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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 subtract
by duped 3y ago
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 zero sustain.
If you're fancy you can use a stepper or lfo sync'd to 16th notes to do the same thing instead of programming loops of 16th notes.
And of course, you sidechain compress that with the kick to get the pumping sound.
That's how you get the deep vibe of a psy track that resonates in the club at 2am.
That's just the basics. The really good tracks find ways to make it crazy, like modulating the decay of the filter envelope with velocity of the notes and then adding velocity curves to create dynamics with the baseline, or adding a reverb send and automating the send level as you build up to the end of a phrase. Or taking the basic idea (a plucky bass with sixteenth notes) and changing how the pluck is defined via an FM synth, or overdrive, or frequency shift, and so on. It's such a simple sound that can be driven to weird places.
- stavros 3y agoAh yes, of course.
- specproc 3y agoThis is what we're here for.
- stavros 3y agoDefinitely, but I can still joke about how I didn't understand anything from a comment on something I have no experience with.
- boredemployee 3y agoIt's called (I think) sound design. Changing parameters of a sound wave like filters, resonance, envelope, cutoff, etc, you can achieve desired sounds (you can do that using a real synthesizer or a virtual one). In this case they're explaining how to make a bass sound (which is in the lower frequency of the spectrum)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sedivy94 3y agoI am an absolute peon relative to most commenters on HN. Perusing this site feeds both my curiosity and my feelings of inadequacy. But this is one of those rare moments when I actually fully understand what the parent comment is describing. I don’t even produce music myself… I’m more of a fanboy, if anything.
- specproc 3y agoMy comment also in jest. 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.
- stavros 3y agoSorry, maybe my comment didn't come across appropriately: I agree with you, I loved that comment, I was just joking about how over my head it went!
- BowBun 3y agoJust a heads up that your comment is flagged. You can definitely joke about things, but HN asks that comments be substantive. Yours was not. I realize the irony writing this comment, but hopefully a bit of community heads up can preserve HN's characteristics for a little while longer.
- stavros 3y agoHow can a joke be substantive?
- BowBun 3y agoYou can write more than one sentence...? How about an actual take on the topic, and then a joke? Or vice versa! Perhaps a question to ask for more clarity? The possibilities are endless beyond a "lol true" type comment.
- mlyle 3y agoMeta: IMO, it was fine. The digression provided an opportunity for me to produce a substantive comment that requires a little less background to understand than duped's excellent explanation.
- BowBun 3y agoIt's great that you found an opportunity to teach thanks a low-value comment. HN policies still state that comments need to be substantive. There are good reasons for this that should be respected given that we all take advantage of the community built on those clearly stated expectations.
- mlyle 3y agoExpressing that you have no idea what the other person is saying (but that this is part of the value of this community) is not without substance or useless. They could have been more verbose about it, but I'm not sure that makes the community better. The guidelines are guidelines. We all work to interpret them. HN themselves in introducing the guidelines says that "empty" comments can be okay if they're positive, which I feel this was.
- mlyle 3y agoSo, in English: A sawtooth is a wave that looks like the blade of a saw. It is pretty close to sinusoidal, so it sounds somewhat like a single tone, but there is some distortion and harmonics; not nearly as much as you'd get from a square wave, though. A synthesizer has an envelope generator, to model how real instruments increase in volume, keep a steady volume while active, and then decay. The envelope is usually multiplied by the underlying waveform, like a sawtooth, to give it these characteristics. If you have a musical keyboard, pressing a key chooses the frequency of the sawtooth, and the moment that the key is pressed and released trigger the envelope generator and choose its shape. For the psytrace bass line-- instead of the envelope generator being multiplied by the signal (and controlling its amplitude directly), instead it is used to sweep a filter. How much of the distortion and harmonics you hear from the sawtooth changes over the course of the note and gives the bassline its distinctive sound.
- ecocentrik 3y ago"A sawtooth is a wave that looks like the blade of a saw. It is pretty close to sinusoidal, so it sounds somewhat like a single tone, but there is some distortion and harmonics; not nearly as much as you'd get from a square wave, though." In Fourier terms, a sinusoidal is the fundamental frequency. A square wave contains the fundamental frequency + all odd harmonics. A saw wave contains the fundamental frequency + all odd and even harmonics. No distortion is needed to shape a saw wave and the rest of what you said is inaccurate.
