What’s the difference, or why you probably use the wrong word

Rekordbox 5. Example of software that lets you create playlists.

Quite often I see DJs posting their mixes with a list of played tracks, and they call those lists a “playlist”. Well, that’s wrong. A proper word for this is a “tracklist”, or “tracklisting” if you will.

Here is the difference between these two.

A playlist is a list of audio or video content that can be organised and played back in any order. The point is you as a user have control over the playback of individual items. You can playback it sequential or you can shuffle it, or you can add more items — like adding songs to a playlist on iTunes or adding videos to a playlist on YouTube.

A tracklisting, on contrast, is a list of tracks appearing in a particular given order. In the case of DJ mixes, it’s set in stone, you cannot change it.

So, when a DJ plays a set he may have tracks organised in playlists, but once he recorded his set, the list of the tracks he played become a tracklist.

Perhaps, I sound like a nerd (and I am, indeed) but I hope it’ll help to make things clear.

Quite often upcoming producers send me their tracks for feedback and ask how to improve a mix. Today, I’d like to share a simple, yet one of the most effective tips for improving a mixdown that beginners seem to forget about — check the low end.

You see, when certain frequencies overlap each other, they might create some phasing issues or a muddy mix especially in the kick-bass area.

What is sound
Phase cancellation explained

The problem is many samples that you most likely use in the production has a lot of unnecessary frequencies in the lower end. For example, let’s take a listen to a typical TR-909-like hi-hat:

Sounds like a mid to high-frequency range hat, right? Well, take a look at its spectrum:

Picture 1. Hi-hat spectrum

There’s a lot of low-end frequencies too! And the same applies to snare drums, ride cymbals, noise sweeps, and many other sounds that appear to be a mid to high, but in fact, include a lot a lower end as well.

The solution is simple.

First, make sure to actually check the spectrum of a sample you use. Second, if there is anything unwanted — cut it with a high-pass filter. Like this:

Picture 2. Hi-hat EQed

You can certainly cut below 200 Hz in most cases

You can certainly cut below 200 Hz in most cases and sometimes even below 500 Hz. You probably won’t even notice this audibly, but it does make a huge difference for the kick and bass mixdown.

It’s safe to say that I use EQ on pretty much every channel (or a group of channels) in my projects and I would recommend doing this too.

Zahaan, I don’t know for sure how these guys making their sounds, but I’ll share my thoughts on how to achieve something similar.

Formally speaking, this sound is very simple and it’s made of two key components: a bandpass filter and an LFO with a “Sample and Hold” waveform, all the rest is processing. Special thanks to my colleague Evgeniy Dolgih for hinting that specific LFO type, I probably wouldn’t figure it out myself.

Let’s try to recreate it from scratch. I going to use Sylenth1, but you can use any other synthesiser you have as long as it has an LFO.

Recommended synths

Initial preset. Single oscillator with Saw wave and one voice. Choose bandpass filter type and assign modulation envelopes to the filter cut off.

You should get something like this:

Initial preset with a few tweaks in the filter and envelopes sections

Now in the LFO section, assign it to the filter cut off and choose “Sample and Hold” waveform in the dropdown menu. Tweak rate and gain knobs up to your taste.

Here is what we’ve got:

Choosing LFO waveform in the dropdown menu

That’s pretty much it. You can play around with the LFO rate, add distortion, reverb, frequency shifter, or any other audio processing effects.

After spending a couple of minutes tweaking it, I’ve come up with this really weird sound:

And here’s how it sounds like in context:

Effects processing chain

Have fun tweaking yours!

P.S. I had a personal chat with Zahaan sharing these tips, and he eventually made the following sound using an extra phaser and distortion:

Well done!

Or why Progressive Psy tracks you know are probably not Progressive at all

A few days ago I introduced Psytrance Guide and got tons of feedback. Most people are happy with subgenre names, some few are pissed-off. That’s fine.

But what’s interesting is that quite a lot of people were saying that the audio samples I’ve put in the Psytrance subgenre are actually Progressive Psy and not Psytrance. It’s not the first time when I see this misconception, so today I’d like to talk more about this and explain why this is wrong.

What does Progressive mean

First things first, the word “progressive” is an adjective that gives some quality characteristics to the noun. In music, words like this were introduced to describe a certain mood of the genre, for example:

Eventually, these words became part of the genre names, but their original meaning hasn’t changed.

Progressive music gives a sense of progression and slow build-up over time

Talking about progressive specifically, it gives a sense of... well, you guessed it, — progression. Whereas in some other genres you just want to skip forward and finally listen to “that drop”, in Progressive music that sense of progression and immersive building-up is the goal itself. It’s very consistent, often with no climax or big emotional peaks which other genres typically have.

