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-- Trance dead in the water
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Good to see people finally coming around to my way of thinking.

It only took you what? ...5 years?

would the real Ishkur please stand up!

(actually, maybe its better not to with this crowd)

d00d...gotta say I love yer site. Really pushed the envelope but overall well done. Cleared up quite a bit for me too!

Re: Re: Trance dead in the water

quote:

Originally posted by Jimmy Hmmm..thats an interesting posting you've made. But i'm curious, could you name a couple of older tracks that you find, as you say, eexceeding today's? And then you name a couple of tracks that are played on asot and most of tranceaddict finds its really great, but which you think that they're not as great tracks as everybody thinks it to be?

Well, let's ignore 2000-01 for now.

For example, compare these (1996-99):
Renaissance: The Mix Collection - Part 4
Global Underground 007 - New York
Northern Exposure 2: West Coast Edition
Ibiza Euphoria
In Search of Sunrise
Deeper Shades of Hooj
Tranceport

To these (2002-03):
Nyana
Gatecrasher: Experience
Transparance
World Tour: Tokyo
Trance Nation: Deeper
Godskitchen Worldwide

I think that gives a decent idea of what I'm talking about. Tracks on the latter compilations are much more similar to each other and tend to be more formulaic in character and structure, as well as driven by very similar sounds. Also, the progression characteristic of the older compilations tends to be lost on the later ones. The 1996-99 albums are merely a sampling of the amazingly diverse quantity and quality of that time period, while I was hard pressed to even find what I did in 2002-03 of comparable value.

quote:

Originally posted by Cobalt Even Marco has gone downhill. His remixes of Connected and 3rd Earth have been relatively poor. C:\del*.mp3 and Solarize really don't compare to Godd or In Charge.

Marco doesn't really like his Connected remix either.
His next 2 records will be dope, trust me...

quote:

Originally posted by Ishkur Good to see people finally coming around to my way of thinking. It only took you what? ...5 years?

Really, I think this is more recent than that. Even the Anthem Crash and the 2000-01 aftermath were part of the evolution of trance. Things only really began to stagnate in 2002.

I think your idea of trance ending its growth in 1998 or something is much like saying a person ends his or her growth in life at twenty-five because from then on they cease to physically change. Letting a sound flesh out within a paradigm is also part of a musical progression, which trance was doing in the 1998-2001 time period.

But now, it's time for innovation. Things need to start changing on a more fundamental level than samples and melody variations.

i agree, many trance productions has become stale.. but there are still good ones being made..

AR52 - Timegate/Hibernation
Midway - Inca
GTR - Mistral
Ronald van Gelderen - Sustain[RVG's Eye for an Eye mix]
Neo & Farina - Mondial[Original]
Goldenscan - Sunrise[Ronski Speed mix]
Melodica - Tornado[PPK mix]
Hydra - Affinity[Backbeat mix]
Rapid Eye - Stealing Beauty[RE mix]
Matt Darey - Electro Buzz
Frank Who - Wonderful
Coast 2 Coast - Searching
J00F - La Voyage EP
Ferry Corsten - Right of Way album[especially Sublime, Whatever !, Sweet Sorrow, Right of Way, Kyoto]
Mirco de Govia - Chronoscale Album
Three Drives - Melodies from the Universe Album

were excellent releases this year.. i think 2003 started off really nicely then starting midpoint or end of summer til now, nothing exciting's been released.. i like to mix things up new and old.. playing all new trance in my set wouldnt work, cuz there are only few new tracks i feel and that would be cheating myself..

Woah! This thread has had an impact on me....

...Its motivated me to form a new alias, and as such a new style direction, to try and be trance's saviour (i wont be but its good to experiment!)...

Shep

quote:

Originally posted by Shepless Woah! This thread has had an impact on me.... ...Its motivated me to form a new alias, and as such a new style direction, to try and be trance's saviour (i wont be but its good to experiment!)... Shep

i'm with you...of course if we want a certain thing you gotta do it yourself...of course...i don't have skills...but i'm working on it .

and of course jay...you're right about the whole marketing thing...its just i'll tell you this...if a producer could capture the feeling of the public...and was able to develop a diverse sound while still making quality trance, they would quickly rise to the top of the ranks

dude said paradigm!

quote:

is much like saying a person ends his or her growth in life at twenty-five because from then on they cease to physically change. Letting a sound flesh out within a paradigm is also part of a musical progression, which trance was doing in the 1998-2001 time period.

heheh wow...I'll need a degree in English and a major in Philosophy for that one Cobalt.
Nice!

quote:

Originally posted by Floorfiller and of course jay...you're right about the whole marketing thing...its just i'll tell you this...if a producer could capture the feeling of the public...and was able to develop a diverse sound while still making quality trance, they would quickly rise to the top of the ranks

You wont see muh of this. Even though there are those that are diverse and that are doing something different, labels dont want to take a chance because they think they know what works and what doesnt. Although, some that do take chances (like the ones that are signing alot of unknown talent) are trying to move foward with you're suggestion.

