AEON
dipthong mong
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hi all,
this is just a funny meandering werthers-original kind of thread. mainly because work is deathly dull & there are only so many fantasy kit lists you can construct in a day :ibiggrin:
i've been listening to a lot of new music lately. and it's invariably very good - no bumlicking, but we are priviliged to operate in such a diverse and creatively powerful scene. yay for us! *shakes booty*.
but the one thing which leaps out at me when i am listening is... distinction. presence. personality.
like a dog's tail, or a thought at the end of a heavy psychedelic session, distinction in music is something that slips further away the harder you try to grasp it. the more you try to be different, the less successful you are.
we all basically work within a predefined framework. there are things that work and things that don't, and the continually evolving state of shared knowledge means that people pick up on them pretty quickly. we are, in a sense, all expressing ourselves and capturing our ideas through the same pre-existing lens, i.e. 'psytrance production'.
sometimes i find that after reading a lot of threads on isra or wherever, i begin to carry over more than just guidance and advice. i'll be making a noise and part of me will remember that someone once said that they hate such-and-such in psy tracks, and i'll frown and take it out because i automatically assume that almost everyone knows more than me. and the thing is almost everyone does know more... but that has little or no bearing on the meaning of my music, to myself or others.
it's easy - for me anyway - to veer away from doing what i enjoy and what moves me to fretting about other people. there's a vast gap between absolute self-indulgence on the one hand and common-denominator-paint-by-proven-numbers on the other; and no-one should work at either extreme. but what i find bothers me is when i realise i have been forgetting about what makes me smile in favour of concerns that my output won't be considered 'pro', or 'banging', or 'psy'.
you will never really subjectively experience your music. the closest i came was earlier this year i was in a friend's car on the other side of the world, and they stuck in a CD of mine without telling me. this was probably one of the first psytrance tracks i had ever made. and you know what? i wasn't thinking 'hmm, listen to how flabby the bass is... and how ill-defined the kick drum is. what a rubbish track!'. well, not at first... what i was thinking was wow - that sounds really cool. not in an egotistical way, because i was aware of its limitations, but hearing it anew reminded me of the huge gap that exists between our ideals and our realisations.
most of us have regular contact with people who aren't producers. and most of us are borderdline OCD when it comes to tweaking sounds, re-editing basslines, re-configuring the tiniest detail of a tiny automation when in reality no-one but us will ever be able to hear the difference. and that's no bad thing. but it's important to get some perspective occasionally... ask someone who doesn't produce and you'll probably find that lame snare roll you thought was so track-ruiningly awful barely even registers. it's the same way an 8 year old astral projection track will comfortably hold its own against a brand new full-on release in a mix: because, like someone on this forum said - nothing sounds as good as a good idea.
so i wanted to remind myself that above all i am me. and to encourage other people to remember as well
. anyone can buy Vanguard, impOSCar, and a Nord. almost anyone can throw together a chunksome octave-based moving bassline. almost anyone can source the killargh hi-hats that Xerox uses.
but only one person can be YOU (or, in the case of collabs, only [X] people can be Group Y
). and really, that's what i'm most interested in hearing - you. your ideas, your passions, your wicked side, your hopes, your trips - whatever it is that inspires you, drives you, moves you: that's what i want to hear, because it's the most genuine and sincere moments which are always the most memorable.
this is just a funny meandering werthers-original kind of thread. mainly because work is deathly dull & there are only so many fantasy kit lists you can construct in a day :ibiggrin:
i've been listening to a lot of new music lately. and it's invariably very good - no bumlicking, but we are priviliged to operate in such a diverse and creatively powerful scene. yay for us! *shakes booty*.
but the one thing which leaps out at me when i am listening is... distinction. presence. personality.
like a dog's tail, or a thought at the end of a heavy psychedelic session, distinction in music is something that slips further away the harder you try to grasp it. the more you try to be different, the less successful you are.
we all basically work within a predefined framework. there are things that work and things that don't, and the continually evolving state of shared knowledge means that people pick up on them pretty quickly. we are, in a sense, all expressing ourselves and capturing our ideas through the same pre-existing lens, i.e. 'psytrance production'.
sometimes i find that after reading a lot of threads on isra or wherever, i begin to carry over more than just guidance and advice. i'll be making a noise and part of me will remember that someone once said that they hate such-and-such in psy tracks, and i'll frown and take it out because i automatically assume that almost everyone knows more than me. and the thing is almost everyone does know more... but that has little or no bearing on the meaning of my music, to myself or others.
it's easy - for me anyway - to veer away from doing what i enjoy and what moves me to fretting about other people. there's a vast gap between absolute self-indulgence on the one hand and common-denominator-paint-by-proven-numbers on the other; and no-one should work at either extreme. but what i find bothers me is when i realise i have been forgetting about what makes me smile in favour of concerns that my output won't be considered 'pro', or 'banging', or 'psy'.
you will never really subjectively experience your music. the closest i came was earlier this year i was in a friend's car on the other side of the world, and they stuck in a CD of mine without telling me. this was probably one of the first psytrance tracks i had ever made. and you know what? i wasn't thinking 'hmm, listen to how flabby the bass is... and how ill-defined the kick drum is. what a rubbish track!'. well, not at first... what i was thinking was wow - that sounds really cool. not in an egotistical way, because i was aware of its limitations, but hearing it anew reminded me of the huge gap that exists between our ideals and our realisations.
most of us have regular contact with people who aren't producers. and most of us are borderdline OCD when it comes to tweaking sounds, re-editing basslines, re-configuring the tiniest detail of a tiny automation when in reality no-one but us will ever be able to hear the difference. and that's no bad thing. but it's important to get some perspective occasionally... ask someone who doesn't produce and you'll probably find that lame snare roll you thought was so track-ruiningly awful barely even registers. it's the same way an 8 year old astral projection track will comfortably hold its own against a brand new full-on release in a mix: because, like someone on this forum said - nothing sounds as good as a good idea.
so i wanted to remind myself that above all i am me. and to encourage other people to remember as well
. anyone can buy Vanguard, impOSCar, and a Nord. almost anyone can throw together a chunksome octave-based moving bassline. almost anyone can source the killargh hi-hats that Xerox uses. but only one person can be YOU (or, in the case of collabs, only [X] people can be Group Y
). and really, that's what i'm most interested in hearing - you. your ideas, your passions, your wicked side, your hopes, your trips - whatever it is that inspires you, drives you, moves you: that's what i want to hear, because it's the most genuine and sincere moments which are always the most memorable.
..
... I spend many hours in my room "Boogie Testing" the music I'm working on to see if I like it hehe :P... and I hope that my opinion is shared by others too...
