Intro
Hi everyone, welcome to another video and this time I will speak about trending myths about psytrance kick & bass.
As you might hear already, we are organising the psytrance production retreat in Cambridge UK from 25th to 27th September, and after we built a website, we started planning our marketing strategy.
We were researching where would be the best place on youtube to advertise this retreat. To find the best channels and videos, I found a super interesting section in YouTube analytics, and this section is about which videos viewers on my channel are also watching.
Curiosity hit me hard and I couldn’t resist seeing those videos and what are they about. After watching them, even though I’m risking sounding arrogant and cooky, I must say that what I saw and heard in those videos shocked me pretty much, as most of those videos were full of incomplete or false information.
I will not mention what channels and videos I’m talking about, but I will clear some false information from them or I will complete the important missing parts.
Because of the complexity of the topics I’m about to cover, I will be able to address only 2 myths in this video.
Let’s move to the first one:
Psytrance Bassline Envelope
In one of those videos, there was a video that implicated that while doing the synthesis of the bassline, we should always set the amp envelope to the 1/16 of the note. And creator also stated That it is really important that each note should close before the next one start.
I disagree with this as generalizing certain processes as a MUST is a big no-no for me. If I learned something, that is that following subjectively created rules can only push you away from the possibility of getting some interesting results.
As well Ggeneralising the process of making the bassline as something that needs to be done every time is complete nonsense. That way we will get the same results every time.
The biggest advice on this topic that I can give you is that we should learn as much as possible techniques and tools for processing our bassline, and use that knowledge and tools as a possible solution for creating something sounding pretty good.
Learning what each plugin is doing, and using that as a possible solution.
An amp envelope can bring a completely different groove to a track. In some cases, this previously mentioned technique can sound pretty good, and create a chopped groove which can be amazing for a certain style, while for some other styles, fully opened sustain on the bassline can bring that boominess to the bassline groove, and sound effect as all notes have one sinewave in the sub-area.
There is also a difference in the keynotes, as different notes have the position of the first harmonics in different frequencies.
That might cause that If you design the bassline in higher notes, and as the first harmonics are positioned a bit higher, you might want to open the sustain and that way boost frequencies of the first harming, as because of its harmonics are positioned in higher frequency, we might want to boost the level of that harmonic to compensate high-frequency position with it’s a higher level.
I will mention two examples in this case, first is Vini Vici, that are mostly using coped notes that create a more plucky rhythmic bassline sound, and another example is Ajja, whose basslines have that fully boomy effect and create this flat sound effects that are modified with ducking effect.
These two examples are in completely different groves, and both can be used as a possibility for making your track better. In other words, my advice is that you would try both o them in each track, ply with the envelope, and decide what suits better to your track!
Another thing is that setting the envelope to close at the end of the 1/16th of the note, will not prevent the note to overlap with another one. This will be the case but only if we do not process the bassline. To prove my state, I would need to explain how the eqs and other plugins are working so you can understand what I’m trying to say.
How Eq works, I am not sure would I be able to make a video of the same quality as the video that I will leave the link in the description and comments below, and as there are already two extremely good videos about this topic, I will leave the links and you can check them after watching this video, or you can make a break and watch them, and come back to this video.
For this video, important information on how eq works are that both regular and linear phase EQ cause pulse remains. In other words, the bassline notes will be extended, which will cancel the amp envelope stings as it will extend the signal after the envelope. In some cases, it can be pretty big, and in some in a smaller amount, but the conclusion is again and again and again, We should not decide by our eyes! And the best possible skill you should be working on is training your listening.
Because of the audio production complexity and confusion we get after working so many hours in the studio, and not being able to get the results we want, we will always look for a quicker and faster solution and in most cases, we gonna try to make everything to sound good by our eyes.
Following some rules that we believe will bring us the results that we want. But tell me this, are you following all the rules and still not getting where you are headed?
That’s right! The best decisions in audio production we will make are by listening and not looking at some fancy curves and following subjectively created rules.
I will not go into another rabbit hole, but there are so many reasons why you should not trust analyzers.
Now, the secret for the bassline envelope does not exist, because it all depends on what do we want to create and achieve. As I said before, my advice is to play around with the settings and find what suits for you.
Another thing is that the amp envelope is just one part of designing the baseline. How will we set the envelope on the amp can also be affected by how we set the envelope on the filter and what kind of filter we use.
The answer is that there are no easy ways and solutions, and we should try all to find the best-sounding results for our bassline.