I don't make trance, but I usually start with the main drop section and build outward. If I don't do that I just arrange as I go and start out with the intro.

___________________

Download my song Survive or I'll cut your ass.

Whatever floats your boat, some people start with the beat, others with melody.

Personally I make a 16 bar drop, climax or chorus and work from that.

I usually start with chord progression, then a bare skeleton of melody, then the drums. After that, more arrangement and melody and knob turning and shit.

my reasoning generally being that the drums should accent the rhythm rather than create it, read about that in a Derrick May interview.

But generally I'd suggest just getting your musical ideas plotted into your system as soon as you can, because inspiration is fleeting and its easy to forget those things. So you plot your ideas, build more ideas around them, pull together previously plotted ideas into the piece if they work together, and eventually you'll finish something.

My suggestion is start with whichever part is going to end up as the main part. I'm talking from a purely compositional standpoint, as opposed to a mixing standpoint.

Like derail says, start with the main part. The way I start a song is working on about an 8 bar loop, and try to fill in the mix as much as possible (drums, synths, etc) even if they are just playing simple parts.

Last edited by Evolve140 on Jan-23-2013 at 16:22