Ah thanks! So far what I've done is I thought I would brush up on my music theory knowledge, so I've been into Town and got myself a few "Understanding Music Theory" books to read up on and learn, whilst making notes on these like I was still in school to remember and revise them.

At the same time I've been hopping onto Youtube and just watching a few video's on what people have been doing or how they've done something, and when I see something I don't understand e.g. what does fruity parametric eq 2 do in FL Studio" I stop and check that out. Then afterwards I start playing around with different Synths included in the software and see what I can do.

___________________
Any words of wisdom on starting off on the path of making Trance music, no matter how small would be appreciated.

Yeah, firstly you need to commit. It will take at least 3yrs probably to start making any real great tracks professionally.

So then you need to buy a daw. I use Reason 6.5 myself and love it. It is quite limited professionally in comparison to FL Studio, Pro Tools or Logic Pro X. It has the great advantage though of being rewirable into virtually every daw, using rewire. So all the sounds and fx in Reason can be used in your other daw. I'm personally Gonna upgrade straight to Reason 8 when it comes out. Hopefully before the years out but that's wishful thinking. Abelton is easy to learn as well. Think Ableton and Reason are probably the 2 easiest, although I've only tried those, Cubase and Logic.

Been trying to make trance, house and deep house for 18months, and still only about a 5th of the way there, if that. The hardest parts are making your own sounds (every top producer should make his own sounds), getting the beats to sound big and punchy (a good start is good samples then layering) and learning to master using EQ, Compression, Maximizing and Stereo Imaging. Also tons of other things, white noise wooshes, echo's, vocals, sampling, time stretching. It is quite literally a minefield.

Yes, you need to learn synthesis. This is a must for creating your own sounds. With Propellerhead Reason, there is a lovely subtractive synthesizer in that, called Subtractor. It’s very straight forward to use, and straight forwardly laid out and get your head round, and if you need any help with it, hit me up on here. Here is a fairly brief description of how subtractive synthesis works.

Subtractive Synthesis

Remember there’s 3 main elements to subtractive synthesis. Oscillator/s – filter – Amp.
The oscillator/s have different wave types you can select (Sawtooth, Square Wave, Triangle Wave, Pulse Wave, Sine Wave and sometimes more), each wave has a different kind of sound. When more than one oscillator is used, a mixer will then become involved, so you can mix/blend, the 2 wave signals together. Mixing them to your taste.
The filter has 2 parameters – the Cut Off Frequency (this basically does what it says on the tin, cuts the frequencies off, above the db range of where the cutoff has been adjusted to) and Resonance (this makes the sound more whistly sounding as it is turned up more), and these 2 parameters (the filter) are controlled by a Filter Envelope, which uses ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) and lastly, the Amp Envelope controls volume, also controlled by an ADSR envelope. There will sometimes be a Modulation Envelope too, that can be assigned to modulate various parameters on the synth. Modulate in simple terms, just means change. There will also be 1 or 2 LFO’s (Low Frequency Oscillators) which modulate the synth parameters that they're assigned to. That is basically it, in a nutshell. There is Portemento too (a knob which when selected and adjusted makes the notes you play glide/slide up or down into each other) and the Pitch Bend Wheel and Modulation Wheel, and sometimes on more complex synths, a Modulation Bus or Matrix like the Propellerhead Thor has. This can modulate things in more complex manners and basically has a source and destination. Oh and also some synths have FX such as Delay, Chorus etc.

As far as gear goes, apart from your computer and daw, and midi controller (I recommend a 61 key so you can play up and down a few octaves) the next things I'd recommend are, a reasonable set of active studio monitors (speakers) and some 20/20 headphones. Oh and an audio interface to use them through, as the ASIO drivers for your audio interface will sort out the latency your midi keyboard will most likely have. Latency is what happens when you press a key on your midi keyboard and it responds in your daw too late or slowly. Press key and a second later the note sounds in your daw. Irritating. ASIO drivers make it spot on.

I personally think (though I've never tried them) but they look good and KRK are a well respected professional studio monitor company. These headphones. Reasonable price to start off with, and have a frequency response of 10hz-22khz. 20hz to 20, 000hz or 20khz is the whole frequency range your ears can pick up. So those headphones go above and below that range.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/KRK-6400-He...=krk+headphones

Another thing after doing all that, I would recommend, is importing one of your favorite tracks into your DAW, and analyzing it's structure, and trying to recreate it bar by bar on your daw.

Hope this helps you out mate,
Cheers!

