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do you experience any 'focus' problem or is it just me?
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Get-a-fix
Getafix
Started Topics :
147
Posts :
1441
Posted : Oct 27, 2006 02:07
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diskOtek
Entek
Started Topics :
70
Posts :
953
Posted : Oct 27, 2006 15:30
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its all matter of discipline after all and determination on what you do..
some wise words said here! 
thanks!
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Psynaesthesian
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
30
Posts :
557
Posted : Oct 27, 2006 19:00
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By Any Means Necessary .....
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On 2006-10-26 19:20, Kitnam wrote:
the only way to finish the track is finishing the track
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... and ...... as in any field of creativity ..... get your regular quota of sleep and sex!!
B'om Shankara!!
 "... b'om ..." |
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Enertopia
Enertopia
Started Topics :
99
Posts :
676
Posted : Oct 27, 2006 22:48
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Well, first of I have to say that recommending ritalin as drug is a very BAD advice, even as a joke someone may try it and it might end in a very bad way, even death.
Now, for the subject, I strongly recommend to get a strong PC, a dual core for sure, that will give you the power that you need to maintain a spontanuos moment without cpu interruptions, that will help you to get the job done. |
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Get-a-fix
Getafix
Started Topics :
147
Posts :
1441
Posted : Oct 28, 2006 01:16
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Quote:
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On 2006-10-27 22:48, Enertopia wrote:
Well, first of I have to say that recommending ritalin as drug is a very BAD advice, even as a joke someone may try it and it might end in a very bad way, even death.
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Agreed that Ritalin can be messed up..A friend of mine was hooked on them for a while, he would take 10 in a go which was normal for him as his tolerance had increased so much..I doubt that someone could die from it though..Would take a massive massive overdose to do that..
http://www.soundcloud.com/getafixmusic |
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z1P^
Megalopsy
Started Topics :
28
Posts :
535
Posted : Oct 28, 2006 02:29
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im what your mother would define as bad influence ;D7
there are better jokes for sure.  (www) DarkPrisma.com.ar/ ~ FranticNoise.com.ar/ ~ Megalopsy.com.ar/ ~
providing shamanic euphoria until the end of the days! |
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diskOtek
Entek
Started Topics :
70
Posts :
953
Posted : Oct 28, 2006 04:10
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z1p^ am i missin something with u an my mum or what? 
Enertopia i got a dualcore recently so maybe things improve in a way-thanks!
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Cyanescens
Started Topics :
4
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8
Posted : Oct 28, 2006 23:46
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This is a really great idea for a thread!
Loopitis must surely be the most detrimental condition in the Psytrance community.
I think a lot of producers must have delusions of grandeur, we all have really cool sounds floating around in our heads and want to transcribe them into our sequencer. Way easier said than done and in the end most of the stuff you write is serendipitous anyway. At my stage I can't create all the sounds I want on demand, but often times on my way there I'll come across something cool. Unfortunately, this process usually ends in loopitis.
Which leads me to this point, if it sounds good, use it. If you find you can't really something in the original context, at least document it, think about how it sounds, why it sounds the way it does, what did it take in general to achieve the sound. Stash it away in some ORGANIZED fashion and move on. If loopitis is good for anything, you usually get a few cool patches to work with once it's over.
You really can't make a beeline for pystrance nirvana by sitting at the computer tweaking envelopes on your lead 8 hours a day. What you need is an WORKFLOW that fosters creativity. I find one of the most important things for me here is appreciating the importance of certain elements such as drums, bass, pads, in/out effects (crashes, reverse crashes, takeoffs).
Beyond the kick and bass, the introduction/dropping out of snares/claps, closed hats, open hats is extremely important. If you set up a good drum track you can sometimes easily 'ad lib' many other elements and quickly fill a section out. Have something simple like 16 bars with kick/bass/snare then 16 with with closed hats. Throw in a drop out, cymbal crash, then go fullon with the drums (include those open hats!).
Throw 'pro' tracks into your sequencer. Stretch them to match your bpm and document all the little dropouts and pattern changes. This is huge. This is how you keep things interesting for you and your listener. For me, 1 bar dropouts in particular are something I really like because I'll start riding some sort of fat chorused saw riff all day long, being unable to let go because it just sounds too hot... then suddenly the playhead in my sequencer comes up on a dropout and I'm like "whoa... that was easy I'm free from saw riff hell... now I can totally get greasy." Something as simple as a dropout can stimulate a whole bunch of new ideas. Your mind kind of becomes numb to inspiration when you've been floating in the same soundscape for hours.
