frisbeehead
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Posted : Sep 3, 2015 18:17
Venetian Snares kind of solution is a bit extreme. But letting people know about it, even on these precise terms could perhaps open some doors? I don't know as I'm really in no position to say much.
In other scenes, like techno, people on your position would be living legends an praised for it - and justly so! Being able to throw some tracks to the public and getting some gigs is one thing, being able to sustain such long carrier is quite another.
routingwithin
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Posted : Sep 4, 2015 12:14
Quote:
On 2015-09-03 17:14, Colin OOOD wrote:
Writing the actual music and making it sound good has never been a struggle for me, although writer's block happens to everyone.
My biggest struggle these days is with the point of doing it at all; why am I putting so much effort into making this kind of music when no-one buys music any more and none of the major festivals are willing to give my act a chance to be heard, even after 20 years making a global reputation for originality and live performance? It gets me very depressed.
That was one of my main reasons aswell. When I started out there were so many possibilities and hope. I sat for hours really composing some trippy stuff.
Sure the quality weren't studio type, but the story and progression was there. Uploaded about 20 tracks to soundcloud. Marketed on forums, myspace, facebook etc - but in the end it came down to the very basic principal. The music is good enough or not. If it's in between it's also not.
Think about why you would play a track more than once. Next would be is there any friends of yours that listen to your music over and over. I said it somewhere a while back. Marketing from your side is merely to present it. If your track rocks the earth then people would talk about it and share it on your behalf.
To everyone in general. Never think you're not good enough. Maybe you just haven't applied yourself fully in the design of your tracks. The movie whiplash really outputs the message that the guy were not good enough but he pushed himself over his limits and became great. It's all about wanting it so much that you almost sacrifice everything to achieve it.
With that attitude, anyone (well those possessing some intelligence) can achieve anything. If they want it.. more than enough
" We are together in this matter you and I, closer to death, yes, closer than i'd like. How do you feel? - There can be no division in our actions, or everything is lost. What affects you affects me. "
Colin OOOD
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Posted : Sep 4, 2015 16:25
Sounds great, and I used to believe it, but unfortunately my experience shows it's total bullshit. Money talks in psytrance, as in any other area of the entertainment industry. End of story.
routingwithin
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Posted : Sep 4, 2015 18:47
Quote:
On 2015-09-04 16:25, Colin OOOD wrote:
Sounds great, and I used to believe it, but unfortunately my experience shows it's total bullshit. Money talks in psytrance, as in any other area of the entertainment industry. End of story.
Sure, good music talks too, but money gives you a megaphone, and there are so many people with the money megaphone that us gentle talkers don't get a chance - no matter how good our music is.
In your specific case I get your frustration. Listening to a few of your tracks and have to say you actually got it stomping. Love lost and found. Not sure if all of those tracks are your compositions ?
On the others however you do tend to lean towards GOA alot - music that's slowly being replaced by the new-age PsyHouse hybrids like ASTRIX and ACE Ventura. Did not think that when House music birthed into the commercial industry it would stretch so far to consume/influence Psytrance too. lol
Anyway you can still make money in local clubs / smaller events. Cant you ?
You came so far man. Don't give in. Figure it out. I am sure it will come to you.
" We are together in this matter you and I, closer to death, yes, closer than i'd like. How do you feel? - There can be no division in our actions, or everything is lost. What affects you affects me. "
Colin OOOD
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Posted : Sep 4, 2015 19:18
woodster77
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Posted : Sep 5, 2015 14:32
do you have to make money at just Psy trance??
a friend of mine makes about a Hundred bucks a month making soundbeds and texture clips.. sells mainly to corporate and media companies...
and he AINT very musical of particulaily skilled ( sorry dave....)
or is it merely recognition that people crave...
after all ... were all narcicist's at heart
besides.... if OOOD are finding it hard ... then why bother
°°°ACTS 4:12°°°°
Mathura
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Posted : Sep 5, 2015 16:47
Plainly music-making and production, space and time creation VS. Quality, targets & objectives, mainstream-tornado
Over and during this time the mainstream-tornado make people talk about quality and success ...
But goals are often magnetised through "consumer" and their "supermarket-drive-magicians"...
The truth in this is that the "failure" of some people, the success of another is ...
This is of some intentional ... Its their game of "competition" ...
They (and we also) play the game to the competition of good and bad in our head...
With this in mind goes some meaningful a bit "under"...
So well that our computer-machines can calculate frequencies according to our expectations... Wow...
"We are so close" to something "eternal" - "frequence, mind, spirit, soul & cosmo"
and sometimes it is sad that even this "cosmic-potential" more and more is available of only a "fringe group consciousness" ?