And the difference is not only in aesthetic. In progressive music, a sequence (whether it be a melody or, let’s say, a pad) lasts much longer, sometimes it can go pretty much the entire track duration as the opposite to non-progressive music which typically changes sequences every 16 or 32 bars.

In House and Trance

Before we get into Progressive Psy, let’s take a look at some progressive examples in other genres first.

This is a proper Progressive House:

See how smooth and straightforward these tracks are? If you just scrabble through you might think that nothing really happens in these tracks, it’s just the same loop keep going. But if you listen carefully from start to finish, you’ll notice how one layers builds-up over another, how it all sums up together in a mesmerising experience. This is what Progressive is all about.

Now let’s take a look at more trancy examples:

I intentionally put so different tracks here. As you can hear they vary in tempo and rhythmic patterns, however, each of these tracks has a clear sense of progression and slow build-up over time.

In Psytrance

As we approaching Psytrance territory, let’s take a listen to some older iconic tracks that widely considered as the roots of the Progressive Psy subgenre:

And here is some proper Progressive Psy of the present days:

As you can hear, the production quality certainly gets better over the past decade, and Progressive Psy as a subgenre has evolved becoming more dancefloor-focused. But the thing is, it still has the same smooth and straightforward progression just like the older Progressive Psy of the ‘00s and just like both Progressive House and Progressive Trance. And that’s the key point.

On contrast, here is what many people tend to believe Progressive Psy is:

You probably realise by now that this is not Progressive despite it share a similar tempo range and even the same driving bassline. The last track above might be especially tricky because it’s a remix of a Progressive tune, but don’t get confused: that climax by the end clearly puts it out of the Progressive territory.

Psytrance like this usually has much more prominent leads and overall more “occupied” sound spectrum with filtered leads, textures, acid riffs, one-shots, and special effects. Also, Psytrance typically has more beat interruptions, transitions, and breakdowns; one lead can start and in 16 bars after a totally different lead might come instead.

I hope now you see the difference that simply because a track has 136 to 138 BPM it doesn’t automatically put it into Progressive area.

I call everyone to love music regardless of its genre name, but since we have to use some names for our verbal and written communication with each other to describe music, let’s use the right names then.

A great place to discover Psychedelic music

Dear fellows, I’m pleased to introduce you to the Psytrance Guide:

PsytranceGuide.com

Backstory

If you are a millennial, you probably remember the Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music. How awesome it was! As a music lover and a person who likes it when things are organised nicely, I used to spend hours on that site.

I was always thinking, too bad that guide is abandoned, outdated, and hence no longer reflects the variety of genres we have today, in Psytrance in particular. But then I realised: I could do it myself. I can do a website that probably won’t be that cool and fancy like Ishkur’s guide, but fun and informative enough, especially for those who are new to Psytrance.

And, in fact, I did.

What is this, exactly

PsytranceGuide.com is the ultimate, up-to-date guide to Psytrance music genres. It covers twenty subgenres, and I’m planning to keep it relevant through time. Each subgenre includes several audio previews that have been carefully selected, a typical BPM range, a little description, and lists of some noticeable artists and labels that are worth checking out if you like some particular subgenre.

Keep in mind that most of those subgenres have no “official” names. Everything on that site is a subject of my personal vision and experience in the Psy scene. However, I did my best and researched a bunch of niche community websites to make sure that I’m not alone in that thinking, and I will keep making it more accurate.

Who is this for

Basically, for everyone. If you are new to Psytrance or if you have a friend to whom you’d like to introduce Psytrance, it’s a great place to discover the whole variety of music spectrum that Psytrance have today. However, if you are an experienced trancer, I’m sure you’ll find a lot of fun too, just like I did when I was making that guide.

A special note to DJs. If you have a large Psytrance DJ collection but everything from Astral Projection to Zen Mechanics tagged simply as “Psytrance”, use PsytranceGuide.com as a reference to update your ID3 tags properly. This is something I use for my 12,000-tracks collection, and it works great.

Feedback

If you found a bug, or if you would like to contribute in any way, or if you have some feedback or just want to say hello, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

Video summary and highlights

A few weeks ago, Futurephonic hosted a live Facebook video featuring two awesome guests: Chris Williams (Iboga Records, Noisily Festival) and Regan Tacon (Nano Records, Origin Festival).

That was a very insightful talk on career strategies for emerging artists. You probably know my commitment to education and learning, so I wish more people “behind the scenes” could give a talk like that.

The audio quality of the video wasn’t that great though, sometimes made it really difficult to watch. I’ve decided to write down some key points so I could get back to them at any time, perhaps some of you will find it useful too.

There we go.

