If my Facebook wall, and the many Trance groups I'm a member of is any indicator of the scene at large, it sounds to me like Trance fans tend to fall into one of two categories:

The people who love this new Trance 2.0/ Trouse Trance stuff that's been dominating charts and clubs for the last 3 or 4 years. The slower, occasionally funkier, uplifting, almost house-like trance sound that's more melodic than house, but not as chilled out as dream trance.

And the people who're all about the oldschool, and feel like the majority of Trance producers have let them down by turning into melodic progressive house producers, or retiring altogether.
That the 90's (or for some of you, the 00's) were the best years for trance.

You agree with this? Where do you fall in these categorizations? Are they valid?





Me personally, I'm rather fond of the '00 era of trance, and the late 90's as well, but I do occasionally find recent trance tunes that tickle my fancy, and I like to draw on '10 influences for my productions, so I'm more or less straddling the fence on this issue. :P


What're your thoughts?

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You forgot the first era, the proper Classic Trance sound that existed before the late 90s. There was quite a divide between fans of trance between that sound and the anthem/epic/Dutch sound.

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I remember listening to dance* when I started high school in 93 , and I have listened ever since. And I think personally, on the whole 97-03 trance period was my personal best.


*trance wasn't really official back then.

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Oh no, I did mention the 90's - broadly, not just the late 90's dutch sound.

That dutch/ German sound is just my own personal preference, I know there's WAY more to 90's trance than just that. :P

I like trance and house since the early 90's and although it might be a little less, I still find enough tracks I really like nowadays.

And even now I discover awesome old 90's tracks or remixes I never heard before.

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At this point, I don't really care anymore. Even after listening to what the old school crusaders have had to say, I'm still more attracted to the newer sounds. It might be might my lack of attention span.

I'm still waiting for the epic trance equivalent of say Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails or The Roots.

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quote:

Originally posted by Dawnchaser Oh no, I did mention the 90's - broadly, not just the late 90's dutch sound. That dutch/ German sound is just my own personal preference, I know there's WAY more to 90's trance than just that. :P

The Dutch and German sounds are completely different...

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quote:

Originally posted by lentej Future trance has been expanding in terms of melodies, away from the generic "all white keys on the keyboard" riffs. Now we have melodies that are more advanced, less catchy but still high in musical quality.

Examples?

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If we're talking about the "melodic" kind of trance (the so-called uplifting, epic kind of trance) then there is little difference between the early 00's sound and late 00's sound.

See:

Suburban Train (2001)
Arisen (2006)
Altra (2008)

The only difference is that each successive year there was a tiny little bit of increase in complexity. But since complexity isn't favored by the mass (since mass is made out of mediocrity -- out of simpletons) these tracks are not as common as their simpler versions. And that's why we get Adam Szabo, one of the more talented trance musicians, regress to simpler music (but not as simple as this).

^ That's not the Original Mix of Suburban Train btw. The samples have been refined. The original sounds a bit more different.

Honestly these types of threads/debates have been discussed tirelessly since 1996 and this thread is probably the 50 million'th thread that talks about this.

I don't think nu-Trance has evolved in any sound, texture or composition that imposes itself as "more complex" over the years. It has definitely refined its sound with more clearer and sharper samples and presentations, such as the "film music" type of Trance that became really popular in the last 4 or 5 years. You know, the Andy Blueman, Artic Moon, Armin "Mirage" type of stuff.

If you are talking about complex, then look into the Classic Era. The Classic Era had way more complex and inspired tunes. Listen to Northern Exposure. Listen to PVD's Lovemix of "Love Stimulation." Listen to Cosmic Baby's fantastic tunes. The space tunes of the early to mid 90s were phenomenal pieces of music.

If you want complex, then listen to DJ Tiesto's Magikal Remake of "Willow." Or Tiesto's remix of Jan Johnston's "Flesh." Those are also complex.

quote:

Originally posted by Dawnchaser The people who love this new Trance 2.0/ Trouse Trance stuff that's been dominating charts and clubs for the last 3 or 4 years. The slower, occasionally funkier, uplifting, almost house-like trance sound that's more melodic than house, but not as chilled out as dream trance. What're your thoughts?

Do you really think new Trance has a more funkier and uplifting sound? I actually think the opposite. I used to be a person who hated anything under year 2003 when I was still a newbie at understanding Trance. I actually find the Astral Mix of "Cloudwalking" to be much more euphoric and funkier than, let's say, Armin's "Coming Home" on his Mirage album.

Well, when I think of that funky prog trance, Orjan Nilsen's remix of Liebe by Strobe comes to mind. It's basically progressive house with trance synths layered over it. At least compared to that film score Andy Blueman style trance :P

And yeah, I wouldn't really say it's more uplifting than OLDER trance, but compared to your average electro-house track, any trance is uplifting :P


And yeah, Plenty of folks debate it regularly - I just wanted to discuss it, and see if it'd be possible to keep it from devolving into a shouting match over which era of trance is best. :P

So far so good!

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Trance is not, and has never been, complex music. And dozens of channels on the sequencer do not make a track more complex.

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