We know ! ? Do we know ! ? Have we become accustomed to it ?
It develops in the spirit of the mantra gates ! ? Money rules the world ! ?
And those, who have no desire or which lack the strength to run after the train are the losers ?
Children do not understand the sarcasm, first has to be taught...
But after "a point" its not easy to stop everything to feel, even if it sometimes feels good to get out to get in again at another point...
E.g. with such :
Nearly twenty years it waves like the cosmic-ocean...
And this is maybe "a why" you all should go ahead with music / psy / goa / what ever and the freequencies...
Colin OOOD
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Posted : Sep 5, 2015 19:33
No, I don't have to make money at just Psy trance, I also do mastering ( http://www.is.gd/mastering ) and some music technology teaching and tuition, including hosting occasional week-long 1-on-1 residential sessions at my home. Making and playing Psytrance is the smallest part of my income and has been from the very beginning, but it's the thing that has been the most important to me for 21 years now, and after all these years I sometimes feel like it's taken everything out of me that I have to give it.
TimeTraveller
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Posted : Sep 10, 2015 09:29
Quote:
On 2015-09-03 17:49, frisbeehead wrote:
Quote:
On 2015-09-03 08:54, TimeTraveller wrote:
Overall structure or arrangement. Usualy I start with kick and bass and some synth line. Than hats etc.. and then.. the intro.. to make it fit to the first part is often a struggle.
This time my hardest struggle is to get my cubase working. Since one month trojans have conquered my system. All I do now is producing on renoise but Still fun.
Try to download, install and run a full scan with Malwarebytes software (it's free) and you'll be amazed with the number of stuff it picks on your system - never failed me once. Get yourself some software capable of cleaning the register for residues of previous installed software. Then have a look at your startup to check if there's anything that shouldn't really be there. After this, your system should already feel a lot quicker.
When you're done with that, let me know. I know of some bugs with Cubase 8, like crashing on exit and stuff like that. But there's actually a quick fix for it, which is akin to turning off the accelerated graphics for plug-ins that make use of it, like Fabfilter's Pro Q 2 for instance. Another thing that I noticed immediately is that Cubase 8 and Automap (novation) don't get along very well for the time being (had to disable all automap vst plugs + the automap thingy by itself for the time being). Hit me up with a PM once you have your system ok and I'll send you the details. Cheers
Thanks bro. Had a busy time last weeks. But I tried all possible virus scanners that were recommandable. I thak malwarebytes is still on my desktop. I contacted Cubase etc they gave advice .. it seems I have really a bad motherfucker as trojan. That simply blocks or destructed xml. files of cubase . I'm still not 100% sure and really sick of it. I need it again to work and not to loose my clients and cannot use it. Also would love to make my tracks now finally finished. arrghh. Meanwhile I become a freak in Renoise lol.
https://soundcloud.com/shivagarden
routingwithin
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Posted : Sep 10, 2015 12:16
Why not back-up your data - project files etc and format the drive ? Many times a trojan can even after format remain, then you'll need too wipe the drive with Wincare - if you're on PC. You can also use CC Cleaner but you'll have to boot in with another drive to wipe your main one.
If you take this course of action you should make sure not to back-up infected data, caused by the trojan. Or else you're never going to get rid of the bastard.
" We are together in this matter you and I, closer to death, yes, closer than i'd like. How do you feel? - There can be no division in our actions, or everything is lost. What affects you affects me. "
TimeTraveller
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Posted : Sep 10, 2015 19:47
Hey dunno how, but after heavy mind bending and experimenting I solved it out Thanks for your help guys.
https://soundcloud.com/shivagarden
frisbeehead
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Posted : Sep 11, 2015 20:04
Glad to ear it.
It's been quite an easy ride for me so far. But I've had some issues to, mainly:
- workspaces were not recalling as they should
- there was a problem with the midi modifier menus. if you created a midi track, then activate one of the midi sends and enable a midi modifier on that send, opening up and closing the dropdown menu for the sends would always lead to a crash. fortunately it's been fixed now with the latest update, just yesterday! this one was getting on my nerves, tbh, 'cause I was experimenting with Equilibrium, making some resonant notch cuts follow pitch/midi (which is awesome btw!). somehow, at least on my system, it picks it up but usually between two or four octaves lower then the actual note, hence the need for the modifier (and there's also a way of doing it on the EQ itself on the scale slider).