First off, I recommend getting the Technics RP-DH1200s...these are class headphones that run for about 100$; used by producers such as Peran van Dijk, Ron van den Beuken, Tiesto, Armin van Buuren (I personally think he's in love with them considering there's loads of pictures of him showing them off to the camera), Sander Kleinenberg, etc, they're top of the line...and they look pretty good too, if that's something you care about.


Second, amass a huge trance collection. You're going to flip flop between genres at first. Download a shitload of songs from way back in 1990 to stuff being made today. Find your groove, decide whether you want to make tracks that will blow up dancefloors or tracks that make for nice easy listening. From there decide what specific genre you're most interested in making...pizzicato, goa, acid, etc. This doesn't mean limit yourself to specifically one genre, but it's good to have something you can say "Alright, this is what I'm going to do" and be able to be consistent about it.
Second, really just...work. It's not even about tutorials, it's about experimentation. Adapt some tried and true methods to your work, such as if you decide to make clubbier songs with a classic trance feel, the simple 4/4 offbeat bass works for most tracks, and improvise on that.

Next up, and this is going to sting...expect it to go nowhere. Trance isn't a genre that gets discovered randomly anymore. You won't hear it on the radio, on tv, anywhere. Even if you really promote yourself, you're probably still not going to be a huge megastar DJ who sells out stadiums and plays on a 2004 era Tiesto stage.
There is no real software that is "best" for trance. All DAWs are capable of making the same product in the end. Do you find FL Studio easy to work with? Does it feel comfortable to use? Stick with that one. The best DAW in my opinion is the one that doesn't make you feel overwhelmed, and really, this all comes down to personal preference.
For synths, I'd recommend reFX Nexus 2 if you're alright with using presets...I can't program synths for shit, so I find this to be a very good alternative. There are huge soundbanks available for it, but be prepared to drop some serious dough on this if you decide to get the legit version. There are pirated versions available, but they're not current and thus cannot use new soundbanks. Another good synth, which allows for presets and custom sounds to be created is Lennar Digital Sylenth. This is a beautiful vst capable of creating warm, analoguey sounds. I also recommend Phoscyon if you're interested in working with acid sounds; this is a very good TB-303 emulator.
As far as creating songs goes, practice, practice, practice.
Some good advice is keep at least 32 bars (roughly 55-56 seconds for a 138 bpm track) on the intro and 36 bars on the outro reserved for drums/percussions. This makes your track easier for DJs to mix, and thus they will be more inclined to play your song.
And some personal advice from me...keep it simple. I personally hate modern production methods. Everything sounds so muddy and overcompressed, with sounds kind of "blurring" together and not being distinguishable. It just sounds bad, which brings me to my next topic. Mastering. First off, the most basic advice is that you're gonna want your tracks to peak at no more than 0db. If your track sounds way too quiet, a simple limiter on the master bus will help you raise the overall volume of your track; I'd recommend mixing down a "quiet mix" without the limiter on it first. Load up your saved audio file and then apply the limiter. Don't "brick wall" it. Just cut off a few frequencies that aren't audible...brick walling a track in a limiter distorts the sound and a track which is too loud is just plain unenjoyable to listen to...so use it sparingly. It really varies from song to song with this, so the key is to let your ears be the judge.
After cutting these frequencies, I'd recommend downloading Wavepad (it's free!) and normalizing the audio to the highest peak. This will allow your song to achieve its maximum volume without sounding distorted or being too loud. Apologies for not being very articulate as far as this goes; most of what I know is based on experimentation, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying and I hope I've helped you get a start!
This equalizing tutorial also really helped me.
Here are 2 threads with links to some good tutorials that may also point you in the right direction:
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]

2
Good luck!

___________________
Elitist and smalltime label owner
PM me your oldschool style trance tunes for potential worldwide digital releasing and free mastering!
RIP Little Jam, DJ Energy, Tillmann Uhrmacher & Gary D

Last edited by kosmotika on Jul-23-2014 at 04:33

quote:

Originally posted by kosmotika First off, I recommend getting the Technics RP-DH1200s...

Aren't they for djing? There's plenty of threads on here for headphones if you need recommendations.

quote:

Originally posted by Andy28 Aren't they for djing? There's plenty of threads on here for headphones if you need recommendations.

Primarily, but the sound quality is top notch as well. Granted, I'm not a headphones expert but I couldn't be more satisfied with them.
Only issue is that they get quite uncomfortable if you leave them on for an extended period of time.

