THE Psytrance thread

[recursive one]

Sounds great, mate, trippy and fierce, top stuff! What synths did you use for the FM sounds?

Thanks very much mate!

The "squeaky" FM lead is from a Nord Lead 2X - which can produce some crazy organic timbres from it's FM. Haven't heard anything else quite like it. Was a pain to sit in the mix though.

The fatter FM lead is straight out of Serum - which I love. It's sound has a lot of depth to it - especially when you start modulating.

And the first arp that comes in is from a Virus C - which I'm not so happy with in hindsight. I'd used the Virus internal EQ to boost the mids quite excessively which kinda thinned out the sound. Flat EQ from this point forward

Great use of hardware here! And Serum too, I'm thinking of picking it up myself- I originally disliked it (have to admit, mostly because of teh presets lol) but I see people are making awesome psy stuff with Serum.

If you ask, some of my tracks, not so great mixing but I'm trying to improve.

These are mostly Virus TI.

https://soundcloud.com/recursion-loop/andromeda-nebula

https://soundcloud.com/recursion-loop/mothers-womb

https://soundcloud.com/recursion-loop/genetic-prank

And this one is ITB

https://soundcloud.com/tendancemusic/2- ... ee-turtles

[Distorted Horizon]

Sounds great, mate, trippy and fierce, top stuff! What synths did you use for the FM sounds?

Thanks very much mate!

Well actually it was mr recursive that said that

Care to share any of your tunes?

Sure. I've posted these earlier too but maybe I'll put them here again

https://soundcloud.com/distortedhorizon

[Distorted Horizon]

Andy would you mind sending a link here to your music?

I'd be interested to hear what are you cooking

Here's the latest complete track I have online - https://soundcloud.com/groovetoads/groo ... d-deformed

Says it's a month old but it's actually more like 6 months. The stuff I'm working on at the minute is sounding a bit phatter And I've been improving on other aspects like my use of reverb, panning etc.

Would love to hear what you think anyway!

Maybe a bit repetitive but rest 99% of the song? Great stuff Love the soundscape

[Distorted Horizon]

For a while I have been using a fake kick drum as the source for the sidechain to the bassline.

This fake Kick is just a duplicated version of the actual Bazzism channel that I use for my Kick, but I do a few things to make it different...
(this is in cubase, and may be a bit different to set up in other hosts)

For starters I send the audio output of the fake Kick channel to 'no bus' so it cannot be heard in the mix.

Then I move the Cubase track delay slightly into minus. so this fake kick is actually happening 10ms or something BEFore the actual Kick drum in the track.

I also often make this fake kick have a slightly quicker decay than the real kick in the mix, as it helps make the sidechain nice and snappy.

This fake kick is then used to sidechain the bassline, instead of the actual audible kick drum. Getting the minus track delay number just right, plus the attack and the release of the sidechained compressor on the bassline all right and sounding smooth can take a bit of work, but basically doing this you can be 100% sure that when the first note of the bassline hits, the Kick has already been ducked by the sidechain.

WithOUT this minus delay, there is always going to be some delay from the sidechain + the attack stage of the compressor. so Kick and Bass will still be overlapping ever so slighty in time and competing for the same freqs in the mix. (and those are some important freqs!)
Seems a bit over the top I know but lets face it we have been going over the top in psy getting perfect Kicks and basslines for a long time now haha and it really does help IMO

While I set this kind of thing up in a track, I usually just have a bar or two in a loop and as I progress though the process of tuning the kick, bass and compressor to be just right I keep bouncing down the Kick bass (and fake kick so the sidechain is working properly) to a piece of audio in my DAW and look at it.

Really looking carefully at the end of the kick and how it interacts with the bassline and Also the end of the last bass note and how it interacts with the start of the Kick really helps.

I used to work my sidechains this way earlier. Except that I always bounce BazzISM tracks to audio. Then I nudged that ghost kick to the left a bit that it hit earlier. And highpassed the incoming audio just before the compressor (or inside the comp.. Depends on what DAW I used) that it's basically the transient that makes the comp duck. Then I played with the release time to taste/sound good.

Then I found LFO Tool and became lazy

[Distorted Horizon]

But seriously it's more than just me being lazy. LFOTool is great tool since it can make the curve to any shape and timing so I have lots of control over the sound.
Plus it's not tied to any timing. It can trigger from, for example, ghost kick.

Aaaand those visuals. I can see in real time, what's happening

LFOTool.jpg

[andymcbain]

Sounds great, mate, trippy and fierce, top stuff! What synths did you use for the FM sounds?

Thanks very much mate!

Well actually it was mr recursive that said that

Care to share any of your tunes?

Sure. I've posted these earlier too but maybe I'll put them here again

Ooooooops my bad. Still getting the hang of quoting on here.

Nice! Much more melodic than what I tend to go for with psy. But good melodies, and good grooves...

Yeah, that track was heavily influenced by night time kinda full-on - which tends to be relentless and more repetitive for that "spinning out on the dancefloor" effect. Breakdowns are rare and sometimes even frowned upon in that sub genre, I've noticed.

