This is my first post, so hello to all you Twisted fans.
I am working on a psytrance piece that starts in 4/4 and then changes to 6/4 with 8/4 filler bars in between sections. It seems to work well and i may even do tracks in 3/4 and 5/4 as well (remixes of classical music, if i can find the time to finish them!).
My question is, is there anyone out there writing psytrance like this? I would love to find a couple of examples to have a listen to….
Unfortunately everything is 4/4 for as far as I know…
O no wait, I think Hallucinogen’s ‘Shakey Shaker’ track is in 3/4 starting from 2:17 till 5:11 Personally I think that’s awesome, but most producers seem afraid to experiment or maybe they’re just stuck in this 4/4 tunnel.
For the rest, Shpongle has it (see the ‘Shpongle’s odd time signatures’ topic), but it’s not psytrance.. Same with Shulman; they have it, but it’s not psytrance. Nevertheless, check out their track ‘transmissions in bloom’, it’s partly in 5/4 (from the start).
Infected Mushroom’s Heavyweight also has some 3/4, but it’s also not psytrance.
If you’re good, PLEASE do some 3/4, 5/4, 7/8, 9/8 etc!! Hehe. You’d make my day.
Thanks Kodara, i knew Shpongle experiment with time sigs, that’s partly my inspiration to do this track. That and when i worked out the riff for sequencing i realised i’d gotten too many notes! I didn’t know IM had but if it’s post superviza i wouldnt know, that album was the beginning of a steep slope to shite.Not heard of the other band so will have to check them out.
7/8 and 9/8 would be a real challenge, they are very hard to write drum tracks for that don’t feel lop-sided, like a group of 3 then 4 (or 5 then 4 for 9/8 and the various permutations!) Shpongle however manage the 7/8 really, really well (first track off new album and there’s another one too), it doesn’t sound lopsided at all and i hadn’t spotted it was in 7 straight away. The way the riff sort of ends on the starting note of the repeat keeps it looping along without feeling like it’s starting too early. Inspiring.
If i get the odd time sig pieces up to some sort of playable standard (they are only arrangements of the classical pieces with drums at present, very raw and skeletal) i’ll be sure to post here.
After reading another thread over the last few days i decided i only want to try to release through twisted and support the label, though i doubt it’ll ever actually happen…. need the time to up my tracks to a high enough standard.
It’s a shame time sigs are not experimented with more in psytrance, with all the really weird noises and syncapated drop outs you’d have thought it would be condusive to odd time sigs. Guess i’ll have to pull my finger out and get them finished!
odd time sigs in trance don’t really make sense considering the kick drums is always hitting on the beat…it does not make for good flow for the snare and hat work.
It’s more common to use a breakbeat with odd sigs because it disguises the fact that its not 4/4 easier and you can get into the flow.
I think sig changes would better suit breakdowns and short changeups then go back to 4/4 in a trance song.
See Meshuggah…odd tim signature kings (except maybe Dream Theater hehe)that are able to keep it flow smoothly while transitioning to multiple odd time signatures throughout the song. Even though its metal, the same theories and rhythm/grooves still apply to all music.
Meshuggah are so good at this! I listen to a lot of metal when I’m not in a Shpongled mood and much of what I listen to is considered to be avant garde or experimental grind/math metal. Having said this, I have massive respect for time signature switches and such. This type of music is definitely worth checking out in the technical aspect of things. Also, in the vein of electronic music, IDM and breakcore are great examples as well. Check out Venetian Snares if you have not already, he loves 7/8 and 9/8 and his flow is incredible given the kind of music he creates. I hope this is somewhat inspiring, I really don’t know where to point you in the vein of trance as it often disregarded because it creates such a chaotic flow but I think inspiration can flow across genres. I think one trick that could be used effectively in trance is some kind of slowly transforming time signature switch. To be honest I have not ever tried to figure out the time signatures of Shpongle but I believe it is apparent in many of their tracks. DMT has a particular change that, while I am not sure if it a time signature change or just a change in the syncopation of the beat, is seemless. You almost do not notice it is happening. I think that sort of change would work great in trance but as it has been said before, it would be better for a breakdown or a less kick driven part of the piece. Anyway, I’m rambling but I would love to hear anything you come up with also. This part of music theory has always particularly fascinated me and it’s a tough thing to deal with in pre-programmed music, at least in my experience. Keep it touch,
Dylan, HERETICtheory
Edit: I just checked out Snakey Shaker keeping this in mind and it is beautifully done in 3/4. Definitely worth checking out, maybe get a little lifted and see if you can’t root through the layers and figure out Simon’s trickery. It may just be an emphasized pause which leads into the 3/4 section that works but I’d have to experiment around to know for sure.
I agree that odd quaver time sigs (anything odd over 8)would push it into a different genre, but changing the crochet time sig should be fine (anything over 4), the bars are just slightly extended and so build ups would not be predictable to the listener (especially if they don’t know much about time sigs). I’m trying to product psytrance with a crochet beat as all trance but not 4 in a bar. You can then treat the structure in same way (groups of 4, 8, 16 etc. bars) but because there’s (in the case of 6/4) more beats in the bar it’s not so obviously predictable to the listener.
Once you’ve spotted this though the effect is lost, it’s then over to having odd numbered groups of bars and the occassional odd beat emphasis to catch out the listener and make then look up (Which is really my aim here, to make the listener think ‘what did he do then?’, ‘that felt wrong for a second, but it works’.
