I hope that this might be made a sticky, as it comes up pretty frequently in just about any trance related forum, and it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

THERE ARE NO GENRE SPECIFIC SOUNDS!!!

When the pioneers of house and techno were producing tracks in the mid 80's, there were no "house kits" nor "techno kits" for their beats. There were no "trance refills" to download*. Everyone pioneering the new sound was making do with whatever technology they had available to them, largely with gear than was unused and unwanted by a vast majority of professional musicians of that era (vintage Roland gear like the TB-303, TR-808, and TR-909 could be found in bargain bins for next to nothing, the 3 pieces of gear that formed the essential building blocks of electronic music for the next two decades!).

So please take a minute and use whatever resources you have available to you and see what can be done with it as the pioneers did years ago before you ask for that one specific sound that defines trance... and make your own!

/end rant... sorry if I sound like an arse...

* - ok, Kid Nepro did sell cassettes with patches for various vintage synths that were programmable, but not until the early 90's.

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Erm, I can understand where you're coming from but to a certain extent I'll have to disagree.. There are numerous sounds that are associated with certain genres of dance music. For example, take the Alpha Juno hoover sound - in 99/2000 almost EVERY single hard house tune had one in. The JP8000 supersaw sound helped define the melodic/uplifting trance boom of the late 90s.
There are, of course, timeless sounds that sound good in pretty much ANY genre (the 303 acid squelch has probably been used in more tunes than any other sound!).

However, I totally agree with where you're coming from. I think the whole dance seen needs another shake up in originality and producers need to get away from the genre specific sounds.

quote:

Originally posted by Stuart Silver Erm, I can understand where you're coming from but to a certain extent I'll have to disagree.. There are numerous sounds that are associated with certain genres of dance music. For example, take the Alpha Juno hoover sound - in 99/2000 almost EVERY single hard house tune had one in. The JP8000 supersaw sound helped define the melodic/uplifting trance boom of the late 90s. There are, of course, timeless sounds that sound good in pretty much ANY genre (the 303 acid squelch has probably been used in more tunes than any other sound!). However, I totally agree with where you're coming from. I think the whole dance seen needs another shake up in originality and producers need to get away from the genre specific sounds.

I agree with this totally except some would look at 'If it ain't broke, dont fix it attitude!' yea the juno sound cropped up everywhere but its trademark in a way, on the other hand though tunes that stand out are usually ones that have new sounds and not genre specific (i.e when darude came out, when benny bennasi came out etc etc)

It does get annoying if the same sound appears in alot of release's. Take that annoying Klubbheads 'Donk' offbeat sound!!! my god how many tunes is that in! and heck it even has its own genre built round that now - Scouse House
I wonder if Klubbheads wished they had copyright'ed it

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there are genre specific sounds. when people ask how do you make full on psy basslines? (answer: steinberg VB-1) or whats that big fuzzy lead in that famous cygnus x tune? (answer: roland JP80X0) or where do those squelchy sounds come from in psy/techno? (answer: tb-303) there is clearly a distinction in not only the instruments used but the way in which they are used for each specific genre. techno 303 type sounds are typically different from psy type 303 sounds. usually when people ask about those sounds its to figure out how they are made. the first stage of any learning process is to take something apart that works and see how the dude that made it literally put it together. once you've learned to metaphorically walk with a 303 (nice simple synth to start with) then its time to strike out into the wild with something a bit more complex and be a bit more adventurous with your sounds.

you forget that many people here arent pioneers. at least not yet. many people here have only been fiddling with synths for a very short time and i dont think you can realistically expect them to go and dive into something like vanguard (which is still fairly simple as far as VAs go) and expect them to come out with something original that *doesnt* sound like complete shit if they are fairly new to the whole production thing. even with albino im finding i make a bass patch and the better i think it gets to sounding, the more i realise it sounds like an sh-101 bass - damn ive heard one of those before in suburban train! hey! my patch sounds like the bass from suburban train! recently, for the fl studio internal plugs competition i experimented with boobass and whacked 2 fast distortion plugins on it. arped it and i had myself a single voice cheap virus bassline clone. you'll be amazed how many sounds you will make that do in fact sound like something else. half the presets on all the synths ive got reference some other synth or a song. there are 303 patches on my virus. oberheim patches. moog patches. and when you listen to them you get a little sense of - hey thats a benassi type bassline is that. or ive heard that 303 acid sound in a space buddha track...

whichever way you spin it, the 303 is THE acid sound and although it gets used everywhere, i am amazed at the variety of sounds you can get out of a single oscillator monophonic bass synth. not even the real one. not many people can afford a real one. that sound is all over hardcore. its all over psy but in a very different way. its also sometimes in hard house and trance again in a different way. every second paul maddox tune these days has a 303 build in it and they all have his signiture sound all over it.

beathackers abuse 303s in full on psy for these squelchy rhythmic kinds of sounds (which have come to characterise modern full on psy along with VB-1 basslines). only you can sort of tell theres a shit load of extra distortion on it (sounds like tube distortion) cuz it sounds nothing like your average techno and hardcore 303s.

Last edited by Derivative on Mar-07-2005 at 15:07

Nice to see some good discussion on this topic.

Yeah, certain sounds came to define genres like the JP-80x0 supersaw lead and the Alpha Juno hoover, but the point I was trying to make is that these sounds at one point in time were just sounds, nothing more, nothing less, until they were used in a certain way. There are tons of sounds out there waiting to be used in a similar fashion.

quote:

you forget that many people here arent pioneers. at least not yet. many people here have only been fiddling with synths for a very short time and i dont think you can realistically expect them to go and dive into something like vanguard

The pioneers were in the same position too though, having little experience with the gear they were fiddling with. Some of them had no idea what they were doing, they just knew they liked what some of their machines were doing (notably DJ Pierre and Marshall Jefferson who were among the first people to "discover" what the TB-303 could do when you tweaked the knobs). There were quite a few older machines that are infinitely more complex than today's synths, notably ones that didn't have the capability of being programmed.

