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DJ Chien

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Posts posted by DJ Chien


  1. Way too short :)

     

     

    If you stumble across other socio-musicological works, I'd be very interested.

     

    Thanks for links, literature about downtempo is either too rare or hard to find ^^

     

     

    By the way, reminds me of a book which was exploring how Ambient music strongly originated from modern classical music (Debussy, Satie once again, etc) but I can't remember the title... it was more about history of musical technics though, and less about the moral and philosophical approaches of the creators/listeners.


  2. Ok, strange cause I feel the exact opposite way (but hey, that's why forums exist :P ).

     

     

    We have to agree on what we call "psychill", but to me, dark and robotic Psychill has been around for a while.

     

     

    Like :

     

    - The whole "ISAM" album by Amon Tobin (some tracks on "Supermodified"  also) :

     

    Well, if that's not heavy cyborg psychill, I don't know what to say.

     

     

    - many works from Vaexth :

     

     

    - Mindbuffer as well :

     

     

    - some tunes from Circuit Bent also :

    https://circuitbentobox.bandcamp.com/track/arachnid-2

     

    Geez, engines are breathing in here :)

     

     

    - some cyberpunk psychill (well to me, it's chill and psy) with Jason Hou :

    https://dohits.bandcamp.com/track/2045-peking-2045

     

    - and Foldy, this one's bonus because it's happy robotic music :P :

    https://rexette.bandcamp.com/track/shmooper-mylo

    _________________________________

     

    Then there are some combos which merge (heavy) robotic and some acoustic instruments, maybe less interesting to you though.

     

    - Mumukshu

    https://merkabamusic1.bandcamp.com/album/mumukshu-finding-meaning-in-nothing

     

    - Zylla, not my fav but if you look for mecha textures, worth checking :

    https://oldgrowthrecords.bandcamp.com/track/where-are-all-the-oceanographers


  3. Hail to the community, hope everyone has a fine year beginning :) !

     

     

    So after years of valiant work my old laptop goes to Valhalla - thus I'm looking for a new challenger. Problem is I'm fairly new to computer technics.

     

     

    The primary aim here is to have a machine running Live 9 with let's say 30 Kontakt tracks with a different H3000 preset on each, some tweaked/sliced Serum here and there, MIDI automations everywhere, and any lag/freeze/sound crunching isn't an option because it's a live performance in front of a crazy yelling crowd (yeah crazy chillers are the most dangerous...).

     

     

    I've read that for CPU, i5/i7 HQ series would be a must have, so is at least 8GB ram and a SSD.

     

    If possible, a PC would be best for many reasons (paulstretch, some utility softwares, most of my current vst are windows only, .flac,...)

     

     

    Budget is under 1000€ if possible.

     

     

    So what pets did you raise?


  4. I'm of the vampiric kind, finding it hard (and I mean it) to join Morpheus before 5-6am (even when I had a 9-7 job, unless it was a really exhausting day).

     

    Doesn't matter if I then wake up at 9am or 2pm, my mind will still be like a deer on amphetamine during the night.

     

    After reading some Kalya Scintilla interview (the guy really lives like a yogi :P) and lots of lectures about sleep, I tried to sleep at least at midnight but I was just lying in bed with eyes closed and brain running full speed.

     

     

    Well at least playing marathon night-sets is not an issue :)


  5. Hehe if one day I limit my records budget that will mean my brain's been eaten and possessed by an alien intelligence and I am no longer a chien.

     

    Well I must admit my bank account sometimes stares at me with threatening eyes but I'm...uneasy with the idea of a dj preventing himself from acquiring interesting music - for Hofmann's sake that's the basis of our work! (this could be different for a pure producer)

     

    Since I haven't had a CD player for years, I buy digital - Bandcamp only because then I know money goes into the musician's pocket AND you have the lossless option. And there has to be a psychological factor also :P

    If the album is more than 15$ it has to be a record I really love and want to dj.

     

     

    From times to times I buy vinyls, mainly because I've stumbled on a record that just doesn't exist in digital format (mostly 60's-70's music).


