Psytrance Discouraged

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

So i am a busy dad and everything. All the psytrance tutorials spend a LOT of time emphasising the importance of a good phase relationship between the kick and bass.

Fine except that this is impossible with overbridge. The jitter and timing issues (MacOS intel /Monterey) mean that the tracks recorded are never sample accurate

Psytrance seems to be software only these days.

Then there are hardware producers like kick.s that make great music only using a digitakt… and other people using A4

What’s the deal? I really need some perspective.

Feeling tired and frustrated +++

Thanks crew

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Digitakt Sequencer has the jitters
#2

I think you might be over thinking it.

All the classics were produced using kit where going down that kind of rabbit hole was impossible.

If you can come up with interesting sounds and rhythms you will make a great track, end of story.

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#3

Yeh this is the advice I need.

It’s a really big rabbit hole.

Not sure if people think bitwig is worse for overbridge sync that could be an issue as well.

I might try the standalone recorder.

Ambient Music production which seems to emphasise creativity more than technical crap seems very inviting these days.

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#4

I’ve had the same problem. I don’t have an A4. I use a machinedrum for drums often. It has a lot of jitter. For all the perc/effect sounds, the drift is ok for me, but for my kick and snare, I end up putting them in samplers. You could use the midi from your Machinedrum or A4, and quantize it to the fastest setting (in Bitwig, it would be 1/256). I have noticed that when I do that, it still sounds the same. If I use swing, it still has the same feel. But, it fixes the drift. And the 1st hit of any 4 bars or 2bars etc… always hits on the 1, and snares hit exactly on the 1.2 or 1.3 ect…
One more thing, I found that using the midi from Machinedrum would sometimes give me results different than the recorded audio, because of drift. So, I just use a simple note grid patch that extracts the midi from the audio. The patch just runs an audio sidechain that is fed from the kick or snare into a “greater than” logic module on the top input. On the bottom input, I feed a value knob. I run the “greater than” module into a “gate length”, and then into an oscilloscope, and then from the oscilloscope to the gate out. Then I just adjust the value and gate length, so I get clean midi. Hopefully that makes sense. You could simply just use midi from your A4 too, but I found this to be a bit better for me.

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#5

No external gear is ever going to be perfectly in sync, there is always lag due to the physical process of recording a sound and the time between playing a note and for that data to be captured. Doesn’t matter if it’s audio or MIDI.

What you want to do is a) make that lag as imperceptible as possible and b) go into the recording and nudge everything perfectly onto the bar. If you record everything together anyway then this won’t be a problem but if you’re combining ITB and OTB sounds it’s worth tracking elements individually for maximum flexibility.

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#6

In my experience, that works when recording outboard effects and stuff like that, but with midi devices, the problem is that even if you align it perfectly at one point, the drift causes it to get un-aligned at other points. Like I mentioned on comment above, I can live with it for some sounds, but for my kick and snare, it just creates too many problems. Especially if you use midi or audio sidechaining. That’s why I put them in samplers on their own midi tracks. The drift on the Machinedrum is kind of a hassle. I’m thinking of getting an E-rm multiclock for my midi clock to see if it improves the drift. In my experience, some drift is pretty unavoidable with midi devices.

#7

Simple: ignore these tutorials. Or just work in the box if you subscribe to this idea… I don’t (subscribe to this idea)

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#8

Halfassed contribution here, cause I really don’t know DAWs too well. But aren’t there functions in new DAWs like Ableton where you can pinpoint specific points in recordings (some of the one counts for example) after which the DAW time stretches things back to the grid?

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#9

This is what warping is for. In Ableton you can drop as many warp points as needed. For slight corrective nudges, there is effectively no distortion using the complex time stretch algorithms.

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#10

Regardless of genre, is it not YOU who decides what will be emphasized in your music? I mean it is yours after all.

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#11

I wrote a post in the AR area where I described recording the Rytm with the standalone app.

Another thing you can try is just start/stop with sync off (I use an ERM). Honestly I can get my Rytm to record as close as possible to the grid without using overbirdge at all. The reality is that the Rytm has a small amount of jitter on it, but its very small.

If you need sample accurate with no phasing, you probably want to use an octatrack, or just quantize your multitracks from the Rytm.

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#12

You can kind of set the phase relation between kick and bass by ear – it’s most straightforward if they are playing the same note.

Pretty much the only requirement is that your bass instrument is able to adjust starting phase of its oscillator on a note-on event. Works well for me on the Digitakt for example.

So, extend the tail of the kick well into the bass, then nudge the phase of your bass around. You can kind of hear when they cancel each other out, or when they boost each other. It’s easier to judge for notes in higher octaves, but if you listen carefully it should work in the bass region as well.

Maybe work with kick and bass waveforms that have similar harmonic content.

But… really… that’s waaayy overengineering it, in my opinion. You’re gonna have a better time just not having a kick and a bass sound at the same time – if they are happening at the same time, one of the two shall be a little softer.

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#13

This is what warping is for. In Ableton you can drop as many warp points as needed. For slight corrective nudges, there is effectively no distortion using the complex time stretch algorithms.