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quote:

but the point I was trying to make is that these sounds at one point in time were just sounds, nothing more, nothing less, until they were used in a certain way. There are tons of sounds out there waiting to be used in a similar fashion.

well this is sort of my point too so we find ourselves in the curious position where we both kind of approach from the same angle but come out with completely different ideas regarding the subject.

i agree. at one point they were just sounds. with the tr-909 for example the aim was to make a synthetic drumkit that sounded like a real drum kit. at least thats what people wanted. thats what the original aim was. in that respect the tr-909 failed miserabley - doesnt sound anything like a real drum kit. but people used it anyway and brought out its (now) signiture sound.

i really like acid. seriously like the whole squelchy resonant thing. first thing i did on my virus b was build a 303 patch. course - it doesnt sound much like the psyish 303 type sounds i was shooting for. what with the bit reducer distortion and saturation curves and stuff i whacked up the FM, tuned the first oscillator out and i made a nasty brutal screaming 303. the aim was originally something else. but i came up with monster evil acid instead. its rougher than the stuff you hear in hard house. i may yet pioneer a genre called shout! house based on this new screaming noise. but the world isnt ready for bleeding eardrums yet...must bide my time!

ultimately we kind of agree. only i think there is such a thing as genre specific sounds and im not really bothered by people that ask about them, how to recreate them etc. it just seems to me like any part of the natural learning process. you disagree?

The Alpha Junos infamous 'What The??' preset was a staple of Hardcore and rave in the early 90s lonnnnnnng before hard house was created.
hell- i used to use it in really dark hard drum n bass stuff.
Sure it is used in hard house loads- doesnt mean its specific to that genre. For every hardhouse tune that DOES use it, there will be another that DOESNT.

people choose to limit themselves creatively by using the same sorts, and that sound gets some recognition for that genre- doesnt mean its just used in that or suits that genre better than any other.

Thats like saying a rotary perc organ or a DX7 hard bass sound is only suitable for Speed garage/US house basslines. Rubbish! It may be commonplace, but it was used in (random example off the top of my head) early 90s dance such as whigfield and alex party...

the tb303 was originally sold as a bass accompaniment for solo guitarists- so i 110% agree with "So please take a minute and use whatever resources you have available to you and see what can be done with it as the pioneers did years ago before you ask for that one specific sound that defines trance... and make your own! "

Its all sounds- nothing more.

There is a very very big difference between wanting to know what something is in order to understand it- and wanting to know what something is to copy it and produce a load of clones.

Top post

quote:

The Alpha Junos infamous 'What The??' preset was a staple of Hardcore and rave in the early 90s lonnnnnnng before hard house was created...Sure it is used in hard house loads- doesnt mean its specific to that genre. For every hardhouse tune that DOES use it, there will be another that DOESNT.

no no no! the person who made that patch on the alpha juno was indeed probably thinking 'what the fuck?! it sounds good so maybe somebody can make something out of it.' hence the name. he probably did just make the sound with no specific idea of what it could be used for yes.

BUT whilst hoovers get used loads outside of hard house (think charley), if you spend alot of time listening to hard house you will gradually start to see a signiture kind of sound that emerges which is characteristically 'hard house'. for instance, alot of people can instantly recognise a BK tune by his hoover sounds. you can instantly recognise lab4 tunes by their virus hoovers and you can tell which synths off evilution were virus based. and you will gradually become aware of a clique of certain other artists in the field which have similar sounding instruments or similar setups, or through collaboration have kind of blurred the line between their signiture sound and their collab partners. and eventually a kind of all round hard house type vibe comes out of it. 303s get used everywhere. dont even need to back it up - its that obvious. but if you listen to the way in which 303s are utilized by psy producers. then listen to hardcore acid lines - they are completely different. psy 303s are much brighter, sharper and cleaner. hardcore 303s are typically more distorted, more resonant. and they are used in completely different ways. most of the hardcore and freeform tunes ive got, the acid lines are single note stabs in 16ths that drive the song. in psy, they tend to wander a bit more and use the monophonic bend to much greater effect - so much so i didnt recognise many psy leads as 303s until i whacked on a greasetube and fuzz+ overdrive on my bassline demo and realised - holy damn! i can make space buddha leads on this baby! now i wanna buy it. when people come in here and ask - how do you make typically psy leads - i know exactly what he means. you know exactly what he means. he wants to make infected mushroom style 303 guitar type leads and you know how to do it (you do right?). and i sort of know how to do it. the 303 sound by any means isnt characterstic of psytrance as a genre. true. although many artists within the psytrance scene have a way of utilizing the 303 such that it is distinct from other styles of music. and it is recogniseable. and people with no formal musical or production training will listen to that sound and it will be the essence of that style of music. that you cannot deny. i listened to trance and wanted to know what THAT trance sound was. whilst the makers of the JP didnt foresee the impact it would have on a genre which would later explode theres no denying in hindsight - trance has a genre specific sound. and it comes from a select few instruments. and it can be recreated (though not as accurately) on many VA type synths.

Last edited by Derivative on Mar-07-2005 at 20:27

I strongly agree with original poster,which is one of the reasons I avoid using the status quo equipment of Trance music.

Ted

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