JaY

quote:

Originally posted by JayD You wont see muh of this. Even though there are those that are diverse and that are doing something different, labels dont want to take a chance because they think they know what works and what doesnt. Although, some that do take chances (like the ones that are signing alot of unknown talent) are trying to move foward with you're suggestion. JaY

everything that you've said is true hehehehe...

All genres have their up's and down's.
I listen to many styles of EDM and some hiphop and metal. the thing about rap and metal is that their also not evolving very much and they're not even aware of it it seems to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Cobalt Really, I think this is more recent than that. Even the Anthem Crash and the 2000-01 aftermath were part of the evolution of trance. Things only really began to stagnate in 2002. I think your idea of trance ending its growth in 1998 or something is much like saying a person ends his or her growth in life at twenty-five because from then on they cease to physically change. Letting a sound flesh out within a paradigm is also part of a musical progression, which trance was doing in the 1998-2001 time period.

I disagree. I had gotten sick of all the paint-by-numbers anthems as far back as 98, even pitting Oakenfold's "Tranceport" as the death knell of good trance, due to its formless, aimless nature. It represented what I hated most about trance DJs and trance sets of the period: that they had become uninteresting marketing extravaganzas, human jukeboxes who don't mix, but just piece together the day's chartoppers.

I mean, just look at it. 12 tracks. 12 TRACKS!!! What the hell kind of boring set only has 12 tracks? That's not DJing, that's being a glorified stereo. That the tracks are different flavours of Epic, Anthem, Dream and Progressive trance hardly makes up for the fact that the set as a whole is a bunch of disjointed, unrelated different set pieces. Remember when trance sets were about taking you on a journey? Tranceport is no journey. There's no tension or release in any of it. It's just a bunch of top10 hits. The amazing thing, however, is that this formula worked, and every Ibiza Trance Nation Tunnel Mission Force Club Anthems vol. 847 tried to rape the same formula (with varying degrees of success).

That the music managed to fester for a few years longer had nothing to do with its value or self-worth, but rather its pop accessibility. Audiences not keen on earlier trance in its bizarre, spacey, repetitive, unresponsive ethereal state could now enjoy it at the top40 level due to its easily memorable hooks and pop melodies. When that happened, there was the big rave explosion, in concert with the rise of Big Beat and French/club house. But the music itself was so shallow and unfulfilling that those who engorged themselves on it eventually grew tired when it lost its effect on them. Hence the "9 month raving career" paradigm. They simply burnt out and left. The only thing that kept it going, then, was the influx of newbies. More people were coming into the scene than going out of it, and this hyper-inflated the status of the DJs and the value of the music to ridiculous proportions. Like the dot-com bubble, any trend this flimsy was bound to come crashing down like a house of cards, as soon as it reached its saturation point.

That critical mass came in 2001. Much of the genre's elite fled, going instead to house or progressive or other, low-key scenes. But the rest? Now this is interesting, and this explains exactly what the dutch trance scene is now all about : the rest decided to go for bigger, fuller, more euphoric anthems. Like a drug, the emotional effect of last month's hit anthem keeps wearing off, so each track they release has to up the dosage to maintain the high and to keep the few remaining stragglers clinging to it.

People's tolerance for anthem trance is now extraordinarily high, which is why the big, overblown "wall-of-sound" anthems have to keep getting bigger and more euphoric to maintain their interest. As you can guess, this simply cannot last, and the anthem trance producers are simply working on borrowed time.

quote:

Originally posted by AndskiSpeed I'm starting to get bored of the "cookie cutter" trance thing (by the way that word really gets on my tits) and it does need some innovation before everyone gets really bored And with ASOT, I personally have got bored of it, because I'm not really much of a fan of Armin as a DJ anymore.

Agreed, I don't like his recent sets at all...

For me it all crashed down on me after ISOS3. I definately don't like that compilation. It's mostly boring, sounding like the same,
tunes are copies of each other. However, it's the past that keeps my interest in trance living. There's endless of "old" gems out there. And ofcourse, there's always a nice trance tune released once in a while. Ferry Corsten Vs The Thrillseekers - Sublime is a good example...