On changes in the industry

1. The Internet is the biggest game-changer for the music industry, for the better. The distribution is much easier now, you can get music anywhere in a matter of minutes and anyone can access it.
2. Psytrance scene has also changed in the last decade, it spread out to more places across the globe. New subgenres come in and out, it’s an ever-changing process. Psytrance is a culture, so it will stay here for quite a while.
3. In the pre-Internet days, the music industry was labels-driven, they have control over everything. Despite such limitation, it was a higher threshold for the quality of music that has been released. Social media now liberated records labels ability to put music out, but the question is whether the quality of music across the board has risen? From the artist’s perspective, entrepreneurs and marketers now have amazing platforms to be creative.
4. We see now many artists experimenting with marketing, ads, formats of communication. We’re still learning, and there is no right or wrong way. This experimentation itself is what special about this time, it’s a fantastic time to live from the artist’s perspective, basically.

It’s a fantastic time to be an artist now.

On getting music out

1. Perfectionists find it really difficult to let it go. They keep polishing and polishing, and sometimes they polish it so much so they polish away the bits of what was good in the first place. Don’t sit on it for too long.
2. Finishing tracks is a part of the producer’s talent.
3. So many people doing the same thing, so much noise is out there. You have to come up with quality. Quality takes a lot longer, much longer than most people realise.
4. Most tracks out there is nowhere good enough quality as it should be. Artists need to be realistic about what they send to labels. Patience comes along the way.

On getting noticed

1. Spotify and YouTube channels are new platforms for discovering new artists.
2. From the new artist’s perspective who’s trying to get noticed, it’s all about presentation. If you have a Facebook page, make sure you have a high-quality design, branding of your product. Even if you put a Facebook video with your branding behind it, it’s very important that this branding is good—if not better—as the music itself. It’s vital.
3. The first impression matters even before anyone heard your music. It was the same even when the demos were on CDs — it’s like receiving a demo with a marker handwriting vs. CD with artwork, well-written letter, logo. Same applies to SoundCloud now.
4. Oldschool way of approaching by shaking people hand at the backstage still works the best.

Branding is vital. First Impressions last.

On being signed on a label vs. go independent

1. Labels work as a filter, taking care of the releases, artwork, promotion etc, allowing artists to focus more on music.
2. Ultimately, all successful artists need support, and labels are a massive help in that.

On albums and singles

1. Releasing singles is a great things—it gives a stable flow of music from artists to fans, no need to wait a year or two.
2. Each single is typically supposed to be a yet another dancefloor-killer which creates a lack of experiments, the cool B-sides. Back in the days, sometimes those B-sides become hits.
3. Albums give more freedom on that matter, you can have dancefloor-killers whilst also including a couple of out-of-the-box tracks.
4. Albums certainly add some extra weights, an extra level of value for the artists who are capable of creating those albums.

On commitment

1. Artists need to be committed to working hard. I don’t think people realise how hard some of those artists work. The guys who work the hardest are the one who gets the gigs, gets the money etc. because they push it all the time.
2. It’s a lifestyle, you have to be ready for this. And music is just one part of it, with social media it’s 50–50 these days.

I don’t think people realise how hard it is.

On festivals bookings

1. There are always some acts promoters keep in mind for the next-year festival lineup.
2. Once headliners are booked, promoters go over recommendations first and only then to submissions. Don’t send a festival submission in three days prior to the festival, it’s won’t work that way.
3. There are definitely some promoters who check and evaluate how many “likes” an artist has in order to make a booking decision.

On marketing

1. If you want to pay to promote your page, do it the right way using legit Facebook mechanisms, not via external “likes’ farms.
2. Always keep in mind country demographics when starting an ad campaign. For example, for sales-driven campaign always include countries like USA, Australia, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Denmark. However, for a streaming campaign, it’s worth also including Brazil, Mexico, and other countries that don’t usually purchase music, but stream a lot.
3. Men typically buy more than women, so don’t split demographic targeting 50–50, push it more towards men.
4. Upload Facebook videos.

We spend a fortune on Facebook marketing, to be honest.

On streaming and sales

1. Streaming isn’t bringing any money, let’s be real about it. It’s interaction with people, this is how people connect with the music.
2. Anyone who really buying music is DJs. You not gonna get money selling music as a Psytrance artist, although it’s true for other genres as well. There is just not enough people buying music across the world.
3. Beatport gives 60–70% of sales, another major amount is iTunes, and all the rest stores altogether are basically nothing. That’s how it is.
4. Linkfire.com is a good way of putting all the streaming and stores links at once and then get statistics of clicks.

