Imperets
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 01:02:09
I am thinking about getting into psytrance production and I will most likely be quite active on this forum. So far, I've had some experience putting together a few tracks, but I think they don't yet sound up to par. So, getting my music sound better is my goal and I will highly appreciate ANY honest feedback.
I have a few questions:
1) How long did it take YOU to develop a set of techniques that made you completely comfortable with psytrance production?
2) How was that knowledge acquired? (read books, went to school for it, etc)
3) How were those skills practised and perfected? (did exercises, kept making tracks, etc)
4) Do you master your own music?
5) I recently created my first track in Logic. Since I'm fairly new to electronic music in general, I don't really know what genre it turned out to be. If you could help me identify it, i'd be grateful.
Any advice would be great. Thanks!
Here's the song;
FaceHead
FaceHead
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 01:30
1) How long did it take YOU to develop a set of techniques that made you completely comfortable with psytrance production?
its been 8-9 years and im still totally uncomfortable with my knowledge level. as soon as you learn something there is something new to learn. although i do feel more comfortable the more experince i get etiher playing live or just writing tracks in my room that are never played or finished.
2) How was that knowledge acquired? (read books, went to school for it, etc)
i read some forums and watched a few videos but again the most beneficial thing for me was practicing and learning through that.
3) How were those skills practised and perfected? (did exercises, kept making tracks, etc)
yes keep making tracks dont thwart your momentum. the best way to learn about my own music for me was to listen to it and figure out what about it i wasnt feeling. more than listening to other peoples music and thinking what do i like about this? then trying to make it happen. however im sure it is different for everyone. i personally have a hard time learning from books or text.
4) Do you master your own music?
i have but id barely call it mastering add compressor tune til sounds good ad eq tune til sounds good limit or maximize done... but that is coming from someone who isnt a master and doesnt know about mastering.
5) I recently created my first track in Logic. Since I'm fairly new to electronic music in general, I don't really know what genre it turned out to be. If you could help me identify it, i'd be grateful.
to classify i think it sounds like trance written with psychedelic intent. but really does it matter the music by itself is trivialized by classifying it. be proud that this doesnt quite fit into any clearly defineable genres and keep going with that.
your production really isnt bad at all to me. maybe the bass is a tad quiet but im not listening on anything with woofers hehe. so with that in mind the only advice id give is to be patient and keep going. your answers will show themselves throughout your journey.
dija
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 01:40
This is a fine piece of music you have here. The intro is psytrance using the old goa bass so goa trance perhaps. THen it moves into a euro trance style song. There are many great ideas in this track but I feel theres really about 3 tracks here. Your idea is to create a groove or two for your track and to make them familiar and keep building upon those. I feel you changed the groove too much to keep a dance floor focused and moving. You have good talent. Other music training ?
1.) 6 years
2.) Reading, experimenting mostly
3.) When doing synthesis always start from init patch and create sound from there. To become familiar with synthesis.
4.) no, never
5.) already answered
http://www.youtube.com/user/trawhi (tutorials)
http://www.myspace.com/eusidmusic
Imperets
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 01:43
Thanks for the feedback. I was originally a classical musician (spanish guitar and piano), then I wrote a bunch of music for the rock band i'm now in. I'm looking to move a little away from rock and get into trance. The fact the trance scene is kinda dead in my country does not stop me because I just love the music.
That's the same feelings I was getting from my track. It sounds more like an exhibition of ideas rather than a cohesive track.
Yeah, if somebody would like to share THEIR early tracks, that'd be cool. It would also be interesting to listen to one of the first tracks ever produced and then listen to the newest one.
If my goal is to succeed on the trance scene and get signed by a label, is it really possible without going to school for music production? Is there any reading material that would explain to me how the psytrance business really works?
FaceHead
FaceHead
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 01:47
Quote:
On 2010-06-09 01:43, Imperets wrote:
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, if somebody would like to share THEIR early tracks, that'd be cool.
It would also be interesting to listen to one of the first tracks ever produced and then listen to the newest one.
ive been procrastinating starting this thread for years
*eLliSDee*
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 01:52
5) i'd say, its like house trance that wants to be psychedelic.
my first tracks were made in fasttracker. don't have any of them anymore..
still have some of my early wincake tracks made with only midi.
really funny music, i'll post it later.
"the psytrance business really works?" lol uhmmm
make your music sound like fractal art looks
Imperets
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 03:46
To me, the most challenging aspect of creating electronic music is the necessity to maintain a certain balance between diversity and cohesiveness within a track. In other words, how do you identify that middle ground between being too complex and being too repetitive/monotone?
In psytrance, there's a variety. Here's an example of a song that has plenty of movement and change, but manages to retain cohesiveness:
Here's a song that doesn't have much change, but "entrances" me more than the previous example:
My objective is to create music similar to Bliss, but add my own elements to it, creating something semi-original.
