Psytrance ‘Secret Sauce’ in Reason

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Dionysus
Posts: 44
Joined: 28 Oct 2023

Post 24 Oct 2024

Hi everybody,

This isn’t something an amateur musician should admit – but I don’t have a good ear for what goes on in musical compositions, apart from odd time signatures. I'm a very accomplished 'air drummer', even though I've never picked up a pair of sticks.

After giving a recent album release a few listens this week, I’m keen on trying to make a Psytrance song. It’s not at all a genre I’ve tried, but creativity towards the unknown has struck lately.

I’m not even a huge fan of Psytrance, but have listened to a lot over the past 20 years. It doesn’t really seem to have changed much. My thoughts were always ‘oh it would SO EASY to make’. As I analyse the opening track of the album below though, and give it a go in recreating, it really is quite complex beyond the simple beats.

There does seem to be a common compositional theme though. I’m interested mostly in learning about the instrumentation and sequences… the drums I can work out on my own.

Short-bar repetitive hook for the verse, a lead in to a drop, silence with something solo, then back into the kick/snare/kick/snare routine.

What’s typically going on with the music ? Are chords being played, with separated notes (ie I mean as a sequence rather than actually a chord), or are they just runs up and down a chosen scale ?

I’m not at my workstation at the moment, but am thinking .. it MIGHT be easy, with some of Reason’s tools.
144 BPM – Check. I find this a bit weird honestly, that so much of this genre is exactly the same tempo. Makes it easy for seamless transitions at doofs and raves I would imagine.

As boring and uncreative as it seems, maybe I can just run an instrument (or 10!) through Scales & Chords Player to keep in key & scale and silence the off notes, load the sequencer with MIDI and hit the ‘randomize’ button, or whatever that sequencer feature is called.

Take a break with some randomly drawn notes in the Matrix.

I have DLD Tech’s AS-16 sequencer, that’s just a CV output machine with a bunch of knobs. Instant riff in there too.

Then add some random slow filters for fade-in pads, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x the drums on the last verse bar. And…. Silence… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 back into the verse

Add some mystical or hallucinogenic-experience spoken word samples.

And publish ! Check my bank balance for the Spotify royalty of $0.000001 to drop into my account.

I’m not trolling here, just trying to be light-hearted, and start a conversation with like-minded people. I can appreciate the work that goes into some Psytrance, and would love to hear how Reason Psytrance composers approach their work, and the (stock) Reason instruments they use. A link to one of your favourite pieces would also be welcome.

PS: I don’t have many after-market soft-synths, but I do have Expanse 😊 Would be just as happy to use Thor, for a chance to learn a bit more about it properly.

So here’s the album that’s inspired my latest project, from an Israeli artist known as FADERS (aka Orr Kopel). The first track starts unrolling at about 1 minute 30 seconds, after the cheesy spoken word intro about the ‘Storyteller’. I am LOVING this track. And that run before the first drop at 3:10…. This is repeated with more bars later. Is he just running through a scale here ?



nosoniclimits
Posts: 4
Joined: 12 Apr 2023

Post 25 Oct 2024

Gonna be ultra short here, as I'm home take care of my sick 2 year old.
On the slower side of psy, but made with Reason:


BTS video here:

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Adabler
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Post 25 Oct 2024

You might find this useful: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7534395
:reason: 12, Win11

Dionysus
Posts: 44
Joined: 28 Oct 2023

Post 26 Oct 2024

nosoniclimits wrote:
25 Oct 2024
Gonna be ultra short here, as I'm home take care of my sick 2 year old.
On the slower side of psy, but made with Reason:
Oh no, hope your little one is on the way to recovery.

Very impressed with your BTS, and that you have only 8-tracks (not including your percussions). The result is a very good song.

I remember seeing a video about 15 years ago of a popular chill trance artist from the UK(I don't know the precise terms of the subgenres, and don't care). The song he showed in his DAW had over 200 track lanes. And sure it was likely much more complex sounding than yours, but certainly not 25 times better ! Your minimalist approach is what I try to strive for. But your rack looks intense haha.

I spend 10 hours yesterday trying to make a Psytrance song. Not very productive, and it sounds too happy vibe, but at one stage I considered a personal challenge of making a whole song from a single combinator, a heap of CV automation and also sequencer automation. But really that's been put aside for now, and is a silly limitation.

Dionysus
Posts: 44
Joined: 28 Oct 2023

Post 26 Oct 2024

Adabler wrote:
25 Oct 2024
You might find this useful: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7534395
Hey thank you ! I normally groan when answers are 'you should buy this or that', but I'll support a 'pay what you feel' publisher and throw him a fiver next week for the document, and another few bucks if it's helpful to me.

Might even cut him in on the royalties of my world's #1 Psytrance Platinum single.

I am joking of course. Not sure there has ever been a mainstream hit that was Psytrance in the history of music.

Maybe I sell my instrumental song to Taylor Swift.

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Loque
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Post 26 Oct 2024

Dionysus wrote:
26 Oct 2024
Adabler wrote:
25 Oct 2024
You might find this useful: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7534395
Hey thank you ! I normally groan when answers are 'you should buy this or that', but I'll support a 'pay what you feel' publisher and throw him a fiver next week for the document, and another few bucks if it's helpful to me.