As for gabriel and dresden's productions: BORING

As long as you guys don't turn your backs on EDM I'm happy

I'm absolutely loving a good bit of the stuff thats getting released. And I love ASOT, too. But my view on this is probably pretty biased considering I didn't seriously get into EDM until late 2001 / early 2002. By then the sound had wildly evolved from the way it sounded 5 or 6 years ago. Mind you, I have heard a lot of older trance, and I absolutely love it. But I just don't find the newer stuff that bad at all.

However, if you feel its going downhill, start producing and change that It's never too late to start.

quote:

Originally posted by brian However, if you feel its going downhill, start producing and change that It's never too late to start.

yeah...who says you gotta be a dj just to produce?

i agree that uplifting is dead. with very few exceptions, those kind of tunes are really turning very boring and repetitive. i think trance is heading more in the direction of prog, and we should expect to see very good stuff from prog/trance DJs and producers, like Zabiela or O'Bir. but even if uplifting is boring, i don't think trance in general is dead, it's very much alive, just changing more than ever as new influences come into the scene.

quote:

Originally posted by Shad0wmaster very good stuff from prog/trance DJs and producers, like Zabiela or O'Bir

yep, zabiela has everything to do with o'bir

I wouldn't say that uplifting is dead. It just got fat and decided not to make an effort anymore.
you think it will be back?

Re: Re: Re: Trance dead in the water

quote:

Originally posted by Cobalt I think that gives a decent idea of what I'm talking about. Tracks on the latter compilations are much more similar to each other and tend to be more formulaic in character and structure, as well as driven by very similar sounds. Also, the progression characteristic of the older compilations tends to be lost on the later ones. The 1996-99 albums are merely a sampling of the amazingly diverse quantity and quality of that time period, while I was hard pressed to even find what I did in 2002-03 of comparable value.

Ok, thanks for the linking. It clearer to me now.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishkur Remember when trance sets were about taking you on a journey? Tranceport is no journey. There's no tension or release in any of it. It's just a bunch of top10 hits. The amazing thing, however, is that this formula worked, and every Ibiza Trance Nation Tunnel Mission Force Club Anthems vol. 847 tried to rape the same formula (with varying degrees of success). More people were coming into the scene than going out of it, and this hyper-inflated the status of the DJs and the value of the music to ridiculous proportions. Like the dot-com bubble, any trend this flimsy was bound to come crashing down like a house of cards, as soon as it reached its saturation point. That critical mass came in 2001. Much of the genre's elite fled, going instead to house or progressive or other, low-key scenes. But the rest? Now this is interesting, and this explains exactly what the dutch trance scene is now all about : the rest decided to go for bigger, fuller, more euphoric anthems. Like a drug, the emotional effect of last month's hit anthem keeps wearing off, so each track they release has to up the dosage to maintain the high and to keep the few remaining stragglers clinging to it. People's tolerance for anthem trance is now extraordinarily high, which is why the big, overblown "wall-of-sound" anthems have to keep getting bigger and more euphoric to maintain their interest. As you can guess, this simply cannot last, and the anthem trance producers are simply working on borrowed time.

Harsh but well-put.

I usually don't do this, but I'll repeat what I posted in another thread:

This very topic's been on my mind a lot lately. In fact, I find it really hard to start a track these days, because the sounds I'm surrounded by (and have at my immediate disposal right now) are getting old fast.

As for sounds becoming more complex; electronic music in the late '90s used to be VERY detailed and textured; lots of bell-like sounds, organ-y sounds, string pads way in the back, serious filter action, weird little fake horns, synthy spanish guitars, pianos, fuzzy stuff, etc. Very colorful chords, sophisticated lines.
IMO the variety disappeared when everyone went for the jugular and competed for the biggeset and fattest this and that.

Big supersaws (note: always SAWS, not squares, not combination waveforms, but saws), big galloping basses, chirpy 909 hihats, simple Barney-esque melodies or chopped-up Beethoven or Vivaldi. A lot of what's been called trance the past couple of years seems more like Eurodance gone all heavy-handed and serious. And everyone seemed to do it the same way.

It was great for quite a while, but then there was more. And then there was more. And then there was more!! Same with other genres too, unfortunately.

So for the time being, I'm thinking about the aesthetic of trance at its roots; things like THIS, and THIS, and THIS, and even though it's not trance, THIS.

I'd hate to shop yet another typical melodic supersaw thumper. Bonzai might eat it up in a second if it's good enough, but I'm just helping to run the genre into the ground.


Original Thread Click Here

prog is the answer.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Odelpha prog is the answer.

For you, perhaps. For others, it's not. Me included; I don't need help sleeping.

quote:

Originally posted by Cobalt For you, perhaps. For others, it's not. Me included; I don't need help sleeping.

Techno and drum n bass for you then.

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