On investment

1. A well-thought advertisement campaign could be a solid investment, eventually giving more gigs in return.
2. Rather than relying on a photographer that can or cannot shoot while you are playing, you can hire one to be sure you’ll get high-quality photos.
3. Some artists spend their entire fee hiring photo- and video artists to make a proper aftervideo from the event. Do it at least once in six months.

Invest in your branding.

Hey Jared, congrats on your first gig :-)

The things DJs put in their bags vary depending on their setup, event type, travel destination, and habits. I’ll show what I typically put in my bag, but before I’d like to give some tips that might help.

Essentials first

First things first, put whatever is essential for your performance. Whether you are a laptop DJ or playing on CDs, USBs or vinyl, put this first.

For USB sticks, be sure it’s not formatted as NTFS because Pioneer players won’t read flash drives with that file system.

For a laptop, be sure it runs your DJ software nice and smooth. Clean it from unnecessary apps that might be running in the background and slow down the performance. Don’t forget the charger with an appropriate plug and the cables.

Always have a plan B

Shit happens. I think none will argue with this. A software can crash, CDs can get scratched, the USB stick can get lost. With that in mind, I highly suggest having a plan B and get some alternative source of music.

Let’s say, you perform on CDJ2000s with a USB stick, but entering the DJ booth you see CDJ1000 which doesn’t have a USB port. As being said, shit happens. You can start yelling to the organiser that he didn’t fulfil your tech rider but it probably won’t help. What would help, however, is a CD wallet that you’ve prepared in advance.

Hopefully, none of these will happen, but for those rare case when it actually does happen, this might save your performance. I don’t DJ with the CDs anymore but still, keep several discs in my bag.

Spare pairs

Continuing the previous point, I also suggest having extra pairs of some basic things. Get a spare USB cable, get an extra charging adapter, get another USB stick. Just in case.

Again, you’ll probably (and hopefully) won’t need any of those things, but it’s better safe than sorry. And it doesn’t occupy much space either.

Travel

Once you packed everything needed for your performance, time to get ready for the travel. Take your international passport and be sure it has at least six months before expiring date and at least one page for the stamp. Don’t forget your visa if you need it.

If you’re planning to have a carry-on bag only, be sure its weight and measurements fit the airline’s terms. Otherwise, you’ll be asked to put your bag in the baggage, which might end up not quite well for the equipment.

If you’re an iOS user, I would also advise adding your boarding passes to the built-in Wallet app. It works offline and shows your passes in a very convenient way. Just make sure to have nice and easy access to your flight info, especially when you have multiple flights.

As for the question what’s in my bag, I thought it would be boring to simply list all the things, so here is a picture I took for you:

Stuff that I typically put in my DJ bag. Cloth not included since it depends on the destination point weather and travel time

Fellow DJs, what you guys put in your bags? More cables? A travel pillow? I’m not a very frequent flyer either, so would love to hear some tips from more experienced colleagues too.

Hamish, it’s good you questioned the contract because the terms you’ve mentioned doesn’t seem promising at all.

Typically, labels and artists have a 50-50% split share. That’s the industry standard. I heard some purely commercial labels offer 60–40 and even 70–30 split deals, but never 90–10. It’s nonsense. Here is one of the contracts I previously signed to give an example:

One of the contracts I signed. The standard 50-50% split is highlighted

But in this case the split share doesn’t really matter because of the second term:

“Payments may be withheld if the sum does not match or exceed withholding amount of 1000 euro. The label’s accountant department will only contact the artist in the event their dues have reached 1000 euro.”

Some labels indeed withheld the sum until it reaches $50 or $100 just to make their accountant’s work easier, but $1000 is a scam. Don’t forget that stores and distributors also take their commission, so typically labels get only half of the price tag you see in the cart.

Let’s say, if an average price per track is €1, then the label’s share is 50 cents, which means your share would be 5 cents in this case. And that, in turn, means they would need to sell 20 000 copies just to reach that payable threshold of €1000 that suppose to go the artist. Basically, it means that’ll never gonna pay the artists, and I mean it — never, literally.

Don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t expect a solid income from music sales alone anyway. Releasing on a label has a marketing purpose. For example, I didn’t get a penny from my debut EP released on Ovnimoon Records back in 2012: they sent me a nice pack of CDs instead. That was a part of the original deal so that was fine by me, clear and simple. But when those guys from Ghost Label Records say they will pay you some money whilst in reality they won’t, I think it’s a scam. It’s up to you whether you want to deal with the people like this or not.

The truth about music sales

As for the second part of your question when a label asks to re-do the track, well, it depends. Generally speaking, I would say it’s a good sign, it means the label care. You can get an idea of what kind of feedback I give as an A&R at JOOF in Tim Bourne’s success story. But looking at the contract terms above, I don’t think they give a shit about the artists.