I think the use of saw & sine with Trance is for sure over done. Many will argue they are the building blocks of any Trance track, but I think it's time we start using them sparingly and start focusing on true instrument sounds (synthesized or audio, just need to get away from so much heavy synth sounds)

I have to disagree with the poster above about Prog House and really every genre. They're all too formulaic and rely upon too many rules and the producers don't want to create tracks that won't sell or get air play. There is a lot of experimentation with EDM, but it rarely ever yields anything worth while, which discourages most from going against the grain. (there may be a lot that do experiment heavily, but we don't know because we never hear from them, which proves my point about DJ's not supporting tracks that unorthodox)

My biggest gripe is it seems that producers for Trance and most likely other genres already have a course plotted out in their head. Fill the intro for a minute or two, do a little break, start pounding away, throw in a bigger break and build it up, and then pound away some more and eventually out.

Tracks simply were not made that way back in the day. They had a much more unique feeling to them which made a lot of people happy as the tracks were pumped out.

Somewhere along the way, around the turn of the century, people started in with this whole "progressive" nonsense and Trance hasn't been the same since. Every track more or less has the same structure as any other in todays day. Are there tracks that stand out? Of course, but they don't come close to standing out like the tracks did back in the late 90's which I deeply miss.

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This almost makes me want to produce some late 90's style Trance.

We need a nice guide on how it was done back in the day that can be translated into todays software. (ie. no side chaining, a limited number of channels and voices, etc)

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i agree with all reply's thus far always good to hear other peoples take on the issues.as producers i think its our duty to keep shit alive and intresting.

with what palm was saying 2010 is going to bring some good waves i hope.time will tell.

and to the point about sounds being separate compared to the early days when producers would spend time on finding things.
has almost gone in replacement for entreasting things made with build ups ect witch has led to tracks going less fat and full.

There is so much room for experimenting and making new sounds and combinations in music, you just have to let go of any references to other music styles, artists and tracks as you can, experiment and create you own vision.

THAT was how music used to be made, and that is why that music is unique, producers did not know what they wanted to make!

Its extremely easy, just stop copying others.

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and start making breaks, dnb with uplifting melos and werd noises. this must be the future it has to be. were living the future with all this technology and people listen to house and minimal??? whats techno about that? thats why i fell for trance to start with it felt somewhat like a timewarp between ancient tribal feelings with technology. phatt.

I'll be the odd-man-out here and state publicly that I love a lot of the newer prog/house stuff, even more so than a lot of the late 90s trance. And, just to make you guys cringe even more, I really love the cheesy pop-trance vocal stuff from the early- to mid-2000s - Fragma, Ian van Dahl, Lasgo, and, yes, even Cascada. I always liked trance back in the mid-90s, but didn't really get heavily into it until it started to "evolve" (for better or worse is up to you) towards its current state. I hope I'm still allowed to post here after that confession.

I think palm nailed it earlier with his 20-year cycle reference. I was in my late teens during the 80s and was heavily influenced by a lot of new wave/synth-pop stuff and early techno. The music that has been coming out over the past 6-7 years reminds me a lot of those days.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Wiley If you can't tell by now, I miss those 99' days. I dig and dig for producers who produce 99 sounding music and have a total of 4 that do it and I'm not sure if they're going it on purpose or if they just don't know any better.

Hey Stephen - just out of curiosity, who are some of the producers that you are referring to?

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quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Wiley We need a nice guide on how it was done back in the day that can be translated into todays software. (ie. no side chaining, a limited number of channels and voices, etc)

i don't know about that...then we'll have a bunch of people attempting to recreate old school trance by following a guide, which will only result in a specific layout everyone will use like todays trance. all you need to do is listen, appreciate, & analyze old tracks.

let your ears be your teacher

imo, trance producers back in the day focused more on the creative aspects of a track than engineering & vice versa. of course, there are exceptions

Last edited by wing on Apr-13-2009 at 16:00

Trance never went bad - I can give the names of some shocking trance form 'back then', stop being spoon-fed and winging about Armin.

I've not problen with him at all, I only listened to a few ASOTS and thought they were ok. BUT he doesn't play trance how I like it so I listen to other artists and DJs.

Try listening to some of the other radio shows around, some great stuff being played. Try Afterhours.fm @ ah.fm or ETN.fm, they play a nice range of trance and progressive.

With tech-trance, prog house/trance, psy, hard etc there is so much trance there for the taking. Its up to DJ's to take from each style and create from there. Just cos Armin doesn't play this or that there are hundreds of other ones who do.

Now we have an easily distributable, effective music format in mp3 you music can be out there for DJs to play. You dont need a dj friendly intro now we have easy to use harmonic / key tools and CJ tools like Ableton. I've been noticing a big increase in un-dj-friendly intros - such as straight into melodys or fading up kick drums.

IF you want to put a DnB bass in a track do it, just do it well and it will get noticed.

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dont get me wrong i dont have any problems with armin either, i actually respect him alot coming that far with nothing but hard work, even without the talent of producing he come this far and that says alot about his effort in his earlier days, now he just rides the wave he made, so thats good for him. my problem is like with fotball, the fucking hooligans. fotball is a cool sport but the supporters sucks and the ever expanding place fotball have in media fucking annoys me, i cant choose not know anything about fotball cause i would have to live on the moon. its sort of the same with armin and tiesto, u have to search for trancemusic on the most mysterious places to avoid them and their playlists, radioshows, releases, remixes, concerts (omg trance-concert what happened?) and their narrowminded fans/hooligans. to sum up what i really hate is humans and human behaviour in masses. once more than ten people have the same opinion on something it can be labeled as a problem.

quote:

Originally posted by palm ...i cant choose not know anything about fotball cause i would have to live on the moon.

Or the U.S.

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same thing, pluss theres the NFL or NBA or NHL or some other shits. and fat females thinking their beatiful, what a country.