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-- Uplifting Trance Is All The Same
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quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad would you trust the opinion of the craft of a bridge from an engineer with a masters degree or a guy like you with no qualifications. Rook to A8 check

Not even if he took that bridge, cut it to an 8-bar loop to use as a hook and then force-fed it to a drum-machine. Please see Mr. Knight from B6 to A8.

As much as I respect your credentials (and I really do), appeals from pedantry are useless considering what's has been offered. You're far from the only pro I've known and I've known quite a few who have made some remarkably bad decisions - both in their professional and personal lives; even pertaining to the music they chose, produced, engineered, and/or created. I am as dismissive of their preferences regarding my tastes as I am of yours diminishing them. Your cognitive ability to analyze and quantify music according to its theoretical metrics does not grant you any ability to measure its aesthetics with as much accuracy in a way which appeals to my tastes.

Aesthetics are largely a construct of psychological preferences. There are certain measures which quantify them but when you look at the Music Discussion forum, here, you should not be too surprised to find a lack of agreement on what those measures really are - even amongst the pros.

Consider this:



There was a time when every weekend night was permeated with this. By the time it gets to the first bridge of "everybody, everybody", I was fucking sick of it - and that's the first time I heard it. Everything - and I mean everything - up to that point I think is genius but she starts belting out "set me free" and it's time to go outside, without my coat, for a smoke in the snow.

But you have to consider - everyone else in the club loves it. The DJ kills the chorus. The crowd sings, "set me freeeee". The dance floor is packed. Does that make it a good song?

For me? No. Because after all the set up, the arrangement takes a sharply reductive angle to get out of the way of the vocals, which are shrill, cloying, and so prevalent in the mix as to be stifling to the song's only redeeming feature - it's crucially reduced music-bed.

Musically, it ought to have made Todd Terry a little nervous - but Todd Terry has more finesse. Musically, there's nothing really wrong with it. The notes are spot on. The rhythm section is in the pocket and the phrasing is next to perfect - even on the vocals. It packs dance-floors. It is the quintessential classic. The song, to me, however just fucking sucks massive donkey balls.

I consider it on par with KISS's, "I wanna Rock and Roll all Night". Crap. Utter crap. Pure, unadulterated, egocentric, epically crowd pleasing crap. Nevertheless, my friend, better men - men who I would have just as much respect for - than you, I suspect, have not found it as wanting and may have even engineered it and to therefore vest your opinion with the qualification of your credentials would be intellectually dishonest, at best, and absolutely fucking daft, at second best.

Sorry about your head.

*leaves thread to lavage ears with Beastie Boys' Ill Communication.*

hear hear

It pretty much boils down to Richie is stubborn and doesn't listen to much new stuff anymore, and Kysora has a lot more experience so he can hear more of the innovations that Richie isn't exposed to. Who cares? Is it really that big of a deal? Just go make some music. Don't take this thread too seriously, it was just a cautious warning about redundancy.

Kysora doesn't have more experience. Not sure where you got that from. I listen to lots of music, including the shit that has been posted here. You sure assume alot. And for someone that hasn't done EDM production in years , I still seem to know more than you guys as I'm always answering your fucking questions. Its called using your ears which is something I do more in a year , than you do in a lifetime. I think it precisely because you people don't know how to listen that you can't appreciate good production. You don't know what is hard to make , you don't appreciate good sound design because you don't know what is hard and what is easy and you would not know original production if it hit you in the head and said hey, whats going on man, because you have no grasp of what has been done before, and what has not.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Kysora doesn't have more experience. Not sure where you got that from. I listen to lots of music, including the shit that has been posted here. You sure assume alot. And for someone that hasn't done EDM production in years , I still seem to know more than you guys as I'm always answering your fucking questions. Its called using your ears which is something I do more in a year , than you do in a lifetime. I think it precisely because you people don't know how to listen that you can't appreciate good production. You don't know what is hard to make , you don't appreciate good sound design because you don't know what is hard and what is easy and you would not know original production if it hit you in the head and said hey, whats going on man, because you have no grasp of what has been done before, and what has not.

Nobody can listen to everything, so who knows? But hey, you're entitled to your own two cents. What I meant to say was that Kysora probably has more experiencing listening to uplifting trance than yourself. It's easy to say, "Genre X has nothing new." But if you haven't listened to everything, then you can't really know. Let's just agree to disagree, but also agree that we need originality for the music's sake.

Top this:

Do I really want to read all this?

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Top this:

lol

haven't read the whole topic but just in case you don't know:

All techno is the same.
All tech-house is the same.
All progressive house is the same.

