191–200 of 291 posts
I’ve enjoyed listening to psychedelic electronic music while programming since discovering Shpongle twenty years ago. I feel like it helps my brain get into the right mode somehow. I’m not familiar with the definitions of a lot of these sub-taxonomies but interested in listening to them! I have a coding playlist I’ve put together over the years that is more towards the psybient/chillout end but includes some trance a…
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Simon Posford enters the chat
His album during covid was 11/10 (very different though) https://simonposford.bandcamp.com/album/flux-contemplation-p...
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https://learningsynths.ableton.com/
This is a cool resource, Ableton being quite respected and all, but I'm interested in making synths with analog electronics if you have any suggestions in that area. Look Mum No Computer and Music From Outerspace are both fantastic for that, but I'm always open to what other folks are doing in the analog space.
I send that through a cheap echo-delay pedal, then a reverb pedal, so I have a lot of control over the dynamics of whatever sound I'm making. I tend to use the Brute for basslines but it's super versatile.
From there, it depends on what I'm trying to make or play with, but I've had a great time using the Brute as both sound and MIDI input to get some nice layered input. VSTs are totally preferential of course, but I have the Arturia Jupiter 8 VST for when I want to get REALLY deep into analog synths without spending $25k on a working physical model.
Otherwise, I also have an Arturia Beatstep Pro (I'm an Arturia fanboi for sure, but their stuff is affordable and fun) which I can control the Brute with via CV in case I want to have it play a loop while I twist some knobs. I also have a profile set up in Ableton that allows me to use all the Beatstep Pro knobs to control various knobs/sliders on the Jupiter 8 VST, which has opened me up for a lot of possibilities. Beyond that, the Brute has a "mod panel" which allows for some fun stuff like jumping the LFO to the sub bass knob - the Brute is monophonic but has an overtone generator you can tune anywhere from -8 to +5.
It sounds like modular or custom synthesis are what you are looking for, but for my level of skill/time/hobby it's nice to have a setup that can fit entirely on an old Yamaha keyboard :)
Something not said explicitly but to me, is the characteristic sound of psy-x is the synth bass line. It's a very simple sound that you can make in any subtractive synth - you start with a single saw, add a lowpass filter, and instead of using the amplitude envelope to control the dynamics or "pluck" of the sound you modulate the cutoff of the filter by an envelope with a very short attack, quick decay, and low or ze…
Have any examples in mind of the “really good tracks?”
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Whilst I do like a lot of Infected Mushroom's stuff I've always seen them as the cheesy, commercial, "like it ironically" side of psy-trance. I don't consider them truly representative of psy-trance, at least the eurocentric versions I listen to. Although I do like the variety that has developed, especially when there's multi-room club and it's possible to walk around and find whatever fits your current mood and ener…
They have a really wide range. I don’t listen to the vocal heavy “recent” stuff but they have very good songs and in particular very well orchestrated albums where you barely notice the track changes. My favorites to put on while focus working are Classical Mushroom and Outdoor Party Vol 3. The latter can be hard to find for some reason but imo is their best.
They host an annual dessert rave and go for a 4 hour retro set starting just before the sun rises. Been there, felt like I've seen the light. It was spiritual.
Having grown up with psytrance, I find that 25 years later the modern stuff just sounds like a cheap, low-effort pastiche of what psytrance used to be. And... I just became my Dad.
I've switched to the [dub] techno scene a few years ago, and it looks like there's much more psychedelia and overall creative stuff going on over there now. Azu Tiwaline, Al Wootton, Deadbeat, Claudio PRC, Ntogn, Luigi Tozzi, Feral, and so on. Party goes on!
I've been listening to Infected Mushroom daily for about 15+ years, mostly on repeat and I love it (obviously). My problem is that I just can't find similar music. People will say: "Oh I like psy too" and then recommend various artists of which the music sounds very repetitive to me (it's not just 5 minutes of dunalun) One of the things I feel sets them apart (at least in for example in their best works) is that they…
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This is what we're here for.
Definitely, but I can still joke about how I didn't understand anything from a comment on something I have no experience with.
It's this sort of stuff that makes it so good. Nothing like eavesdropping on a highly technical conversation in an esoteric field. Love it.
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Happens probably to anyone loving a genre for an extended amount of time. Trance, Drum & Bass, Psytrance, you hear that sentiment everywhere.
I really wonder if this is 1) Nostalgia.Obviously, the first tracks you heard were your introduction to the genre, so they will have emotional value. 2) First-mover advantage, for the lack of a better word. Obviously you perceive every new track t_i in the context of t_{0..i-1} that you already know. Maybe track t_443, which sounds cheap and commercial now, would have sounded innovative if you heard it as t_33? 3) Ge…
Compare that to a similarly layered and voiced project in a modern DAW. While the compute requirements have gone up drastically, the complexity the DAW has compressed into a single screen would make it trivial to make a similar album now (from a purely technical standpoint - the album is still the work of an artist).