As soon as i’m happy with the track i’ll post it, it may be a while as it’s still early in the making and i work full time in a lab, just too busy to get the music done quickly, may need a few late sessions over the next few weeks….....
As far as keeping the listener on his/her toes I would say this: Even if you are playing in 6/8, 7/8 or whatever you want to do, like Grummm said, they will eventually figure it out and it won’t have the same impact anymore. This is why I love mathcore and such. I think you need to keep in mind a constant time signature change. The song may start in 4/4 and at 0:30 hit 7/8 then at 0:45 go to 3/4 and maybe at 1:20 go to 9/8 for a breakdown and then return back to 4/4 to pull the listener back in if they’re losing it a bit.
I think it’s entirely possible in electronic music, the main drawback I find is if you are preprogramming beats it is a lot to think about linearly, at least for me. It is easier for me to jam on some drums or something to get the feel of constant time sig changes. I think the key here is balance and creating the atmosphere you want. This works so well in metal I think because of the violent/sporadic nature of the sound but it could work equally well in a chaotic trance song, especially if you have a very glitchy or utterly mad psychedelic song. It would also be interesting to see in chillout, you could do it in a much more ambient way, almost seemlessly linking together different phases of the song. Kind of an ethereal feeling I guess.
Anyway, for Venetian Snares I’d recommend starting with the album Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz
Meshuggah are so good at this! I listen to a lot of metal when I’m not in a Shpongled mood and much of what I listen to is considered to be avant garde or experimental grind/math metal. Having said this, I have massive respect for time signature switches and such. This type of music is definitely worth checking out in the technical aspect of things. Also, in the vein of electronic music, IDM and breakcore are great examples as well. Check out Venetian Snares if you have not already, he loves 7/8 and 9/8 and his flow is incredible given the kind of music he creates. I hope this is somewhat inspiring, I really don’t know where to point you in the vein of trance as it often disregarded because it creates such a chaotic flow but I think inspiration can flow across genres. I think one trick that could be used effectively in trance is some kind of slowly transforming time signature switch. To be honest I have not ever tried to figure out the time signatures of Shpongle but I believe it is apparent in many of their tracks. DMT has a particular change that, while I am not sure if it a time signature change or just a change in the syncopation of the beat, is seemless. You almost do not notice it is happening. I think that sort of change would work great in trance but as it has been said before, it would be better for a breakdown or a less kick driven part of the piece. Anyway, I’m rambling but I would love to hear anything you come up with also. This part of music theory has always particularly fascinated me and it’s a tough thing to deal with in pre-programmed music, at least in my experience. Keep it touch,
Dylan, HERETICtheory
Edit: I just checked out Snakey Shaker keeping this in mind and it is beautifully done in 3/4. Definitely worth checking out, maybe get a little lifted and see if you can’t root through the layers and figure out Simon’s trickery. It may just be an emphasized pause which leads into the 3/4 section that works but I’d have to experiment around to know for sure.
I agree,i actually listen to them as for my reference on this one. Hope you’re doing great right now…
I think you need to keep in mind a constant time signature change. The song may start in 4/4 and at 0:30 hit 7/8 then at 0:45 go to 3/4 and maybe at 1:20 go to 9/8 for a breakdown [...].
never heard anything like that in this field of music. any recommendations?! would love to hear!
I think the main thing is to keep it danceable, and then the time signature won’t matter as long as it has a nice groove - the straight kick will help things blend anyway.
It’s in 9/4; some elements (e.g. bass, hi-hats) follow the sequence of the accents of the beginning, other elements have their own accents (e.g. ride-> 5/8, lead->7/8), and even in the breakdowns the kick has different accents. In the mid-section I also did a trick where I add a beat each time (3+4+5+6). All of it is based in Carnatic music.
kuul, I like! could you please explain how it is based on carnatic music?
if I may make a small personal point: I’d prefer to hear less 4 to the floor-inspired boom-boom-boom-bass drums… or none at all…
The things I do are elements of carnatic music. For instance the percussion sequence in the beginning is a jathi bhedam. This means that I divided 2x 9/4 bars into 8ths (36 8th notes) and grouped these into groups of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 till it adds up to 36. So the opening sequence is something like 7+7+5+2+3+4+1 ... until you’ve reached the end of the 2nd bar (=total of 36 8ths), then loop.
The different accents which I used, are what in carnatic music you’d call different jathi (=number of accents) imposed on chatusra (=4, the number of notes, in this case 16ths, on a beat). So you have 3,5,7 against 4 or 8 or 16 (depending on the subdivision).
I’m not sure if what I do in the mid-section (start with 3 beats, then 4,5,6 until it reaches the end of the 2nd bar and then loop) is carnatic, but it’s cool anyhow
On your point about 4 on the floor, it’s be nice to do something else, but it wouldn’t sound like the trance we know with breakbeats (not that this is a bad thing)...
quite interesting, thanks! I’m always a seeker for interesting rhythms… so, do you have any carnatic records recommendations, as I know nothing about this music?
ps: who cares about trance anyway.
Personally I think that’s awesome, but most producers seem afraid to experiment or maybe they’re just stuck in this 4/4 tunnel. 
It may just be an emphasized pause which leads into the 3/4 section that works but I’d have to experiment around to know for sure.
