I echo what's been said earlier, for your first track, this is good and promising for the future. I also remember my first track, made in a tracker program during the 90s, and that was far more weird-sounding than this one. I would call my own first attempt as being a genre of "psycho", while I think your track has some clear elements of trance, although it is a bit chaotic at times.

I see you have been trying to make a bassline that is more than just a plain "oompa". That's good. Also, don't be afraid to run your instruments and sounds through EQ-effects (assign own EG-effects for every instrument you think needs it), and fiddle around with the EQ-levels until you find a sound that you think sounds the best.

The snare was too loud. Perhaps in this tune, a clap would have fit better, but that's only my personal thought. Be sure to check the FLP-tutorials, you might as well learn something from them.

Your closed hihat seemed to work okay. But I could not find any open hihat to add that high-frequency stab so much needed in between the kicks. Try to add that. Also, you have probably forgotten the crash cymbals (use at start of pattern, it's commong to have, in FLP, 128 note bars between the crashes. Also, at the end of the pattern, add a reversed crash that ends just before the crash comes in. Listen to trance tracks you like, and you will most definately know what I mean with this.

Somebody came with a very good idea earlier in this thread: sit down and listen to your favourite trance tunes. Then write down what you here, and when you here certain sounds, how they sound, what kind of effects they seem to have used on certain sounds (is it phased, is it delayed...) and so on.

Try to add some wooden percussion as well. I find that the hardest part of the percussion set, but it will greatly add the feeling of depth in your drum tracks.

That's it! Keep up producing, and you will notice how you progress all the time, that's how it works for all of us.

Out of topic:

The tracking era was in a way much better for beginners. Then you could download loads of free mod-tracks, open them up in your own mod-sequencer, and study all the notes, instruments etc. These days everyone just use state-of-the-art producing software and only share free mp3-clips of their works. Mainly tutorials are available in raw format.

BetaFactory i thank you alot. u gave me some great incite that will indeed be very useful in the future. do you think the progression on this track be a little slower? i feel i change the melody too quickly.

No problem, just as the rest of the people here I think it's only fun to share knowledge among other dedicated fans, be it beginners or pros.

Well, the build-up was kind of short. Don't be afraid of longer build-ups. I've also fooled myself when producing music, making short build-ups because I thought the longer ones sounded dull and too repetitive. But in the end the short build-ups are the ones that start to feel like "radio edits". The club DJs want long build-ups, and long build-ups can also keep the interest up for the main part to come.

I've recommended this freeware VST instrument in other threads as well, but here I go again: PPD Tritium is a handy VSTi for making e.g. basslines, and together with some compression and EQ it can sound really good. You just need to play around with the (few) knobs available. So it won't take much time until you'll find a suitable sound.

And notice that these are only my own humble advices, I'm only an amateur producer just like most of the folks here, with my 5 or so years of experience only (slow progressor ).

And yes, it's important that you try to find clean kick drum sounds. I've notice that many previous works of mine were destroyed by bad kick drum samples of low quality. Fruity Kick in FLP can be tweaked to sound good, believe it or not. But most important of all: be innovative, don't be afraid of creating your own style. But at the same time it's darn useful to study the works of others, so you get the "overall picture" of the music genre you are working with.

quote:

Originally posted by Mossy get a pen and paper, load up your favourite track(s) and make detailed notes of what goes where and when. it will help you a lot.

Man, I was thinking the same thing!!! Great minds think alike . The song is deffinitely qualifies as Prog or even old skool "robot dance" . I like the drums, personally. The melody is .... eeegh.... see, today even prog tries to be more diversified. Listen to Elusive (his stuff borders trance/prog) - and this is probably the new direction of trance, imho. If sets by PvD, Tiesto, Armin, or any of the big djs are any indication, the new direction is to border the hard with euphoric while staying away from cliche'd melodies. I, presonally, need to move away from the '99 trance style, as it's been so overused and so predictive. Listen to some sets and make notes - what goes where and also try to visualize the track. Just like you my tracks sound "2 dimensional" if you want to take it to the 3rd dimension, start eq'ing, panning, compressing with creativity. Visualize your sound in 3 dimensions and try to position your sounds that way. also, keep in mind that percussion is what drives the track. Regardless if it's progressive or trance or house or whatever style, the beat either makes or breaks the tune. Here's a good example: take armin's dust.wav track - a bit cheesy, you know, something you'd probably get tired of. Then, listen to the sunburn - same basis but song stays relatively narrow-banded - meaning it starts progresses and doesn't deviate much from beginning, yet you feel like a whole lot happened. Why? listen more carefully to the beat, and you'll understand. To that effect, goa is allso in the same class - melody doesn't variate too greatly, yet, arps and drums make the track interesting.

Check out "that "professional" sound" thread in this section to get some idea of how to make sound 3D, some great advise there. Otherwise, keep on - don't get discouraged and if you ask for criticism, expect it and take it positively. Stay up, playa!

good luck with your productions.

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