Might even cut him in on the royalties of my world's #1 Psytrance Platinum single.

I am joking of course. Not sure there has ever been a mainstream hit that was Psytrance in the history of music.

Maybe I sell my instrumental song to Taylor Swift.
Not really psy trance, but quite close: Infected Mushroom are popstars in their country.
Reason13, Win10

Dionysus
Posts: 44
Joined: 28 Oct 2023

Post 30 Oct 2024

Loque wrote:
26 Oct 2024
Not really psy trance, but quite close: Infected Mushroom are popstars in their country.
Yes, good point. A bit of a funny band, genre-wise but I guess you could call them psytrance. I have seen Infected Mushroom live, many years ago. Their live lineup included electric guitar and if I recall, a drummer. Coincidentally they hail from the same part of the world (Israel) as the psytrance example I gave in the first post.

My Psytrance project is coming along slowly, maybe becoming less psytrance as every day passes though (I don't mind, I'm no purist to any style). It's a good creative experience to work on a whole new genre. As I've established from a lot of listening to other bands, sound FX are a HUGE part of what makes Psytrance interesting. This will be a good chance to scour the factory soundbanks for things I would have never typically used before.

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Loque
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Post 31 Oct 2024

Dionysus wrote:
30 Oct 2024
Loque wrote:
26 Oct 2024
Not really psy trance, but quite close: Infected Mushroom are popstars in their country.
Yes, good point. A bit of a funny band, genre-wise but I guess you could call them psytrance. I have seen Infected Mushroom live, many years ago. Their live lineup included electric guitar and if I recall, a drummer. Coincidentally they hail from the same part of the world (Israel) as the psytrance example I gave in the first post.

My Psytrance project is coming along slowly, maybe becoming less psytrance as every day passes though (I don't mind, I'm no purist to any style). It's a good creative experience to work on a whole new genre. As I've established from a lot of listening to other bands, sound FX are a HUGE part of what makes Psytrance interesting. This will be a good chance to scour the factory soundbanks for things I would have never typically used before.
Took me quite a long time to understand how many sounds were created. Simon Posford did an amazing job on creating new sounds back in the time.

What helped me to understand how they created the sounds were, to understand that they had cheap, limited synths and some cheap standard FX and they just used their equipment in an unusual way. So, you can get pretty far with a subtractive synth, an EQ, delay/reverb, amplifier, a chorus/flanger/phaser and a sampler. You don't need those powerhouse über synths from today.

Check out Dash Glitch on YouTube for some great videos.
Reason13, Win10

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Billy+
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Joined: 09 Dec 2016

Post 31 Oct 2024

Loque wrote:
31 Oct 2024
Check out Dash Glitch on YouTube for some great videos.
:thumbup: my current watch list for the week is :



he has a few playlist for this style, there is another guy out there but i can't remember his handle.
edit:
this is one i was watching.
https://www.youtube.com/@psy-lion/playlists

Dionysus
Posts: 44
Joined: 28 Oct 2023

Post 01 Nov 2024

Loque wrote:
31 Oct 2024
Took me quite a long time to understand how many sounds were created.
As a newcomer to the Reason 'weird sounds' banks, I was thinking of just exploring these sound FX to add flavor to my Psytrance song.
Loque wrote:
31 Oct 2024
Simon Posford did an amazing job on creating new sounds back in the time.
Are you monitoring my thoughts and reading my mind, friend ? First I am making an example of some recent music on my post #1, then you talk about Infected Mushroom, from the same country. And now... you don't know this, but in my later post:

"I remember seeing a video about 15 years ago of a popular chill trance artist from the UK(I don't know the precise terms of the subgenres, and don't care). The song he showed in his DAW had over 200 track lanes. And sure it was likely much more complex sounding than yours, but certainly not 25 times better !"

I was talking about SIMON POSFORD.

And I think I should make a confession. Even when I wrote that, I thought YES it is more than 25x better than the other member's music, but did not want to hurt his feelings.

When I read your comment earlier today, I listened to 'Last Days of Gravity'. A great album, and a bit left of field from Posford's other projects.

Loque wrote:
31 Oct 2024
What helped me to understand how they created the sounds were, to understand that they had cheap, limited synths and some cheap standard FX and they just used their equipment in an unusual way.
OK, that's what I have been thinking. To get those dull percussion sounds typical of the high-BPM Psytrance, I should pay attention to factory samples/emulations from old Roland Drum Machines like the 808 ?
Loque wrote:
31 Oct 2024
You don't need those powerhouse über synths from today.
My 'synth sounds' are ever-changing, but I'm getting a good result from a bunch of stacked Europa & Expanse.

Can i upload short, compressed audio files to this forum ? I dont have social media stuff.

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Loque
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Post 01 Nov 2024

Dionysus wrote:
01 Nov 2024
...
I think you were talking about the video, where he showed parts of his Sphongle live session in Ableton... Pretty impressive...

Yea, 1MB attachment limit on this forum.
Reason13, Win10

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