[andymcbain]

Great use of hardware here! And Serum too, I'm thinking of picking it up myself- I originally disliked it (have to admit, mostly because of teh presets lol) but I see people are making awesome psy stuff with Serum.

If you ask, some of my tracks, not so great mixing but I'm trying to improve.

Must say I've never touched a preset on Serum as I just found it so quick and intuitive to program. It's an absolute modulation-monster!

Really enjoyed those tracks mate! The sound design is nice and I can definitely hear some distinctive Virus grit in there

I think your mixes are pretty good! Maybe work on front to back depth by experimenting with different reverbs? That's what I've been obsessing over recently after hearing the latest Astrix album and various releases on Parvati records. The mixes have such a 3 dimensional quality to them - the kind that would really envelop you on a good sound system outdoors I'll think I've nailed it and then as soon as I do an A/B reference with one of those tracks I'll cry a little bit :\

[Hooj]

Here's the latest complete track I have online - https://soundcloud.com/groovetoads/groo ... d-deformed

Okay, I gotta ask how you guys get that "squidgy, fizzy" sound @ 3:05? Love the way it sounds & I hear it used quite quite a bit in psy.

[andymcbain]

Here's the latest complete track I have online - https://soundcloud.com/groovetoads/groo ... d-deformed

Okay, I gotta ask how you guys get that "squidgy, fizzy" sound @ 3:05? Love the way it sounds & I hear it used quite quite a bit in psy.

Ahh the short squelchy bit in the break? It's a saw wave + a resonant band pass filter. LFO on the oscillator pitch and the same LFO on the filter cutoff - sometimes inverted so the osc pitch ascends while the cutoff descends, or visa-versa.

We made that one in Serum - and there was probably a noise oscillator going through the filter as well, and probably a bit of unison

[Trance Euphoria]

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Enjoy

[Distorted Horizon]

Great use of hardware here! And Serum too, I'm thinking of picking it up myself- I originally disliked it (have to admit, mostly because of teh presets lol) but I see people are making awesome psy stuff with Serum.

Must say I've never touched a preset on Serum as I just found it so quick and intuitive to program. It's an absolute modulation-monster!

Really enjoyed those tracks mate! The sound design is nice and I can definitely hear some distinctive Virus grit in there

There's virus wavetables available for free that Serum munches nicely

[Distorted Horizon]

It's a saw wave + a resonant band pass filter..

Other waves work nicely too if you can twist the wave. Most basic may be pulse wave with pretty narrow pulse. Nice and gnarly. But synths like MPowersynth and Zeta2 can twist any waveform in to gnarlyness ^^

(ofc there are other synth too that can do that but those two came to my mind first).

[Terrafractyl]

I used to work my sidechains this way earlier. Except that I always bounce BazzISM tracks to audio. Then I nudged that ghost kick to the left a bit that it hit earlier. And highpassed the incoming audio just before the compressor (or inside the comp.. Depends on what DAW I used) that it's basically the transient that makes the comp duck. Then I played with the release time to taste/sound good.

Then I found LFO Tool and became lazy

Interesting, I think I tried to use LFO tool for this years ago, and couldn't get it to not add some really tiny clicks and pops so I decided it wasn't up to kick - bass sidechaining, despite it being basically designed for that exact purpose. Quite possibly it was just user error...but I'm pretty picky as to what plugins go on those 2 channels.

Probly should give it another go thanks for reminding me!

[Distorted Horizon]

couldn't get it to not add some really tiny clicks and pops

You need to drag the top right point a tiny hint to the left to make a tiny fade. Otherwise it'll make that zerocrossing pop.

And also remember to send midi to cutoff (you'll find it) that bass notes doesn't start changing the patterns etc.
Unless you're going to use the filter of course Which is pretty nice filter btw.

*edit*

Also have to mention that band splitter. Very nice for DnB stuff or bass heavy leads since you can make only bass frequencies to duck and higher freqs stay untouched.

*more edit*

Aaaaand of course you're not limited to only pump the bass. You can toss it to pad track for example or some premade perc loop or top loop. And it's great for shaping kicks or percussions since you see all the time what's happening so you can boost transient or bring the BOOM up without affecting rest of the sound. Really really a great tool

[recursive one]

Great use of hardware here! And Serum too, I'm thinking of picking it up myself- I originally disliked it (have to admit, mostly because of teh presets lol) but I see people are making awesome psy stuff with Serum.

If you ask, some of my tracks, not so great mixing but I'm trying to improve.

Must say I've never touched a preset on Serum as I just found it so quick and intuitive to program. It's an absolute modulation-monster!

Really enjoyed those tracks mate! The sound design is nice and I can definitely hear some distinctive Virus grit in there

I think your mixes are pretty good! Maybe work on front to back depth by experimenting with different reverbs? That's what I've been obsessing over recently after hearing the latest Astrix album and various releases on Parvati records. The mixes have such a 3 dimensional quality to them - the kind that would really envelop you on a good sound system outdoors I'll think I've nailed it and then as soon as I do an A/B reference with one of those tracks I'll cry a little bit :\

Thanks for the feedback and the reverb suggestions. TBH i never do very detailed work on reverbs. I have a hall as a global send for leads and a room as a send for drums and some synths and that's it. Will try more complex reverb configurations.