I noticed that that sub-genre of psytrance (whatever it is) has plenty of drops, falls, ultra-fast crescendos, etc; I also noticed that the master track was manipulated heavily by filters (especially high pass), tempo stretching (sudden tempo rises), and what sounded like Virus' Atmomizer (the clutter effect, whatever it is). Anyway, it'd be nice to have some kind of a list of psy-related techniques.
dija
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 07:18
Good point about diverse cohesiveness. You don't need school. Schools not going to teach you how to get that really nice pluck at the beginning of your fat full on bass and duck the bass under the kick. So absolutely no need for production school to get signed by a label. Chances are though you will never make a full living off psytrance. or trance period.
http://www.youtube.com/user/trawhi (tutorials)
http://www.myspace.com/eusidmusic
kabbalisticvillage
IsraTrance Senior Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 12:00
i have only been doing trance for 3 months
the first month..i learned how to use my program from youtube
i was also a guitarist for 10 years before this so i have musical experience but experimenting with everything is the best
aciduss
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 17:09
Welcome to the wonderful world of psytrance production!
1) How long did it take YOU to develop a set of techniques that made you completely comfortable with psytrance production?
It's been around 3 and a half years now and i'm just starting to feel moderately comfortable with my techniques and processes, it takes a while to get the basics solid enough and know what you want to do.
2) How was that knowledge acquired? (read books, went to school for it, etc)
This forums and many others, also downloading a lot of ebooks, reading on audio and music, etc.
3) How were those skills practised and perfected? (did exercises, kept making tracks, etc)
Lots of excercises, and yeah well trying to finish tracks, also doing collab with other guys and i have payed lessons to a couple of pro artists i happen to meet.
4) Do you master your own music?
Kind of... learning to.
5) I recently created my first track in Logic. Since I'm fairly new to electronic music in general, I don't really know what genre it turned out to be. If you could help me identify it, i'd be grateful.
Sorry i have soundcloud blocked at work
Cheers.
-=Mandari=-
Mandari
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Posted : Jun 9, 2010 17:14
1) agree with facehead, a real artist will never reach that point
2) yepp, books, tutz, isratrance (:D) trial´n error so far
3) mostly infront of my 13" macbook 4) yepp, but release usually left that job to someone else
5) to the first sentences just have a look at my sig and you´ll see i guess
to the track i really really like it, it´s really great in it´s ideas, sound was quite ok so far to me. hard to judge from these soundcloud/myspace/etc. thingys. but to me for that style was quite ok. bass could maybe benefit from some more power, so maybe it´s that simple just raisin the gain a lil bit to give it some more cheeese
it contains a lot of influences from very various styles, so like said i dont like to put music into genres. an artist is an artist to break these rules and how do you want to call a unique and new creation influenced by so many genres, i find that kindly hard to judge, so .... fuck for genre, its great idea you got there and i like it, however someone will call it at the end.
at the end a genre tells nothin about music. your opinion of any style does never mean that someone else will share this opinion.
so, if you did all that stuff on your own, without any presets n sample stuff, i´d be quite impressed. even if not the case, its really good what you did there.
any experience in music like guitar or stuff is always good, it helps for understandin composition and how a track is build. to me the hardest to explain. you simply got it or not.
Imperets
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 10, 2010 02:34
I think I'm beginning to grasp the idea behind psy trance production. I recently thought of this: I can take a commercially produced psytrance track, then make it a track in Logic, and then listen to it and write down the structure. Then I use the said structure for one of my own tracks. Would that be stealing? If you just copy somebody's structure?
I never really intended to make a full living off of trance, but at the same time I don't want to be just a hobbyist producer. Not that it's a bad thing, I just have more passion for music than that.
In the track I didn't sample any beats, just the FX and whatnot.
Presets... That's another thing i was wondering about. Do most people use presets and tweak them or create ALL the sounds from scratch? I do use presets sometimes on my VA synth, then I would usually alter them to fit my music better. I almost never resort to presets on my analogue synth, preferring to build the sound from scratch.
*eLliSDee*
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 10, 2010 03:30
by listing to your music, i can tell that you already know i lot about production. its good
the thing with psychedelic music is, and all here will agree,, there is no formula to structure or rules you can think of to categorize a thing as psychedelic..
its exactly the opposite.. you should not confine your imagination to borders like how the structure should be.. Make music how you feel is groovy or whatever you want. if you want it to be trancy, then make it trancy.
if your idea of trancy sounds like fullon, then it will be called fullon.
psytrance = trance that is psychedelic.
or uhhmm ,very colorful trance.
i do not recommend it BUT,
a 'fat one' might help. ask DiscoHooligans on this forum, he will tell you.
dija
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 10, 2010 09:20
1. To the people who say a real artist will never get comfortable with trance production is not correct. After many years a work flow is developed and you do things very quickly that bassline that used to take an hour now takes 5 or 10 minutes. I think this is what he is talking about. We never stop learning new ways to do things.
http://www.youtube.com/user/trawhi (tutorials)
http://www.myspace.com/eusidmusic
Imperets
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jun 10, 2010 19:52
That's precisely what I meant. For instance, I can write and arrange a fully complete rock/pop song with vocal melodies and lyrics in about 12 hours. Then I would mix it on a different day, and it would usually take about 4 hours.
When it comes to trance music (especially the more intricate subgenres of it), it can take me weeks or even a month of everyday work to finish a tune. In many ways a psytrance track is similar to a quite complex orchestral piece.