Yes, you can warp, but it brings down the quality of the audio. If you warp your entire kick and snare track, it will smear the transients. In my opinion, the cleanest way to deal with drift is how I mentioned above, by throwing the kick and snare in samplers on their own tracks. Like I mentioned above as well, I’m ok with some drift for hats and perc, but for kick and snare, it creates too many problems. Quantizing the midi to 1/256 has no noticable change for me, but fixes the drift. In addition to that I want a midi tracks for my kick and snare that are exactly in time with them, because I use midi for triggering sidechains, which is a pretty common practice. Of course everyone has their own ways of dealing with these things, but for me, this method has given me the cleanest result.

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#15

Are you composing for yourself, an audience, or other musicians to scratch their chins?

You can go down this path of trying for sample accuracy, etc.

However:

  1. The audience couldn’t care less. Quite literally. As long as you feed them cool sounds to trip on or off of :slight_smile: and a nice hard kick to move to, you’re set.

  2. It’s always good to put in due effort to make your music sound as good as possible, but there is a point of diminishing returns. So unless this about academics or something like that, or being the best at microsounds, then don’t worry too much.

  3. As others have mentioned, if it’s critical, it’s probably best to homogenize. Go all into the box, or all out of the box. I’ve found that spending time trying to get the two to play perfectly well together wastes time, and also starts to erode the creative side of things.

Of course any of this could be different for anyone. You just have to evaluate your motivations, audience, tools, and come up with the best methods that don’t stress you out. You can’t be creative if you’re stressed out.

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#16

I make kick and bass with Kick 2 and then any VST for bass, (short plucky envelope, you know the drill.) I use the Digitone for Lead and FX type of sounds, that can give a good character.

If you want to go HW only, create a Kick and Bass stem, and then mangle it with a sampler. Psy sounds often so generic because most of the users are following the online tutorials, and dont try a new thing, because the general formula is effective (Its like Pizza - when it has to be good -it has to be with cheese (Kick) and tomato (Bass) sauce). With HW you could make the old Goa trance, but this Psytrance is nowadays very overproduced - i.e. layering 4 - 5 synth is normal, then it has millions of zap twwweep wooshh sounds - that is hard to replicate - a sampler is absolutely necessary for this. (And every subgenere has its own recipe (prog, forrest, zenon, hitech, dark prog etc.)

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#17

There seems to be different opinions as to how important drift is. I think it depends on the style of music, and where it will be played. In my opinion, if it is bass heavy music that will be mastered loud, and played on big systems, the drift can really mess things up. If you just leave drift, then you will have some places where the kick hits before or after the bass that is supposed to be aligned with it, as well as any sidechaining that should be aligned with it, which could really mess up the impact. If there is a drop, and the kick hits late, it will be masked by the bass, and will be out of alignment with any sidechaining. So, the kick will be drowned out, and the drop won’t have the right impact. And again, for sidechaing, most people these days use midi for sidechain triggers instead of audio, for more control. So if your midi track is out of alignment with the kick audio track, sidechaing won’t work right. Anyway, again, everyone has different opinions on it, but for me, it takes not much time or work to simply put the kick and and samplers in your daw. Especially in the long run, because if you were to try to align everything to a kick with drift, it would be a tedious process.

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#18

Good point. I wasn’t thinking about keeping those elements lined up.

I wonder if making a sidechain like effect, would be easier than trying to manage a compressor. Ducking, and tweaking EQs with automation (or parameter locks for Elektron) would be more precise than lining multiple reactive parts up.

#19

There are probably many ways of dealing with drift and sidechaining. The first thing I do after recording parts from an Elektron groovebox is put the kick and snare in samplers on their own tracks. Once I quantize the midi for those tracks to 1/256, I copy those midi tracks to use simply for sidechain sends. In Bitwig, you can use note receivers to sidechain any parameter from that midi. One reason why I copy that midi to it’s own separate midi track is that I like to put my sidechain triggers slightly before the kick and snare. That way, whatever I am sidechaining is already ducked out before the drum hits. I find that that gives more space for the transient than using the midi directly from the drum track.

The only problem I still have with drift is that the rest of my machinedrum tracks still have it. It’s not as easy to just throw them in samplers, because they have a lot of parameter locks. To me, a bit of drift on hats, perc ect… is ok. The only thing I do, is create fades wherever the drift makes problems. For example, a hi-hat on the 1 that hits early, due to drift, can mess up the transient of the 1st kick. So, I would just fade in that early hi hat. I also often sidechain my perc sounds, so drifted sounds don’t smear transient.

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#20

Psy lover here.

Syncing hardware and software is hard. You will struggle to get, or will never achieve, true phase coherency which is often required for modern psy. Old school Goa / psy, no worries - a bit of drift is fine, it’s part of the sound and charm, but in 2022 probably won’t sound legit … so …

You have 2 choices:

Let it go and focus on the fun stuff - the cinematic weird ass sound design that goes ofer the top of the bread n butter kick / bass layer.

Or pre-prepare your perfectly looped stems to be phase correct, and work with loops on pads - trigger different loops for key change etc. and then work on the synth sounds.

If you watch tutorial videos from some of the better / more well known psy artists you will notice that they sometimes take WEEKS to get the tone of the kick + bass just so.

In the moment, it doesn’t matter. I’ve had crazy good hours jumping around my bedroom studio when I forgot about these details, cranked the volume and danced my ass off.

Like nobody is watching :wink:

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#21

If I really want to get nit picky I use this.

If your DAW has plug-in delay compensation this can do negative delay and reports it to the DAW. You can use multiple stacked if you need more than -10ms.

I put it on the track and move it until it sounds perfect.

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