...

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Kysora doesn't have more experience.

With modern uplifting trance, I have to think that I do. Just the fact that you hate listening to it and that it's my favorite genre of trance and my area of production makes me think I've listened to a lot more of it than you have. Even if your line of work exposes you to it every once in a while doesn't mean you've heard as much as someone who actively seeks it out. You definitely have more experience with me in pretty much any other field, but come on.

Unless you're just insinuating that the fact that I like uplifting trance is a reflection of inexperience, in which case we're back to you forcing your opinions on people. I appreciate good production but I don't listen to music to appreciate what's difficult and what's original, I listen to it because I find the melodies in uplifting trance appealing. You said all the melodies I put up have been done before but you never offered any proof of that, you never put up any kind of track from the era you cling to that resembled a breakdown like Tuvan's in terms of its depth and instrumentation... I'm fine with agreeing to disagree, I have absolutely no problems with that, but that's never enough for you because you figure anyone who doesn't agree with you has to be wrong and you need to "prove" that without offering any evidence. I know you have more experience than most people here in the industry and music theory and all that other stuff but I'm sorry, this is just fucking stupid.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Top this:

Wow. They could have at least changed the key to disguise their total lack of originality a bit.

that melody was used in a track circa 2000 I just can't remember the name. So forget the 2007 original.

And Kysora , the fact that you are so into one genre if anything makes you near sighted. It actually gives you less perspective on your own genre.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Top this:

the last two are probably Jorn van Deynhoven aliases, i checked out his myspace videos and he's apparently even stealing dj poses.

Kysora, I think what my intentions pertain to your influences and that perhaps you might be better off looking at the era that really did the genre you are trying to do to perfection. It is very similar to alot of composers that ask me how to make film music. If you want to make
orchestral film music, you don't study Zimmer or Badelt, you study the masters of the 19th century like Wagner or Elgar which seems to be what most film composers try to emulate. Yes , it is important to keep in mind what the modern guys are doing as style is important but just like most hollywood music is hack writing, I feel the same regarding current melodic trance. I could explain in very much detail why the new stuff is inferior just like I could explain why Hans Zimmer is a hack compared to Steiner or similar film composers of the golden era of hollywood but it would take alot of time and I don't think you would really care.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Kysora, I think what my intentions pertain to your influences and that perhaps you might be better off looking at the era that really did the genre you are trying to do to perfection. It is very similar to alot of composers that ask me how to make film music. If you want to make orchestral film music, you don't study Zimmer or Badelt, you study the masters of the 19th century like Wagner or Elgar which seems to be what most film composers try to emulate. Yes , it is important to keep in mind what the modern guys are doing as style is important but just like most hollywood music is hack writing, I feel the same regarding current melodic trance. I could explain in very much detail why the new stuff is inferior just like I could explain why Hans Zimmer is a hack compared to Steiner or similar film composers of the golden era of hollywood but it would take alot of time and I don't think you would really care.

Is this why so much American Classical music, particularly by the contemporary American composers, sounds so much like it was made for a film?

what do you mean by modern American ? like Copeland ?

most film composers where imported from Europe and most adopted Wagner's leitmotif technique. Copland was pretty influential with John Willliams which sprouted a while other number of composers trying to sound like Williams.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad what do you mean by American ? like Copeland ?

I don't remember the names but my local NPR station seems to favor these American composers who sound like they're writing for old westerns. One I listened to did a complete genre hop from romantic to thriller to comedy to espionage thriller to sea adventure that seemed like it was twenty minutes.

Copeland - perhaps - but I'm more hesitant to lump him in there. I actually owned the soundtrack to Wall Street when I was a kid. I've heard some of his other work and didn't find it nearly as strident. TBH, and my memory might be faulting me on this, but he seemed to borrow from European composers.

With the ones I'm referring to, it sounds almost like they're making a mix tape for Hollywood producers to review. It shows capability and ingenuity but, to me, didn't really have a hook or avenue. It might have been decent with a context but provided a context, in the real world, would seem over-bearing.


I'll understand if that doesn't make it clearer and will make it a point to listen to the radio, tomorrow, to post with their playlist of songs which speak to what I'm trying to get at.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad Kysora, I think what my intentions pertain to your influences and that perhaps you might be better off looking at the era that really did the genre you are trying to do to perfection.