In/Out 'In Between' effects also help with the loopitis. Set up some reverse cymbal crashes, cymbal crashes, reverse reverb tails, takeoffs ('gold rays' lol) etc at `16/32 bar intervals (don't overdo it or you'll sound like Astral circa 1998). Listen to other tracks and document these. A lot of the times something simple like some preset pad swell makes things much more interesting. Personally, I'm getting to the point where I can spit these out pretty fast but if you're new it's important that you build up your library of these sounds. Reverse reverb + pitch shifting is pretty fundamental here.
I think the tendency with these in/out things is to say, "Oh I'll just add them later" because they seem so minor, you've got bigger fish to fry in the form of coked out leads and ridiculous bendy basslines. The thing is, at any point during your 3 day bout with loopitis you could've spent 10 seconds to stick a few into your track and they'd be in place.
A lot of these little things you can do rather quickly and they lead to little jumps in progress. Divorce yourself from that loop you've been stuck in for 3 hours and do something much more productive. Spending just 30 minutes analysing some 16 bar section of the album you've been bumping recently will have huge marginal returns.
If you're using Cubase, get the learn the keyboard shortcuts. Want a dropout? It's easy, hit '3' to select the scissor tool. Set your quantize to 1/1 (assign a shortuct to this, I use alt 1-5 for 1/1 - 1/32, 'j' to toggle snapping). Cut your midi sequences, select them and hit 'alt-m' (I'm so lazy I even changed it to 'm'). Mute selected elements and see how it sounds. If It sounds good, sweet. Otherwise hit ctrl+z a few times and you're back where you started.
Organize your tracks. Cubase's default vst instruments at the bottom of your sequencer sucks. I like to put the individual folders for whatever softsynth I'm using right below the midi that controls it. Then I color code them in the same way. You can change and rename the colors too! I'm starting to standardize my lead/pad/drum/bassline colors these days.
Automation: don't fret about some of the seemingly intricate things you're going to have to do. Just freaking do it. For a long time I was really reluctant to record automation just because I'd end up with such a messy sequencer and I had this notion that I'm just going to waste time anyway. These days I just enable write on the vst I want to tweak, hit spacebar for a moment while I turn the knob and hit it again to pause. I right click my vst track or the channel track (if it's an insert effect on a vst for example), select 'show used' automation and voila. Keep it clean and tidy as you go by deleting points that you don't need, or tracks that you don't need. For example, if you're doing a lo pass sweep using Waves' 2 band eq you're going to get an automation track for 'band x' gain that you don't really need. Right click it and select remove selected track.
Record to audio: this is also huge. If you can do loopback recording (ie you record your DAW output directly - you'll see the input level in the transport panel (F2) mirror your output level if it's set up right) , you can simply create an empty audio track, solo the elements you want to record, press '*' and let the playhead work it's way through. If you can't do loopback, you can using something like Silverspike Tapeit! (which is arguably better because it records at 32 bit.. but it doesn't match this workflow IMHO). This is really helpful if you want to capture those accidental tweaks from your vsts. Sometimes some free running LFOs on your synth will swell just right. I just let my sequencer run a little while until I get what I want then scissor it up, select the tweak, hit 'b' to bounce it and then
rename the segment to something like '_FlangerBlast.wav' which then makes it easy to find in my projects 'audio' folder if I sort by name. BTW, you can drag and drop audio into Cubase. Once you've made a bunch of these you can get some cheap inspiration simply by dragging and dropping these little tweaks into your sequencer. Want to see what they sound like reversed?? There's keyboard shortcut for that too! Now reversing anything is painless. It works on reverb tails, works on bass notes, works on snares, crashes and vocals - try it!
Another example would be if you're running a plugin like dblue glitch and it's using the random sequence. Once again, let it run for a while and if It suddenly blows your socks off with some awesome output, you'll have it right there in audio. Make sure you enable lanes and stacked recording (you can do this in the transport). Once it's done you can just go through scissoring/muting/bouncing/rearranging the little tweaks.
So that's my advicenshit. |
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br0d
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
355
Posted : Oct 29, 2006 11:38
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You can try this. Go to your closet and get 4 hats.
Assign different titles to each one.
Such as:
programmer/engineer (beats, sounds, loops, etc)
arranger/songwriter (melodies, chords, structure)
mastering engineer (just mastering)
producer (final say on everything)
Or however you feel it should be broken down.
Keep in mind that the main problem in writing is the constant fight between the programmer and the arranger. The programmer wants to stay forever tweaking nuances of beats and basslines. This is fun stuff and you can do it forever because we have millions of tools and ideas being discussed constantly.