- mlyle 3y agoIt is distorted in the sense that a sine wave that has been put through a nonlinear process -- e.g. clipped to form a square wave; clipped and integrated to form a triangle; clipped and integrated asymmetrically to form a saw; etc. Total harmonic distortion measures the amount of power that you have in harmonics vs. the fundamental wave. A purely sinusoidal tone would have no energy in harmonics; a saw would have 44% of its energy in harmonics. Maybe you're nitpicking and saying that it's not "distortion", but harmonic distortion as a metric of how much energy is in harmonics-- because the primary way we used to get those harmonics is by distortion of a sine wave-- is common lingo.
- npsimons 3y agoThis might help (and it's only 6 minutes for the whole playlist): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrnjie9klQEkZGar3zZ4hRurU_kUDk7Md&si=iNiRrnUB5OXVqXO0 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrnjie9klQEkZGar3zZ4hRurU...
- stavros 3y agoThat's very helpful, thanks!
- drsnow 3y agoBro what the fuck does literally any of that shit mean lol
- cabbagefan 3y ago[dead]
- 867-5309 3y agowelcome
- SSLy 3y agohttps://learningsynths.ableton.com/ https://learningsynths.ableton.com/
- 0xEF 3y agoThis 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.
- SSLy 3y agoMaybe check out the modular synth community? It's kinda DYI. EDIT: just noticed the analog there, I don't know anything about that.
- I_Am_Nous 3y agoAs much as I would love to have a huge modular rack in my house, I am happy with a blend of physical and digital stuff. My first purchase was an Arturia Microbrute, which is just excellent for learning basic, monophonic synthesis. It's a knob-per-function device so there's nothing better than just twisting knobs and stumbling onto an amazing sound. 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 :)
- commotionfever 3y agoregarding the pumping, I'm not sure if sidechain compression is what most producers are doing. I'd describe it as a gallop rather than a bump. so with 16ths, you'd typically see 1/16 & 2/16 have zero to little amplitude, 3/16 & 4/16 have most of the energy. 4 maybe even a little less so. which can't be done by sidechaining. also phase alignment with the kick is important
- freeqaz 3y agoAre there any resources out there that you would recommend to learn about this stuff?
- timc3 3y agoBasic song writing is a good place to start (and should cover the dynamics/loudness of notes and sounds as per the parent post to introduce groove). Then combine with sound engineering. There is a lot of resources all over the web, and tutors and courses that you can do. If you want to start off with an easy introduction then maybe Oscar @ Underdog can help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAJz4-YZdio&t=8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAJz4-YZdio&t=8s If you want to product Psytrance - then you are lucky because IMHO it's perhaps the easiest most formulaic genre.
- c420 3y agoKickstart VST is the ez button.
- smallerfish 3y agoUnderdog Music School on Youtube is fantastic. Also check out Polarity Music, Andrew Huang, AlexReidStudios, and TachesTeaches.
- kiviuq 3y agohttps://youtu.be/jQWfzlg9x_4?t=598 https://youtu.be/jQWfzlg9x_4?t=598
- sedivy94 3y agoThere’s a few ways to skin a cat. The more I research, the less popular side-chaining seems in general. What’s more common is side-chaining with ghost notes or manually ducking by drawing envelopes in automation lanes.
- globular-toast 3y agoAlso perhaps not explicitly stated but in these genres the bass line is a drone. There's no melody in the bass line. This is similar to instruments like the sitar. It creates add harmonics and basically gives it the psychedelic sound.
- smikhanov 3y ago2am? More like 6:30am
- rajamaka 3y ago6:30am? More like 2am the following day
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ampersandy 3y agoHave any examples in mind of the “really good tracks?”
- commotionfever 3y agohttps://youtu.be/rXrdBiS0e00 https://youtu.be/rXrdBiS0e00
- pierrec 3y agoGood, but it doesn't really feature the technique described in the original comment.
- commotionfever 3y agoyou're right, i just really like this track :~)
- yard2010 3y agoCan you please give an example?
- alsetmusic 3y agoIt was psytrance (Infected Mushroom) that led to the purchase of my first synth. I’m no longer big on psytrance, but it has a special place in my heart.
- chris_st 3y agoWow, and I thought C++ was complicated! Seriously, interesting discussion. I think I'll stick with physical instruments!