Well that's certainly a better way to put it. It's just stylistically I'm not going for that sound at all, trance from that era has a very simplistic synthetic sound to me that I don't want to try and emulate. As far as writing goes uplifting trance now seems to be doing the same thing they were doing back then, as you said, but just with the new sound that's developed in the last 5 or so years. Melodically I don't think there's a lot of influence I can personally get from old melodic trance because it just doesn't fit the sound I'm going for.

I could be wrong, you clearly listen to more music from that time period than I have, but generally the style I try to emulate is the sound of what's going on now. Instead of developing and expanding on the previous eras like modern trance is doing now, I'd rather take influences from modern trance and develop those into something that'll hopefully sound new. I think that's what some producers are already doing. I don't want to be doing exactly what everyone else is doing by drawing from the same influences as everyone else.

I hope that makes sense.

quote:

I could explain in very much detail why the new stuff is inferior just like I could explain why Hans Zimmer is a hack compared to Steiner or similar film composers of the golden era of hollywood but it would take alot of time and I don't think you would really care.

It's not that I wouldn't care, explain it if you'd like to but I'm just not interested in the older stuff because my main goal is trying to do something different from what everyone else is doing. I might never succeed, and if I ever do it'll definitely take a long time, but I just don't think studying the classics as a foundation is necessary. Whether or not that's a crutch is up to interpretation.

quote:

[b]Originally posted by Kysora [/ It's not that I wouldn't care, explain it if you'd like to but I'm just not interested in the older stuff because my main goal is trying to do something different from what everyone else is doing. I might never succeed, and if I ever do it'll definitely take a long time, but I just don't think studying the classics as a foundation is necessary. Whether or not that's a crutch is up to interpretation.

i think you would be foolish not to listen to some older trance mainly due to the fact of (drawing from expereance or from what you hear)
is a great way to think outside the box otherwise how will you have a wider point of refrance.
i do this all the time it can help avoid trends and emulating todays top sounds

I can have points of reference outside of trance, uplifting or otherwise. In fact that's where most of them come from, I don't casually listen to trance nearly as much as I used to. Most of the time I'm listening to chill-out, indie/folk rock, alternative and space rock.. I'd find it incredibly boring if all of my musical influences were drawn from other trance tracks.

Literally all of my songs start out as chords or melodies on live improvised piano or guitar or some other medium that isn't some cliched trance patch, like organic pads or orchestral samples. I have a pretty large collection of stuff like that, and the best of that stuff I try and work into a full trance track. I don't write specifically to create anything that sounds "trancey". That's a surefire way to sound like the kinds of copies M4B talks about. Which is why I don't think classic trance would help me at all.

That's probably why almost all of my remixes sounds much more edgy and electronic than my original works -- everything I draw from a remix is already in a trance form, and that reflects into my interpretation of it. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxEJChxerB4 -- there's a pretty massive difference in the sound of this compared to any of my original stuff.

If I want to avoid trends and top sounds I'm going to just avoid the source of them instead of seeking them out. I'm not advocating this for anyone else, it's just personally how I approach my own work.

edit: Christ, 94 replies? Jeez, I destroyed this thread. My bad.

ALso realize that sometimes , the point of listening to past music is not really for influence but also to realize what has been done. Having a firm idea of what has been done will help you stay away from cliches. Had most of the artists making melodic trance now realized that its been done, maybe they would of done something more interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad ALso realize that sometimes , the point of listening to past music is not really for influence but also to realize what has been done. Having a firm idea of what has been done will help you stay away from cliches. Had most of the artists making melodic trance now realized that its been done, maybe they would of done something more interesting.

bingo this was my point it's fair to say most ideas have been done before new and old.
thinking outside the box is no easy thing its hard enough to make normal tracks let alone anything new or invative.

All of a sudden everyone seems to agree that almost everything has already been done. So it's time to turn to music theory 2.0 since all possible chord progressions have been turned to plucked arpeggios already? I would like to get a list having every classic trance track that has occupied these chord progressions, melodies, everything.
I expect it by this evening +2 gmt so I can start checking and memorizing the melodies that I can't use anymore, since they have been used already.

Anjunabeats signing 59 tracks that sound the same is one thing, but hey..

I've seen so many shit attempts from even known artists to sound "original". "I'm not trance.. I'm not house.. I'm not minimal.. I'm *artist name*, genres can't define me!" And still failing at it, or sounding extremely idiotic with fucking chromatic scale bleep bloops and no actual musical content at all. Just drums and blipblops saying "I am so original" through the speakers. That's the other end of it, and I hate it too.

quote:

Originally posted by JEO Anjunabeats signing 59 tracks that sound the same is one thing, but hey..

this is cause the A&Rs don't understand so much about music...they read only the name, i think...

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