Beginner questions for Psy-Trance 101

[Jikkenteki]

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Never mind. Getting nothing but criticism for this making it not worth the effort.

[supergroover]

you could also cover some other basic stuff. Like when to send a demo to a label, how to go about that. What happens after that, mastering, contracts etc.

[frosty]

i remember the first time i opened cubase i had no idea what to do. i was used to using reason & everything was totally different. ill list a few things i had trouble with they may be a bit more mid-level but just to give u some more ideas.

 

- getting my midi controller to work!! (took me so long to figure out that my midi-controller was set to channel 16)

- rewire reason (needed to update both cubase & reason)

- installing new VST's & getting them to work (did my head in for a very long time because id never used them before. installed AU's & wondered why it didn't wrk, didn't put them in the right plugin folders, didn't update my plugin information in cubase)

 

that was the main things before id even tryed to write anything in cubase.

 

when i started to write some stuff id come up with a loop but the could never go anywere with it.

- i struggled to make a start to my songs

- didn't know how to make good build ups (like opening the release, turning up the frequency, using a duel filter)

- never used to layer sounds to make a track sound more 'fuller' or use pads

- never used an arpeggiator (coming from reason) & once i learnt what the hell it was WOW things seemed so easy!! (for a beginner)

 

these are just some things off the top of my head that i can remember struggling with. hopefully give u some more idea's

[buzzman]

- i struggled to make a start to my songs

I still do that, that would be an awesome thing... Hard to figure out a big atmospheric beginning that fits the rest of the track... Do you make the beginning first or after? Stuff like that would be cool

 

Other than that, it's a very good initiativ, I'm looking forward to watching them! Thank you very much Jikky

[Lemmiwinks]

that is great news mate, I would gladly pay for video tutorials aimed specifically at making psytrance!!

 

A big question that is still unanswered to this day: exactly how does one use an "oriental scale" to make melodies?

 

Other stuff I've struggled with in the past and seemed easy once someone actually explained it to me:

 

- difference between the kick and the bass (most people improperly call the kick "bass" so it's a good idea to get that confusion out of the way for starters)

- explaing the whole concept of "building" a track (what are bars, where is the kick supposed to be, building phrases etc)

- explaining the whole concept of envelopes and filters (especially the resonance part), best is to show a small graph of different filters and envelopes

- explaining the kbbb formula used in most psytrance

- using pads to fill up the space in a track; insterting wierd sounds and FXs here and there to make it sound "psychedellic"

- using arpegiattors

- finding the right synth presets, especially knowing that most (old) trance sounds were based on the sawtooth wave; easyiest way to emulate a 303

- paning sounds to make a wider soundstage

- using delay and reverb

- knowing that a kick also had a high-frequency presence (click)

- playing different synths in different octaves so that they don't naturally interfere with eachother

- cutting off the low bass frequencies so that they don't interfere with the kick and generally EQing sounds so that they don't interfere (actually I'm still having trouble with this part...)

- using side-chain compression, and explaining just what a compressor does in the first place

 

 

oh yeah and like supergroover said, once you've done a track and are happy with it, how do you actually get labels interested in your stuff?

[Jikkenteki]

deleted

[Lemmiwinks]

Some good ideas here. Thanks.

 

Part one here (mp4 file). Again, super basic for most people probably but maybe someone will get something out of it. Next part will probably focus on intros and pads, while touching on a lot of other things as well. Basic idea is start easy and then add more detail as the track progresses.

 

great, dloading it right now

 

PS 440megs just for the first part? Either this is particularly comprehensive or it's not too well compressed... I rekon you'll be out of bandwith pretty soon with that kind of volume.

[Jikkenteki]

deleted

[Lemmiwinks]

hehe I never would've imagined you have such a deep voice Took a quick look and it's great, will actually follow the steps later on when I have some more spare time. It is great for me cause more of the time I've fiddled around in Reason and was looking for an easy way to start with Cubase

 

Just one recomendation: if I were you I'd cut the tutorials in 10-minute clips and put them on youtube, your popularity would be sky high! If you want to make some money off it, you could put some basic tutorials on youtube and send people to your paying site for more in depth tutorials. Personally I'd be more than happy to pay for this kind of information and I think others would too (supposing you're asking an acceptable price of course )

[buzzman]

Its in HD which is part of the reason for the size. I'm rendering a smaller one at the moment, but since this one is up already....