  6. To give you some leads - and based on my definition of psychedelic ~ you can check :

     

     

    by The Alchemist :

     

    - Training Montage (Getting Stronger)

     

    by Blockhead :

     

    - The Music Scene

    - Insomniac Olympics

     

    by Amon Tobin :

     

    - Chocolate Lovely

    - Four Ton Mantis

     

    by RJD2 :

     

    - The Horror

     

    by The Avalanches :

     

    - Frontier Psychiatrist

     

     

    ~ and if you don't mind vocals :

     

    by Deltron 3030 :

     

    - 3030

     

    by The Alchemist :

     

    - The Kosmos Pt.7 - The Explanation

     

    by Quasimoto :

     

    - Broad Factor

     

     

    Well each one of them has made his own special approach to abstract hip-hop but they've all been tested and approved on hungry-for-flyin' brains.


  7. Hi everyone!

     

     

    I'm currently starting a new Psydub live project with some hardware delays, live percs, bass, brass and analog synth.

    The whole thing is played in a dubmixing fashion and now I'm looking for a good analog mixer for live performances (right now I'm using a Mackie 32:8:2...a bit heavy for touring).

     

    Ideally I need :

     

    - 4 mic inputs and 16 line inputs (12 for my ableton multitrack and 4 for my FX stereo returns)

     

    - at least 2 aux sends/subgroups (for my FX) though 4 would be much more comfortable. I don't care if the aux are pre or post

     

    - 100 mm faders is a real plus :P

     

    - my budget is around 400-500€ ...

     

     

    I was really interested in Soundcraft Spirit M12 and Yamaha MG206c because they are 20-input/good sounding/affordable mixers but they are very hard to find nowadays...

     

    I also know Mackie VLZ series have very flexible routing but I've worked with them for years and I'm sick of their sound (definitely not the same class than the bigger Mackies).

     

     

    Any idea ? ;)


  8. Hoho fluffy topic! :)

     

    As neil suggests I think a mix of everything is good for the groove.

     

    I used to be a percussionist before doing production, so my best way of doing drums/percussions is to record myself playing on hardware bongos/congas/drumkit. This way I can exactly play the rhytmic patterns I have in mind, rather than programming them hit by hit. Happy gain of time.

     

    Then I work on the sound of these patterns, giving them a heavily electronic/sci-fi colour :

     

    - glitches via duplication of very short parts of the patterns. Helps building this breaky-staccato groove that really turns me on.

     

    - pitch variations. I love pitch variations for turning percussions into whatever you like. For example I record a bongos pattern, then pitch it higher and higher until it sounds like some mechanical voice (I swear it does), then reverse half of it = an extraterrestrial speech is born.

    Your percs sequence can then become a very hybrid instrument.

     

    Let's say you have a 2-bar drum pattern in 4/4 times. The 7 first times of the pattern can keep the original pitch so they sound like a drum ; the 8th time may have a very mean down-pitch automation, so that it will sound like this vinyl FX when you turn the turntable off (you may even slow down the master tempo at this moment to enhance the timewarp-feeling).

    Countless metamorphoses exist.

     

    - good old ping pong delays help build random grooves you'd never think about otherwise.

     

     

    I also program when I want a "perfectly straight" timing for a hip-hop-like kick/snare/HH combo, for example.

    On really tricky parts I may play a pattern on real percs, then turn it from Audio to MIDI (thanks Live), and manually quantizing it for tempo "perfection".

     

     

    Last thought, I think more and more that anything can become a percs sequence. Recently tried to build one from with a spoken sentence sampled from some lecture. It then becomes a question of feeling beats and off-beats and putting words where you hear the groove ; a bit of sound design and timbre manipulation and here's another drumset from Mars.

     

    Extensive listening to scratch/turntablism is a good way to get ideas for making groovy percs sequences with...something that definitely wasn't meant for that ;)


  9. Hi people,

     

    I guess this topic is the reverse of the " Space Psybient " one... :P

    I'm fond of psybient with extensive use of acoustic instruments, so I'm just asking if anyone has some favorites to share ?