But the Producer wants a finished song. And he is the authority, so he gets to tell the programmer when to shut it. And when you reach that point where you're like "what am I doing" or "I am getting nowhere" that is the producer nagging you to quit wasting studio time. So put his hat on, and then give the arranger tasks. Take his hat off, and then put on the arranger hat. Etc.
The programmer has the easiest job with the least pressure. The arranger has a more difficult job and it requires more musical talent. The mastering engineer, well he just collects dust as these two battle. The producer is the guy who has to save the day and if you don't let him, you will get nothing done.
Keep in mind that sometimes the producer is really loud and insistent and you don't have to mess with hats or anything dumb like that. Usually this occurs when you have a deadline, or you are feeling under-represented musically, or really pragmatic and not anal retentive. At these points the producer is really loud and insistent. I used to write drunk a lot. It was easy to quiet the science nerd programmer because drunk people are more emotional, and the songwriter/arranger part of the work is more emotional and a more potentially embarrassing commitment. But embarrassing yourself comes naturally to drunks.
Unfortunately I am not so interested in getting fucked up for the sake of music anymore. Sometimes, yes, but I don't intend to die for a good song. |
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soulfood
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
10
Posts :
875
Posted : Oct 29, 2006 16:06
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I knew I needed to buy more hats!
Everyone was saying "accessorize, accessorize!!!" but I wouldnt listen!
Of course hats are the key to perfect studio organisation!
br0d you're a genius! |
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PsytillIdie
Started Topics :
0
Posts :
4
Posted : Oct 29, 2006 19:44
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Getting a totally coked out dual-core or smoking fast CPU definitely improves workflow; nothing worse than having a myriad of ideas and being hindered by rendering/freezing audio, and the subsequent committment it entails.
Cyanescence is right about loopitis; while it can prove useful in generating a few new patches that session, in the end it will end up generating 20 different projects that are all only 2-3 minutes long. This is where you need to get your "arranger hat" on. (hehe Soulfood)
As Cyanescence suggested, placing one of your favorite tracks next to your own work can give you a sense of successful formal principles of organization. Remember, melodic phrases don't have to be isolated events. They can blend into one another, leading from one to the next, ultimately providing a sense of unity and coherence among the piece. Avoid foccusing on one particular element for too long; by "overfocussing" your attention on one element it may eventually command too much of the listener's attention. Think of psytrance as a "tapestry." You are trying to weave together multiple threads to create a single piece that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I find it helpful to begin with a melodic theme, and then develop varations based on this. Before you press space on your sequencer, hum or vocalize a phrase in order to generate a direction for your track.
Long story short, having a well-developed idea of how you want to progress can prevent you from getting stuck. Inspiration is a fickle mistress, and can't be your sole source of ideas.
P.S. Turn off the damn sequencer at all opportunities to avoid loopitis. It may narrow your conception of where the track can progress.
To dance is human, to trance is divine. |
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diskOtek
Entek
Started Topics :
70
Posts :
953
Posted : Oct 30, 2006 02:28
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nice input people!
but hey dont narrow it only in psytrance(psytillidie ) its something generally about music writing!
i m kinda 'happy' that i see ppl getting through this and being interested!kinda!
cyanescens and brod interesting posts!thanks!
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psytheriatsunami
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
29
Posts :
570
Posted : Nov 3, 2006 06:40
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when i get blocked i use marihuana.
some times the ideas are so many that its really hard to use everyone.
but if i cant continue with a track then i just make it an intro and outro or droped it or change the whole thing.
my advice is dont give this too much importance, somehow the inspiration will come to you.
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s0ft
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
42
Posts :
825
Posted : Nov 3, 2006 22:33
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Quote:
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On 2006-10-29 11:38, br0d wrote:
You can try this. Go to your closet and get 4 hats.
Assign different titles to each one.
Such as:
programmer/engineer (beats, sounds, loops, etc)
arranger/songwriter (melodies, chords, structure)
mastering engineer (just mastering)
producer (final say on everything)
Or however you feel it should be broken down.
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thats either the craziest or most brilliant thing i have ever heard.
The IsraTrance MySpace Group:
http://groups.myspace.com/isratrance
DJ Trypta Sets:
http://waxdj.com/djs/4354/ |
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Kane
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
23
Posts :
1772
Posted : Nov 8, 2006 19:41
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I just take breaks working all day rather than stopping..
Some of my tracks end up a bit "dormant" where I don't work on them for even weeks at a time..
It's good to go back and listen when you've heard some different stuff for a while. |
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