Great with HD, nothing worse than a tutorial so bad quality, that you can't see what he's doing (many of those on youtube)

 

DL'ing now, many thanks

[Lemmiwinks]

Great with HD, nothing worse than a tutorial so bad quality, that you can't see what he's doing (many of those on youtube)

 

not saying it's not great in HD, just that he'll probably run out of bandwith quick that way, Andi Vax is already out of bandwith in like the first week of the month and he only has ONE video online... Imagine 100 people dloading 10 vids of 440Mbs each, that's 440Tb!

[bwhale]

Upload them on rghost.ru or some other free hosting site.

 

Ideas:

- how to make a bassline

- how to make a melody

- how to use an appegiator

- basic strategies to building a psytrance track

[supergroover]

using a duel filter?

 

what is a duel filter?

[buzzman]

not saying it's not great in HD, just that he'll probably run out of bandwith quick that way, Andi Vax is already out of bandwith in like the first week of the month and he only has ONE video online... Imagine 100 people dloading 10 vids of 440Mbs each, that's 440Tb!

Ok, wouldn't know anything about that Isn't it possible to have unlimited bandwith on a server/website? I have unlimited DL bandwith, so until he's server/website says stop, I won't complain

[buzzman]

Hey, nice tut just watched it Looking forward to the next one

 

BTW Jikky, you must do a really good imitation of the priest from the Simpsons Ever tried that`?

[bwhale]

Maybe take some parts of real tracks, maybe some well known famous ones, and decompose them or give some commentary from a production point of view how they work, how they were made, or whatever.

[frosty]

attack, decay, sustain, release

 

understanding that & how it works

[Jikkenteki]

deleted

[Jikkenteki]

deleted

[bwhale]

Fair enough, I don't mean a whole track, I just keep hearing interesting things and thinking "SO HOW DID THEY DO THAT?!" about certain parts. Like what were the basic "sounds" or strategy they used to create this melody / pattern / whatever. It's hard to determine what was being sequenced and what effects were being used when it gets really complicated [psytrance!].

[supergroover]

although you don't want to touch the production side too much. I do think it could be very helpful for beginners to see the whole processing chain for some sounds. To understand that it is not just one preset they can't find. But might also include distortion, filters, eq, compression, reverb. and that all for one sound.

[Jikkenteki]

deleted

[Veracohr]

I applaud your altruistic intent in general, but...

 

It seems to me like making videos explaining "this is how you make a psytrance bass line", "this is how you make a psytrance melody", "this is how you write psytrance" would only add to the number of uninteresting generic psy tracks out there.

 

I would suggest less focus on writing, which is best left up to the individual in my opinion, and more on how to create unique sounds. You said you would spend a small amount of time on ADSR, but I think it's important for people who want to make music with synthesizers to understand the basics of synthesis. You could probably fit a brief introduction to oscillators, filters and envelopes (just sticking to subtractive synthesis) into one 15-minute video and provide a useful foundation for beginners to make their own sounds. Even touch on some classics ("this sound you know is called a 'supersaw', this sound you know is called a 'hoover', and this is how you create them"). Use your knowledge to steer people AWAY from presets! And not just how to make new sounds, but when to make them. You could explain, and demonstrate, how a fast decay on a bass filter envelope might sound good in a fast-tempo song but not necessarily in a slower-tempo song.

 

I guess I just have an old-fashioned opinion of music writing - just because you like a kind of music doesn't mean you can write it. If a person wants to write music that more or less conforms to the psytrance genre, I would expect them to be familiar enough with the style that they can pick out the 'defining' elements of psytrance without needing them to be explained, but also to have some natural talent at writing music. And in their own writing, incorporate those elements while also expanding upon them to create unique and interesting music. I have a real problem with the commonality in electronic music of saying "producing tracks" instead of "writing songs". To me, the phrase "producing tracks" just underlines a tendency of people who like a certain type of music and can recognize the defining elements of that style to think they should create it, regardless of their actual creative ability. I also think that referring to 'tracks' instead of 'songs' promotes the opinion of music as a disposable commodity rather than a creative endeavor that someone put a lot of work and emotion into, and that referring to the creator of a piece of music as a 'producer' rather than a 'musician' underlines the probability that they have little to no musical talent. Sorry, that's kind of off-topic, it's just my personal rant.

 

But then again, perhaps my opinion on the subject is why I don't make very good music...