     

    I know there are thousands of tracks with some discrete samples of strings/percs/keyboards/brass here and there, but I'm searching for guys who use them in a really daring way like :

     

    - Shpongle (since they're a 11-piece band now, that's the most blatant example I can think of...and my favorite artist)

     

    - Argaman (one of the rare I know who doesn't dig the Oriental-instruments trend, and merges psybient with orchestral music)

     

    - Clozee (violinist/producer who does'nt just add violin riffs, but kickass solos also)

     

    - "The Alien Jams" by Ajja & Cosmosis (with constant progressive rock guitars, riffs and solos)

     

    - "Psychedelectro Swing Lounge" by Spacey Koala (rock and swing guitars along psybient)

     

     

     

    Drumspyder, Zubzub, Beats Antique, Giyo, etc...

     

    any ideas?


  10. Hello people,

     

    Was just wondering if anyone here uses Bitwig for production ?

     

    I just quickly checked what's the stuff about on their official website. Outfit kinda looks like Ableton (since Bitwig developers are former guys froms the Ableton team...) but there are very interesting extra features like :

     

    - possibility to work on several Bitwig sessions at the same time

     

    - possibility to work online with another Bitwig producer (this part is work in progress if I remember well) !

     

     

     

    so if there's any user on the forum, I would gladly listen to some feedback !


  11. Hi

     

    First, thanks for this work of investigation, great way to spread culture and raise interesting questions inside our psyched mind :) !

     

    As for suggestions :

     

    1. Hypnagog/Mental Extensions  (maybe not straightly psybient but dreamy and inspiring craftmanship at its finest in my opinion)

    2. Warp Technique

    3. Argaman

    4. Atman Construct

    5. Hinkstep

     

    Questions :

     

    a) What might inspire you ? (not only musically speaking...as Simon Posford said, anything can be an inspiration :P )

     

    B) What do you think about new ways to spread music ? (online gigs, for example)

     

    c) Can you manage to do a living with music only and how ? And if not, would you think of it as a possibility for you ?

     

    d) Do you always compose with the same place/setup and how might it affect the way you produce ?

     

    e) When producing a track/album, are there some ever-present concepts or musical effects (feeling of a certain texture, suspense, traveling with other musical cultures, relaxation...) you like to focus on ?

     

     

    cheers


  12. Hello there !

     

    Hope this hasn't been discussed yet. I was just thinking that, since our community more or less seems to go worldwide, it could be practical to share our networks in order to help us finding places to play psybient !

     

     

    Whether it is a specific venue, or just a location in the world where psy-chilling is a popular activity, or some hidden (or not) festival lacking psybient DJs in their line-up, or even maybe some valiant hearts of ours who want to create small or large events based on this musical mood...

    Don't know about you but here in Paris, apart from (much too) rare events from Iurii's team and some others, this scene seems almost non-existent at a professional scale, at least compared to what I've seen in Russia, Australia, Croatia, United States and more.

     

     

    So let's share our knowledge and maybe we can all benefit from it by making it easier to dedicate the greatest part of one's life to psybient music :)

     

     

    zenjoy


  13. I agree with this one!

     

    And I really think that this trend is gonna develop further and further. The.. mh... Music-production-just-needs-a-computer-nowadays Revolution has proven its efficiency so rapidly and in so many places that it has become a n°1 candidate to be the "normal way" of music emergence for the next generations. And it is still so young a movement.

     

    But - unless the world is a weird fairytale and everyone in the next ten years will have a digital music workstation in their kitchen on the top of the dishwasher - I guess there will still be some people who use music (or any art) as a times to times way to express creativity ; and some others who got to do music as a primary activity in life, because they're fucking maniaco-junkies of the groove who need their dose (unfortunately I'm one of those).

    Electronic music has created new instruments and open the doors for so many newcomers.

    But the old issues remain.


  14. Er...

     

    Tough, tough... Ok like some of you fellas I'm also strongly against the idea of earning my living through the music I do. Years ago, I quit all the bands I was in, because they wanted to go professional.

