Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately I can't let you in the genre challenge later this year. Maybe next year will work out for you!

Psyshell and jonmitz, I'll get to your mixes as soon as I finish mine!

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Set Archive | TA DJ Challenge

Right, here's my mix. One of the reasons I lobbied for Science Fiction as a theme is that this is natural territory for me: just about all my mixes have been influenced by sci-fi to some extent, and I already had a couple of ideas that could be easily converted into something suitable. I was going to work on a mix themed around terraforming and planetary colonisation, but I figured I've done enough wishy-washy spacey interplanetary mixes and it was time to deliver something with a little more edge and attitude.

I threw this together quite quickly in an almost punk-ish mixtape stylee, and only made a few minor tweaks after listening to it through. It's heavily inspired by the likes of Neuromancer, Bladerunner, James Cameron and Deus Ex. Here's the loose concept blurb from SC:

This mix takes place at a point in the near-future where biotechnological augmentation has advanced to the point of allowing significant improvements to the human body and consciousness, offering transhuman transcendence to those who possess the wealth to achieve it. Of course, there are certain factions lurking in the overcrowded dystopian sprawls of future society who will inevitably be displeased with their exclusion from this new phase of human experience...



01. Synth Sense - Nexus II [Auxiliary]
02. Central Industrial - Integration [Auxiliary]
03. Hecq - Bad Karma [Hymen]
04. Sonic Saturation - Storm [Camino Blue]
05. Solarstation - Instrumental (PBK Remix) [Camino Blue]
06. Future Engineers - Night Trails [Camino Blue]
07. Orbital - Know Where To Run [FFRR]
08. Antibreak - Riot Control [Red Mist]
09. Antibreak - A Block Turned To Rubble [Red Mist]
10. Zero Method - Cold War [Red Light]
11. Cain Mos & Giocator - Hot War [Trust In Music]
12. Synth Sense - Nexus I [Auxiliary]

I recommend listening to this mix in the dark on a bass-heavy soundsystem.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

This should be interesting to hear, Jack... funny you mention Deus Ex since I've been thinking about putting a track from the game in my mix...

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9-9-99 Never Forget

Quarantine Music Festival 2020

All My Mixes!

You were right, Jack, even if our styles are remotely similar (might be a stretch), we will be executing these totally different. I clicked through it and look forward to a full listen.

I will be recording mine tonight.

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Set Archive | TA DJ Challenge

Okay so i listened to psyshell's mix.

Now, this is the first theme mix so far that consists solely of stomping rave music with very abstract atmospheres if at all present. It'll be interesting to see how many people get a clear science fiction theme out of this because i honestly didn't get any of that apart from one track that is actually titled as such and has a single vocal snippet that exclaims it. Personally i feel this is a bit of a missed opportunity, some better track selection or even a cheesy sample here and there could have really helped in this regard. It should have been clear right from the beginning what this was about.

As for the mix itself, I disliked pretty much everything about it unfortunately. The mixing itself felt like a giant mess, lot's of dodgy layering which tends to end up in straight on fader slamming anyway, so why even bother.
This wasn't the real problem however, the first 50 or so minutes of the mix were filled with completely unambitious template style psytrance. The track at 55 minutes is the only one i actually liked. The structure and track selection were lacking even the slightest hint of creativity and there wasn't a single moment were i felt the DJ was really taking control of the action, it just goes on doing the same thing from the beginning until moments before the end.

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Mixes: Alaé (Conceptional ambient dub)
AOTSE (Experimental)

Listens:
http://www.last.fm/user/bierheld

quote:

Originally posted by ziptnf You were right, Jack, even if our styles are remotely similar (might be a stretch), we will be executing these totally different. I clicked through it and look forward to a full listen.

So have we gone for a similar concept in the end? I didn't think I'd be the only one to go for something cyberpunk-themed.

Also: it might be worth PM'ing those guys who signed up but haven't posted in this thread since the theme was decided.

As for Psyshell's mix, I listened to about half of it last night and I'm listening to the rest right now. I agree that the science fiction connection is pretty vague, although goa trance is inevitably pretty kosmiche. Most of the tracks selected seem to have the endless-flowing-acid structure rather than the more melodic and song-structured goa you'd hear, say, Oakenfold play, which does aid the creation of a spaced-out journey. The flow of the mix is fine, it just keeps things moving smoothly which is all you can really do with this material. Some of the tracks used have dated badly and sound particularly naff today (Over The Moon is a notable offender) but some still retain their psychotropic charm, the Plaeidians track in particular.

