually, it's one of the things I love to do when making music. Figuring out how and why certain artists use this and that sound. I'll repeat myself again: I never said that software is superior to hardware, but there is no doubt that there is a difference between the two, in both the technical and artistic aspects, and that these difference defined certain era's and genres.

Have you ever compared a software filter with an analogue filter?

 

 

The sounds are the least concerm an artist should ahv

 

o_O Sound is everything! It defines you as an artist - it's the same as saying that colours don't matter when you're painting!

[Procyon]

Have you ever compared a software filter with an analogue filter?

 

 

 

Huh? I don't even know what you're talking about. But isn't it sad to listen to a song and "seeing" it from a technical point of view and find it disappointing because the FX are built-in instead of created? And lose the magic of an arpeggio because of that?

[Djuna]

Well if you did maybe you could argue about it.

You mean FX from a DAW? Effects are an other thing, I'm talking about synths. And no I personally don't, in fact the knowledge that you can "create the magic" makes it even more magical.

[Rotwang]

o_O Sound is everything! It defines you as an artist - it's the same as saying that colours don't matter when you're painting!

I think that depends a lot on the artist. For example, I expect the choice of colours would have been much more important to someone like Rothko than someone like Mucha (many of whose works were posters that were mass-produced and that therefore varied from print to print). Similarly, I think individual timbres are more integral to some psytrance artists (e.g. those who make minimal or early darkpsy) than others (e.g. those who make melodic Goa). I'm not saying that the choice of sounds is not at least somewhat important for all artists, just that Trip Tonite would still be Trip Tonite with different synths, whereas this KDD track would be nothing if it were made by someone without KDD's knack for creating cool timbres.

[Djuna]

Oh my, how I disagree! Imagine the 909 replaced by even just a 606 in that track, it would be perceived totally different. Gear + creative style + (technical) workflow creates the sound of an artist, if one of these things change, his or her sound changes.

[radi6404]

In Goa Trance it is not that important, since the sounds can be generated by many universal synths. A few analogue synths (can be vst), some good vst effects, and one or two drumsynths and almost any sound can be recreated in goa trance. Now if artists pay deep attention to percussion as Boris Blenn did on his old tracks than it is something different, but who pays that attentions. His tracks with the 808 sounds are really great.

 

But most synthlines on goa trance can easily be recreated with a few softsynths. Aciddose Xhip, mda JX 16, Synapse Audio Hyrda, Synapse Audio Junglist, Novation V Station, Superwave P8, Stringsynth, Juna Alpha II, Korg Legazy collection, Minimoog and a Juno 106 emulator and most synths can easily be recreated and even much better synths generated.

 

Especially newschool goa sounds dull and unsharp, so many synths, noone sounding really sharp make it tyring.

 

I want to repeat again, that with a few bugs and a few softsynths of teh ones I mentioned and others most goa sounds can be recreated.

[Djuna]

I have the Korg Legacy collection, as well as the actual synths they emulate, and even though it doesn't sound that bad, the software is incomparable with the analogue synths. Have you ever compared them, listened to them, touched and tweaked them with your own hands?

 

Especially newschool goa sounds dull and unsharp, so many synths, noone sounding really sharp make it tyring.

 

Now I don't understand it anymore; you say vst's sound the same as the old classical synths, yet 'newschool sounds dull', while most newschool artist use these plugins...

[radi6404]

You should listen to my tracks on oundcloud, now I am nto talking musicwise, since I know they are unfishined sounding and don't have a proper climax, but listen and tell me whether it sounds old or new and whether it sounds dull or sharp.

 

https://soundcloud.com/radish2

 

It is nit really the sounds but how they are used. Newschool tracks don't sound dull because of vsts but because they play 150 tracks at the same time, that is just insane, the otehr thing is that the newschool artists don't even want to sound old and analogue but new and modern, they want to sound like a very modern Italian café with shiny chairs and tables and glass windows to the floor, the old artists sounded and want to sound like a wooden pub which gives you warm and hostile feelings.

 

But when you want to produce old and analogue sounding music softsynths wont hinder you at all, with hardware you will achieve better results, but not much better at most 10 percent. But if you want you can sound like an Italian café with hardware aswell.

 

I listened to a RA ambient album, celestial something, it is very good ambient music but it does not sound analogue, it sounds like a sterile shiny Italian café

[Procyon]

@radi: I will listen to your tracks if you pay me.

[radi6404]

You know what, fuck your knee.

[Padmapani]

 

 

But plugins can't produce the same sounds as analogue instruments.

 

wrong. my proof: u-he diva. < /discussion >

 

i've seen a blind test and the majority of the people (synth freaks, some knowing the minimoog in and out) thought that diva was the minimoog and the minimoog was the plugin.

 

and btw many old goa heroes from the 90s used those cheap digital synths, that were available at the time.

[Procyon]

@radI: no deal, then!

[radi6404]

Do you think I give a shit if you listen to my songs or not? With my music I just want to show that you can sound oldschool with vsts only, nothing more, so I don't give a shit if you will listen to my tracks or not, but you can fuck your knee for being so arrogant and insultive.

[Procyon]

Do you think I give a shit if you listen to my songs or not? With my music I just want to show that you can sound oldschool with vsts only, nothing more, so I don't give a shit if you will listen to my tracks or not, but you can fuck your knee for being so arrogant and insultive.

Take it easy, Radi, I was just making fun of you. No need to go nuclear! I indeed listened to one of your tracks some weeks ago.

[Shpongled247]

Everyone missed the point which was just that Astral were known for their ridiculously huge gear list... I just found it ironic that's all.. Didn't mean to spark a soft vs hard debate... Lol. Anyway I guess they blew all their hardware money on coke these days.

 

[Richpa]

 

https://soundcloud.com/radish2

 

 

Verrrry oldschool goa

[Procyon]

AP will play in the best urban festival in the world, Nagisa Music Festival, in Tokyo. Along with legends like Orbital and KURO. Only a fool will miss this festival when in Tokyo.

 

http://www.nagisamusicfestival.jp/artist/index.html

[Tiny Unit]

 

 

wrong. my proof: u-he diva. < /discussion >

 

i've seen a blind test and the majority of the people (synth freaks, some knowing the minimoog in and out) thought that diva was the minimoog and the minimoog was the plugin.

 

and btw many old goa heroes from the 90s used those cheap digital synths, that were available at the time.

 

Really? Because I can pick them and I have never used or heard a minimoog first hand. It's pretty obvious. Then again most idiots can't pick mp3 vs anything higher quality even on a $5K+ sound system like mine. They just don't deserve the right to listen to music.

[Guest D N H]

It is nit really the sounds but how they are used. Newschool tracks don't sound dull because of vsts but because they play 150 tracks at the same time, that is just insane, the otehr thing is that the newschool artists don't even want to sound old and analogue but new and modern, they want to sound like a very modern Italian café with shiny chairs and tables and glass windows to the floor, the old artists sounded and want to sound like a wooden pub which gives you warm and hostile feelings.

 

But if you want you can sound like an Italian café with hardware aswell.

 

I listened to a RA ambient album, celestialorientalic something, it is downtempo music but it does not sound analogue, it sounds like a sterile shiny Italian café

 

Word!

[Skytrancer]

[reger]

All those, pardon my french, shitty youtube clips gives us nothing, just empty hype.

Gives us the album AP or just admit that you cant do shit anymoarrr!