- that and the midi jitter and the crashes on quit (which were not dramatic since I usually save first anyway, just annoying)
overall I think it's getting much more stable and I'm now feeling confident enough on the software and myself after some experiments and tests just to get used to it after so many time using Logic. I actually feel like I'm editing audio faster then I ever did before. just miss the automation curves and being able to use some tool for setting the start and end points immediately (maybe they could make the range tool do this? would make sense to me). cheers
I've put away all ambitions of psytrance stardom. I make music if I feel inspired (and have the time to spare), but I no longer try to force myself into making psytrance. I get a lot more enjoyment out of remixing pop music, to be honest I've also dabbled with movie scores, and basically, I have never quite found my "place" as far as modern psytrance goes.
My main problem is that even though I find a lot of contemporary psy rather uninspiring, I do respect its creator's ability to make good, psychedelic dance music with a minimum of melodic content. If I try to make that kind of trance, I have absolutely no idea where to start, so I default to making an uninspired 4 bar melodic loop, which always sounds like dated Goa. Then I lose interest.
I have tried to make more sound-focussed psy, but I cannot get it to sound coherent and thought-through - again, a quality I really respect in psytrance artists. The thing is that organised noise is not enough to keep my attention.
In a way, I feel that maybe the greatest inhibition to any musician is the very fact that you set out to create any specific kind of music. Particularly in the case of psy, I think we're completely missing the point when we make music to fit a formula. Psy and Goa used to be cutting-edge experiments, whereas today, it's just a slightly whacky kind of dance music that very few pay attention to.
EDIT: Actually, I think that the main reason why I have almost zero output these days is the fact that I almost never get time to really get into the groove, spending hours and hours just letting my ideas evolve. I'm not the kind of person who can set aside 30 minutes a day and expect any progress to be made.
http://drumpets.sporkles.net http://soundcloud.com/drumpets
frisbeehead
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Posted : Sep 15, 2015 02:45
@dumpets
I'd say that most psytrance today has a lot of post processing and editing and that it's fairly normal to expect some kind of organised noise - like you say. Myself, I seem to be ok with both methods: old school midi sequencing and real time tweaks and also the more software based approach of precision editing, fiddling with automation, getting a little anal with details on the arrangement and all that.
Today I don't feel like the editing kills the vibe, or that it gets less human. I think with good enough editing, you can give it an organic, not so robotic feel as well.
But the part that really resonates with my thinking and there's not really much talk about it round here (that I'm aware of) is I share your need for trying out new things, even completely different genres of music. I've always felt it enhances my learning, gives me new insights on things and ultimately it even helps with the trance project as well.
No desire for stardom as well. But playing for an audience is also a big experience by itself, I think, it sort of completes the cycle and it's what - like Colin said - makes the whole thing make sense. Even though I think most of us would still do it even if just for the sheer joy of it. Or 'cause we're addicted to it. So my biggest struggle is to gain more focus and to make a whole coherent project instead of spending my time chasing more and more knowledge - 'cause that's the thing I tend to get sucked into the most. I think I'm making some progress on it and will certainly start sharing it more and more.
moki
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Posted : Sep 23, 2015 00:47
Quote:
On 2015-09-01 23:47, frisbeehead wrote:
Just do what you can with what you have and the time you can afford to put in - and make it count!
Yeah, exactly this "make it count" sounds like a big obstacle to me: something to fight for, something to run after, something to achieve, some highly undemanding crowds to be dependent on and to serve to, some highly stubborn unchangeble formula of how dance music must be done and some extremely boring frame of reference about what trance culture is. And in the worst case a struggle to survive financially on making music. Struggles can be inspiring but not if you have lost them before you even started.
Sometimes I really admire all those simple music interpreters who see music as a recreational hobby and play an instrument in 99 percent of the time alone just for the magic of performing and interpreting music. They dont struggle with the question of why they are doing this because there is no question - they simply need to do it for their own integrity. And to achieve more integrity with others, they play together live in big orchestras. I believe too that trance culture completely misses the point by setting music performing and club entertainment business to be equal. Also I think it would be good for trance in general if there are more daytime performing concerts, where techniques and quality of production are what it is all about. But such events need visionary organizers too, and they are rare.
But back to the struggles. Generally I find struggles and chanllenges very inspiring and even think that the path of your life where the challenge is strong, is exactly the path of your life which will make you happier, at least what techniques and know how is concerned. Again, my struggle with midi recording is that i want to find or discover a way to hang algorithmically calculated music to the midi keyboard but this is very hard to do precisely right with the human factor of playing keyboard together with the artificial factor of perfect proportions and algorithms. Hm, but it is a beautiful struggle, a one that brings integrity in my head. The struggle with the idea why i am doing this can only bring disintegrity to one's mind. You do it because you cant live without doing it.
but Still fun.
. I'm still not 100% sure and really sick of it. I need it again to work and not to loose my clients and cannot use it. Also would love to make my tracks now finally finished. arrghh. Meanwhile I become a freak in Renoise lol.
Thanks for your help guys.