The mixing was... odd, but it's pretty harsh to say it's a "giant mess", especially as this kind of material is very unforgiving for DJs. Harmonically things worked together pretty well, and quite a few of the transitions were well-placed. The mixing style is pretty weird though - just about every single track seems to start at almost full volume perfectly on the beat, which strongly indicates digital mixing, probably in studio mode. However there was none of the polish of a digital mix. Some fairly jarring slams are audible, and then there's the levels. My God man, the levels! You need to learn how to EQ. There are some massive volume changes that are clearly visible on the SC waveform, which is sheer laziness if this mix was put together as I suspect. Some of the tracks had watery, non-existent bottom ends and then others kicked much harder. It's just sloppy.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

It honestly sounds like me and you have fairly different tastes. With that said, I'd be interested in hearing an example of a goa trance mix (preferably with goa trance from 94-98ish) that is "creative" and not "unambigious template style psytrance". Psytrance does tend to be rather in your face and not very ambigous. Especially earlier stuff. I based the mix on a few oldschool goa mixes I'd heard over the years, and also the style of mixing in distance to goa 4 disc 2 (and distance to goa 3 disc 2) which tended to have very rough mixing. In terms of the theme, it was left open to interpretation. I originally started with deciding to include both Psychaos - Science Fiction and Etnica - Vimana in the mix and structured it around that. After a while it became obvious that Etnica - Vimana was too techy and wouldn't really fit in with the rest of the mix. Even if the mix went in a somewhat tech direction towards the end, vimana simply isn't as maximal as the early tracks and I don't really think maximal-minimal is a good progression to have over the course of a mix. At least I don't think it would've worked in this case. The theme also determined the mood of the tracks I used towards the end with IMO them getting a gradually darker and more spacey feel(up to the pigs in space track). As for the creativity of the mix, I do kind've feel that if you view all the tracks as "boring template psytrance" than you're not going to be feeling the same emotions from the tracks as I am so it's pretty hard to compare. I definitely chose quite a few "fairly obvious classics" but I chose them carefully based on mood and I don't feel like the mood of the mix was either random or bog standard. There's always room for improvement in that department though. Thanks for the feeback anyway though, but it does seem that we have quite different tastes.

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Check out my Goa mix and Darkpsy Mixes here

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Some of the tracks used have dated badly and sound particularly naff today (Over The Moon is a notable offender) but some still retain their psychotropic charm, the Plaeidians track in particular.

On that I definitely agree.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J My God man, the levels! You need to learn how to EQ. There are some massive volume changes that are clearly visible on the SC waveform, which is sheer laziness if this mix was put together as I suspect. Some of the tracks had watery, non-existent bottom ends and then others kicked much harder. It's just sloppy.

I was actually thinking something along those lines. That if I was to do another mix of material from that era that I'd really need to learn a little about mastering. I really don't think it's as simple as an EQ job though. A 4 knob EQ isn't going to fix tracks having certain things like "waterey" basslines. I feel like if I was to do some stuff from this era again I'd want to make careful use of a compressor, make up gain and several fairly customisable EQs. In some cases it might not even be able to be fixed. If I've got punchey mid heavey kicks on either side of a track and the track has a melody that's supposed to be quite queite then significantly altering the kick would alter the rest of the track as well. I feel like I definitely should've used a compressor and gain to equalise (some) of the tracks. Pretty much the only track that holds up to modern sound standards would be the Pleaidians one imo.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J The mixing was... odd, but it's pretty harsh to say it's a "giant mess", especially as this kind of material is very unforgiving for DJs.

Again as I mentioned above, I based it on the distance to goa 3/4 disc 2 sets which have fairly harsh mixing. This might not have been optimal though, and honestly after listening to the same tracks repeatedly 7+ times it's pretty hard to listen to it with the same attitude/perspective as a listener. I'll need to hear what others say and also listen to it myself in a couple of weeks time. Ideally I'll need to listen to a fair few mixes that mix the same kind've music both harshly or more traditionally to compare and then decide which is best or in which situations either is superior.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J which strongly indicates digital mixing, probably in studio mode.

I have no idea what studio mode is but the tracks were triggered manually but with sync in traktor on.

I do however notice there's no complaints (so far) about the positioning of the tempo rises which is interesting. I feel like when they're well positioned in a particularly driving track they can really add to the energy of a mix. In some styles they might even be nearly as important as the key of a song.

Also, thanks for being civil. I'm still a bit annoyed about some of the things you said in my last mix thread but I guess that's not important now.

[edit]
Some goa trance page on facebook just shared my mix and described it as "The first of two new mixes I'll be posting this morning, this particular sonic tapestry woven by Psyshell consists of some tasty melodic well-known numbers mixed up all nice and tight like.". Obviously that's a bit of spin, but they seemed to view (presumably?) the mixing as tight. So I dunno who to believe about whether harsh mixing was ok or not. EQ, compression and gain is definitely an issue though.