[buzzman]

But then again, perhaps my opinion on the subject is why I don't make very good music...

Unless you are very very talented and keep an exact vision of how your track is going to sound like(eventhough you need to produce/write it first without forgetting what you wanted it to sound like) you need to know all the basics so you don't have to mess around with the sound to make your idea come true... If you don't know how to make your idea, you will probably forget it before you had the chance to even make half of what you intented to do... Thats why I think stuff like this is important. Not that you have to copy exactly what Jikkentekki or any other artists do on tutorials, but it will give you the tools to quickly reproduce your thoughs into the sequencer....

 

Jikkentekki wrote that he wanted to make a tutorial on intros and pads... This is not something totally innovative, it is something that is in ALL music, not just psytrance, and it is one of the basics to make a great track.... It doesn't tell you exactly WHAT TO write, but HOW TO write it, then you can deal with the given information like you please.... Use your imagination to make it different

 

I see it as an art-class or a writer's class (you know, a writer who writes books).. They learn from the master, but in the end their thoughts and visions on life isn't the same, therefor the stories and poems isn't the same But the master have learned about the subject all of his life maybe, so why not take all the information you can use from that guy??

[Lemmiwinks]

I applaud your altruistic intent in general, but...

 

It seems to me like making videos explaining "this is how you make a psytrance bass line", "this is how you make a psytrance melody", "this is how you write psytrance" would only add to the number of uninteresting generic psy tracks out there.

 

I would suggest less focus on writing, which is best left up to the individual in my opinion, and more on how to create unique sounds. You said you would spend a small amount of time on ADSR, but I think it's important for people who want to make music with synthesizers to understand the basics of synthesis. You could probably fit a brief introduction to oscillators, filters and envelopes (just sticking to subtractive synthesis) into one 15-minute video and provide a useful foundation for beginners to make their own sounds. Even touch on some classics ("this sound you know is called a 'supersaw', this sound you know is called a 'hoover', and this is how you create them"). Use your knowledge to steer people AWAY from presets! And not just how to make new sounds, but when to make them. You could explain, and demonstrate, how a fast decay on a bass filter envelope might sound good in a fast-tempo song but not necessarily in a slower-tempo song.

 

I guess I just have an old-fashioned opinion of music writing - just because you like a kind of music doesn't mean you can write it. If a person wants to write music that more or less conforms to the psytrance genre, I would expect them to be familiar enough with the style that they can pick out the 'defining' elements of psytrance without needing them to be explained, but also to have some natural talent at writing music. And in their own writing, incorporate those elements while also expanding upon them to create unique and interesting music. I have a real problem with the commonality in electronic music of saying "producing tracks" instead of "writing songs". To me, the phrase "producing tracks" just underlines a tendency of people who like a certain type of music and can recognize the defining elements of that style to think they should create it, regardless of their actual creative ability. I also think that referring to 'tracks' instead of 'songs' promotes the opinion of music as a disposable commodity rather than a creative endeavor that someone put a lot of work and emotion into, and that referring to the creator of a piece of music as a 'producer' rather than a 'musician' underlines the probability that they have little to no musical talent. Sorry, that's kind of off-topic, it's just my personal rant.

 

But then again, perhaps my opinion on the subject is why I don't make very good music...

 

ah wise words, especially since I felt the same way when I started to make music. I actually decided to steer clearly away from Cubase and FL prescisely not to be sucked in to the VST trend and create my own sounds. But the thing is that if you make stuff that sounds like nothing else... you'll probably never get a record deal in the first place. In most scenes it's the same: people do NOT want originality, they listen to something that sounds good and then want everything else to sound just like it. That's kindof why trance split into a million different subgenres when in the early 90s it was just trance (mind you, this happened to just about every music genre around). So if you want to get past square 1 I rekon you simply have no choice than to make generic stuff and just limit your creativity to making your track a LITTLE different to eveything else, not completely different. That said, already making generic stuff is no easy feat, once I actually started producing stuff I realized that it is much more of a challenge than I thought.

 

Also point no. 2 is that you have to start SOMEWHERE. A remark that I read when starting to make music and stuck with me is that when you learn how to play the guitar, you don't start composing stuff on it right away, you start by playing a riff that you're already familiar with, THEN, once you master the basics you start to experiment. With synths this is even more complicated since it's not only a question of melodies but how the synth sounds in the first place.