     

    Since then I make the day by doing music-related jobs as you suggested Gagarin (as a sound engineer for gigs, and instruments rental). The main issue in this is time. Over the last years the time I've managed to allow to music producing has been drastically reduced. Either I quit sleeping and compose during the night or I make ultra-intense geek-composing sessions during the few holidays my jobs permit.

    I'm thinking about working less on gigs and much more as a studio engineer. Maybe it would be easier to find time to work on my own productions if I actually work as a studio producer. At least, all the gear would be close to hands, which is definitely not the case if I work in a concert venue or a tour bus.

     

    Or maybe moving to a country where life is much cheaper :P

     

    From what I see, doing a non-music related part/full-time job to get money is the most usual way and sometimes it seems more or less ok (I'm thinking about this man from Easily Embarrassed who works as an electrician and whose music is genius)...but most of the time I've heard very frustrating reports.

     

     

    Also, money isn't the real deal here. I prefer the word " resources " because what we need is not money itself, but rather food to eat and sometimes shelter, medicines and music equipment. All stuff which can be acquired by other means (during some months I've lived with very few money but thanks to some people benevolence and squats I got something to eat and sleep under without that).

    I'm not looking for a magic formula which would be 100% successful for the rest of one's life.

    Just trying to gather experiences and ideas.


  15. Hail everyone!

     

    It seems to me that the question hasn't been risen yet and if that's the case, please pardon me.

     

    This is the fatal question of combining Music-making as a need in life / and still owning enough resources to live.

    The easy answer is : be a professional musician. Then you make music all the day and it brings you enough money to eat and everything else.

    But first, who is a professional musician here and manages to live this way ?

    And second, what does it precisely mean ?

     

    I mean, there are countless ways to combine music and money-making.

     

    - I think about Mr.Bill for instance,who makes amazing non-mainstream compositions - according to me - , and whose only resources come from the albums and producing-tutoriels that he puts on pay-what-you-want download on the Internet. And the guy manages to live like that. To me, this is against every law of probability but this man fucking exists.

    - There is also this composer Tony William who also composes what he wants all the day, very strange and hard-listening music, but who earns his living by creating the soundtracks of every Foresight's ballet. That means that this guy can do what he wants and live, thanks to the fact that he met some ballet-creator one day and that was it.

     

    The whole point here is a debate/recollection of ideas about : how can a musician make the music he wants and also live ? (assuming that the music that we love isn't necessarily the most money-friendly)

     

    Especially in the world of Psybient/Chill-tempo, but the question is opened to every kind of experience, even for non-electronic music.


  16. Hail!

     

     

    Here is DJ Chien, originating from Madagascar but currently hanging around in Paris, France.

     

    First, lots of cheers to the psybient.org team, for we've been missing some place to gather fellow lovers of the chill-vibe in France at least - boom! boom! has made its rulez here :P - whether it is listeners or event organizers. So thanks!

     

     

    By the way I am mostly in the music thing, basically organizing acoustic and electronic Jam sessions in all kind of areas and since 2011 producing and spreading as much music as possible as a DJ.

    I'm more or less convinced that positive music and a friendly atmosphere can help people to be less encompassed with the everyday stress, fear and distrust that our lifestyles frequently create. And with less stress, I guess people might take a little bit more time to ease and listen to others, to themselves and to everything actually - instead of seeing everything as a potential threat to their survival, physically or mentally.

    And maybe if they listen, one day they might love :)

     

     

    But enough with philosophy, musically speaking I'm fond of groove in all the forms it can take, psychedelism and experimentation.

    Some names : Hypnagog, Shpongle, Santana, Shakti, Warp Technique, Atman Construct, Messy Mass...

    Some musical conceptions have also been greatly inspired by writers such as Erich Fromm (psychoanalyzer, theologist, lover of mankind), Aldous Huxley or Zhuang Zhou (adept of the Tao).

     

     

     

    see ya on the bient-floor :)

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