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Check out my Goa mix and Darkpsy Mixes here

Last edited by Psyshell on Jan-23-2014 at 14:17

quote:

Originally posted by Psyshell It honestly sounds like me and you have fairly different tastes.

Well that much is obvious I almost felt like adding a disclaimer at the end regarding me not being a fan of the sound in general but i always feel like that I'm sort of cheating myself when i do that. As far of as the music style in use here goes, my description of "unambitious template music" seems pretty far off knowing what i do know, i honestly barely even looked at the tracklist and didn't realize how old these tracks actually are. So I'll throw my hands up there, my bad. I assumed this was just another random mix-up of thrown together lowest denominator dance music. I'm pretty adamant when calling these things as i consider myself an extremely mercurial listener and don't believe there are genres that just don't vibe with me at all unless they aren't done right. This is always a subjective matter though so i don't assume such a stance will always go unchallenged.

As far as the mixing goes, I guess I didn't suitably explain that I didn't really have a problem with it, which I did mean to mention but it came out as "this wasn't the biggest problem", presuming it was at least a problem of significance. I do however feel that you shouldn't layer the beats of the following track at all if it doesn't sound right, although as system J alluded to it's probably more a problem with the levels and EQ'ing. I don't care if the mix itself is rough so long as the flow is good and the tracks complement each other in some regard, and flowwise there's really nothing wrong with this mix apart from it being unambitious. The reason i deemed it a giant mess, is because the problems kept occurring throughout rather then being occasional, and i usually believe the DJ has a certain responsibility in modifying his track selection to counter some of these problems. However again this was by no means a deal breaker for me and i do actually think that a lot of the cue points were quite well chosen besides that. I was a bit torn with that statement anyway as i do realize this sort of music is a nightmare to mix, but there is a case to be made for it regardless.

I think the root of the problem here is just a difference in vision, i personally don't feel that sentimental about old music anymore and believe music like this, well.. It is what it is and it's obvious a lot of people still think it has a certain charm to it, but i just don't get that anymore. I don't find it an appealing listen, i think you can find tons of modern music that still keeps that spirit but goes a lot further in making a more appealing mixture of sounds. Besides that i think you can pay a much more respectable homage to those tracks by using them in new and interesting ways rather then trying to copy what's been done with them countless times before.

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Mixes: Alaé (Conceptional ambient dub)
AOTSE (Experimental)

Listens:
http://www.last.fm/user/bierheld

Last edited by Bierheld on Jan-23-2014 at 22:08

I mean “harsh” in the sense it’s unfair on you, not that your mixing style is harsh. I can see your point in that some of these tracks are just badly produced and EQing won’t fix that, but when you know the incoming track has a much heavier bottom end you can at least increase/decrease the bass or volume gradually so the contrast isn’t so marked. In just about every transition on your mix it’s clearly audible when you introduce the first beat of the incoming track, and when that incoming track is much louder/bassier than the outgoing one it sounds really obvious, and at certain points here leads to some big volume jumps. You should adjust the master gain for the new channel before mixing in so both tracks are at roughly the same volume. If you mixed this set live in a club you’d burst people’s eardrums with some of these transitions. I’ve heard it happen live and it’s physically painful.

These are mainly technical aspects you can work on. Your cueing is very sharp, because I didn’t hear you have to correct any of the transitions, and your cue points are fairly well chosen for the most part. Again, psy and goa don’t really lend themselves to fantastically smooth mixing so I’m not going to expect silky DJing skills. That said, psy DJs are unquestionably the worst in dance music when it comes to technical skills, so I’d expect a goa trance fanpage to have a somewhat different standard of smooth mixing to people on this forum.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Also regarding the nature of goa/psytrance and it's ties to the theme, which i think is an interesting discussion onto itself and I'm curious to hear psyshell's thoughts about it.

What i think psytrance and psychedelic-focussed music in general is is a tie-in to the the unexplored boundaries of the human mind itself. Science fiction is by nature a fantasy grounded in reality, which is why the issue is often side-stepped by setting the narrative in the future rather then the past as is common in regular fantasy. It is based on what we don't know, and the past is something we have a rather good idea about. A psychedelic narrative meanwhile is not bound by chronology at all and explores the relation between the human mind and the cosmos, the observable reality versus timeless interconnected infinity. It is as such something that's far removed from reality by nature, it describes the process of leaving it altogether. Besides that a psychedelic depiction of "space" is nothing like a scientific one.

This is why i feel you need something extra to steer music like that in a sci-fi direction. Because yes it can just be an alien bunch of sounds to someone if set up that way. But it isn't automatically so.

___________________
Mixes: Alaé (Conceptional ambient dub)
AOTSE (Experimental)

Listens:
http://www.last.fm/user/bierheld