Psytrance guide

pmags · 2023-10-21T00:48:26.796Z

Psytrance? Goa? Dark Psy? WTF are my fellow 'nauts talking about?

An annotated guide for the psy-trance clueless among us (myself definitely included):

Psytrance Guide

Zijnvolt · 2023-10-21T09:07:56.565Z

What’s the deal with Psytrance? Asking to gain more insights cause I always get the impression it’s a very white community appropriating Indian culture. Happy to have that impression changed though.

Also what production techniques does one need to use to be able to put ‘Psy’ in front of the genre.

Lum · 2023-10-21T09:19:25.426Z

tha_man · 2023-10-21T09:47:34.354Z

That’s Goa trance, which is where (and how) it all started, so indian influece is logical. Nowadays psytrance scene is a pretty diverse culture, popular in Europe, Israel, Japan, Brasil, South Africa, Russia&Balkans (still banging goa)… more modern subgenres sounds quite different than goa trance though, much less melodic, more cybernetic, mostly sharing typical kbbb beat and a “controlled chaos” of sounds on top it.

Microtribe · 2023-10-21T10:30:44.690Z

Zijnvolt:

Also what production techniques does one need to use to be able to put ‘Psy’ in front of the genre.

A zappy kick thats too loud in the mix.
A 16th note bass line, one single note, no changes, for the entire track.
Some squelchy noises.
Some ‘trippy’ vocal samples.

I hate psytrance. Literally nothing psychedelic about it at all.

Bcharlie · 2023-10-21T10:56:15.086Z

The story goes that Goa trance was stated by hippies seeking spiritual learning and drug running from Asia to Europe:

Psynews.org

History and the uprising of goa trance

After almost 5 months of delay, we finally translated complete Goa trance and Newschool goa trance history. Orginal was written on croatian, so here it is now on English (thanks to Arronax who did great job). When i started to work on this info text...

PS there is only one race: Humans. Everything else is pointing out our differences to cause division.

Pinkbox · 2023-10-21T11:20:26.180Z

Microtribe:

A 16th note bass line, one single note, no changes, for the entire set.

Fixed

Microtribe · 2023-10-21T11:37:25.872Z

Truth.
In most cases, entire 3 day line up.

Zijnvolt · 2023-10-21T11:46:24.042Z

Just listened to some psytrance and came to the conclusion it’s not for me. Sounds like stock music made for movies with club scenes in it.

tha_man · 2023-10-21T13:43:52.051Z

Btw., there’s also a cool psytrance section on Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music, with a more historic and quite hilarious look at the scene in Ishkur’s style.

chaocrator · 2023-10-21T17:45:46.269Z

Zijnvolt:

Asking to gain more insights cause I always get the impression it’s a very white community appropriating Indian culture.

there’s nothing about appropriation with goa trance.
it’s named after location where it started, not after its origins.
and those origins were mostly western. goa trance was born as sort of crossover of EBM and acid that were played at parties in Goa.
and even THAT characteristic oriental scale, phrygian dominant, has a lot more to do with middle east than with indian traditional music (it’s actually klezmer scale, and was used quite frequently in EBM & new beat, and even more in various metal genres, long before goa trance was born).