___________________
Elitist and smalltime label owner
PM me your oldschool style trance tunes for potential worldwide digital releasing and free mastering!
RIP Little Jam, DJ Energy, Tillmann Uhrmacher & Gary D

Really outstanding feedback from SiTrance75 and kosmotika, truly useful. Right now I think I may of jumped into the deep end perhaps too quickly, because I'm using the demo version of FL studio obviously I'm not going to have everything given to me.

The reason for being in a deep end is I'm struggling with various sounds included in the software that I don't like, so I end up trying to create my own sound on a synth which from what I read, is difficult for even novice producers to do. I've tried finding some possible free sample sounds that I could use just to get a feel for making something. I thought after this feedback, a good approach would be to experiment with the resources that are already there, and not try to make my own resources work for me. In essence, I was wondering (and there's probably a list somewhere) if anyone know's of any good presets or sounds I could use for free to use in FL.

I think I would be best to play around with the resources that are on offer and experiment with different tools on them in the software, as opposed to jumping straight in to the intermediate stuff.

Thanks, some great responses so far!

___________________
Any words of wisdom on starting off on the path of making Trance music, no matter how small would be appreciated.

gotta say this is a pretty inspiring thread

my 2 cents... absorb as much good music as you can from all genres, meaning outside of trance music or dance in general

having influences from classic rock and stuff from the 80s and 90s will help with your songwriting tremendously, you know how to build energy, tension and release ect

What worked for me was theory . Once I learned music theory even though i played piano could read music(was in band and choir when younger ,and even though i knew theory I still had to brush up on it.

your melodies will come alive once you know theory and you will get people on the danceflooor with there hands in the air going crazy.

You mentioned books to read one book id recommend which is great and inspire you and you will see what i mean after 3 minutes of reading the book cause this book allows you to do examples after you read each chapter the chapters are short maybe 2 or 3 pages but they are very thorough . And once you hear what you can do you naturally want to do more and more!

Once you finish reading the book you will be able to make trance and express yourself with music more and you will get where you want.


the name of the book
The Songwriter's Workshop: Harmony

by Jimmy Kachulis


once you know that then id find one daw you really like then just master it.

___________________
fiverr.com/bertsbeats

quote:

Originally posted by meriter my 2 cents... absorb as much good music as you can from all genres, meaning outside of trance music or dance in general

This right here is pure gold. I feel like the people who make inspiring music in general are not only influenced within their respective genres, but extensively outside it as well.

Recreating and emulating your favorite artists tracks are good ones. It also takes dedication and persistence. Don't ever give up even if you feel you are not progressing.

Hi OP. For someone who had the pleasure of been assisted by John O'Callaghan when I was starting into producing, this is a combination of tips he thought me and tips I learned myself.
1. Find a Daw you are comfortable with. This is a tougher job than you think as both JOC and I started with reason. I found reason a fantastic creative tool and could seem to just keep coming up with tracks and getting them down. I thought its GUI was very suitable to getting stuff down quickly without getting overwhelmed with menus. I did find it a bit limited when it came to samples and no ability for plugins but after 18months I was able to produce tracks that were not far off Pro. JOC's words not mine 😊 I decided at that stage to go back and learn musical theory as I found track structure was a big problem I had. Now that I've done so I plan to go back into the studio but this time I'm going with Logic Pro on Mac. It worries me that I may not get the same level of creative juices flowing that seemed to happen with reason but I think its just going to be a learning curve. So what I would say if you are finding FL a struggle in getting even the basics of a track down then something like reason Might suit you better but as others have said this is just down to preference.
2. Less is more. JOC thought me that when the tracks I was sending him were just crammed full of instruments and lots of things going on. Think about some of your favourite trance tracks and I bet if you listen you'll realise there's not a whole lot going on in them. Its more important to try create that killer riff. Even a lot of the pros will admit their weakness can be not coming up with new and creative riffs.
3. Learn from others, particularly structure. Import midi files from songs you like and deconstruct how it was made and how all the elements fit together. As I said I think my major problem was trying to create too much of my own sound straight away whereas I think it would of been better to work on doing a lot of remixes first. JOC would of done a lot of remixing of tracks before he started creating his own sound.
4. Last but not least, enjoy it. Making music is suppose to be a joy. Don't be focusing too much on the rules in the early stages and just experiment and enjoy. Believe me there is nothing more satisfying than hearing a professionally sounding track coming alive in front of your eyes that you created ☺

Hope this helps as I myself am starting back on this great journey after a few years away from the scene.

Last edited by planeteuropa on Sep-06-2014 at 18:12