Hello, I just signed up and this is my first post.

I love Trance (and related styles) of music. However I am very unfamiliar with what is out there and I am on a mission to learn all I can. Mine is an interesting story:

After being away from music for almost 10 years I have decided to get back into it, in a way I never imagined. I want to be a new trance / electronica artist.

My background - solo piano from 9 years old to 16, when I quit lessons. Ongoing playing off and on for the next 10 years. Over the past couple years I really got distant from music as I spent most of time doing computer programming (for a living) and stand up comedy. I never saw myself as a musician as I never felt a fit for me.

For a few years I was aware of trance, and basically that 1 in 100 (seemingly) songs would have a melody worth listening to. (My passion in music is very driven by melody.) I also never experienced live trance / raves or ANY such concerts as I never met any circle of friends into this. So I never got into trance.

But over the past couple weeks, I've downloaded much of Tiësto's works, and listening to that coupled with the few trance style tracks I've accumulated over the years that I love --

Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsam
Chicane - Saltwater
Olive - You're not alone
Tiësto version - Adagio for Strings
Neo Cortext - Elements
Paul Okenfold - Braveheart Remix / Southern Sun
and a few others...

This combined with the vast amounts of computer expertise I've accumulated over the past few years -- And also augmented by the fact that I realize now that back when groove radio was out I heard some of my favorite tracks ever (can't get no sleep, right in the night, and probably a few genius tracks I can't even remember) ---

ALL this has now made me decide to dedicate part of my life to become an electronica / trance artist. I want my compositions and style and passion to become evident and manifest into this style of music. I can see this clearly now.

So what I will be doing is investing in a full sized keyboard and Logic Pro in late June. I have a macbook pro, 8 years of computer experience, and almost 20 years of piano / composition skills behind me. I might just be building / learning / developing for months to a year, then come out with some real tracks.

If anyone here can recommend me the following I would appreciate it:
- The all time greatest trance songs
- The best new / underground trance songs (including from artist members of this board)
- The best concerts (upcoming) I should check out (and / or clubs) -- Southern California area

Thanks!
-solrac-

since I'm in a happy mood today...

there's a local section for california which will give you more info on the local scene for parties

Best trance ever? I'm not sure if the search will bring up the best threads, but obviously with trance being such a wide genre, you can understand it's opening a big can of worms up with so many tracks to pick from so many years. There are threads with peoples top 100s or 50s of all time somewhere, hopefully someone can give you a link to them (i'll look but my search usage isn't great)

As for new stuff, we have a monthly thread with peoples top 10s which is where I find most things I need, there's people with similar tastes to me and I check out what they're listing if I don't know the tunes and usually find good tunes that way.

Production wise, check the producing subforum, there's a lot of good people on these boards, some of whom are signed to labels, and they can be of a good use on software/hardware etc

And finally beware of many of us are very dissatisfied with some new trance artists who're spending more time remaking classic tunes than giving us their own tracks

Dammit, I was sure the TA "official" top 100 thread would had been in the classic threads section but I can't find it anywhere...

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Latest releases:
Endless Cycles [Capital Heaven]
The Charlatan [Morphosis]

quote:

Originally posted by solrac ... and stand up comedy. I never saw myself as a musician as I never felt a fit for me. If anyone here can recommend me the following I would appreciate it: - The all time greatest trance songs - The best new / underground trance songs (including from artist members of this board) - The best concerts (upcoming) I should check out (and / or clubs) -- Southern California area Thanks! -solrac-

Make me laugh and I might help you

To be honest my friend, Trance has evolved so much since you last took a keen interest in that style.

If it's uplifing melodic trance your after then I'd recommended some tracks by the following artists:

* Icone / Van Gelder
* Above & Beyond
* John O'Callaghan
* Greg Downey

A lot of the guys you probably listened back in the 'day' have evolved and changed their style, guys such as Rank 1, to the point that their tracks no longer interest me.

Your best bet is to search on google for the many mp3 sites that are now so prevalent and trundle through some tracks in the trance section and go from there.

Sites such as Audiojelly, Beatport, trackitdown.net.

Good Luck

quote:

Originally posted by solrac If anyone here can recommend me the following I would appreciate it: - The all time greatest trance songs

HERE you have a thread where people listed their top 100. Hope you'll find what you're looking for

and 20 good tracks to start you off, going from the late-ish 90s onwards to 2004ish

Aalto - Rush (Super8 vs Orkidea Remix)
AR52 - Hibernation
Nitromethane - time to die (seraque remix)
johan gielen - dreamchild
kamaya painters - cryptomesia
qattara - the truth (coufsat rmx)
ferry corsten - punk
dj tiesto - sparkles (transa remix)
art of trance - kaleidoscope
three drives - greece 2000 (man with no name remix)
paul van dyk - avenue
rank 1 - awakening
planet perfecto - bullet in the gun
dj alici - ankhesanamun
steve morley - reincarnations (dumonde remix)
benicio - disaffected
moonman - don't be afraid
Miro - Paradise (red jerry remix)
Alena - Turn it around (Space Brothers Rethink)
Astral Projection - Mahadeva (John 00 Fleming Remix)

should be a variation in sounds there for you to get your mitts into

Thanks guys, for the links / songs.

I can't wait to get into this

check Mirco de Govia stuff if you like Chicane, now how about you invite me to stay some time in your home, do you live near Halfmoon Bay Maverick's?

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Last edited by Arraias on May-25-2007 at 17:31

Judging by the description of what you like, I think you'd probably enjoy stuff by artists called The Thrillseekers and Solarstone. Both put together melody-driven tracks similar to

Try --

Thrillseekers - Synaesthesia
Thrillseekers - Dreaming of You
Solarstone - Solarcoaster
Solarstone - Seven Cities
Solarstone - Release

for starters. Branch off by checking out remixes of and by the artists you discover you like. That will lead you to a variety of new artists as well. For instance, if you like Chicane, check out Halcyon and Offshore, and try The Thrillseekers' remix of Autumn Tactics. etc.

Cheers!

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I would definately check out the weekly radio shows for the new hits. Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk and many others are always throwing out new hits in their shows. check out digitally imported and afterhours. You can also search for the weekly sets in the forum.