quote:

Originally posted by paulversuspaul I think its the equivalent of the velvet underground though, not initially a big hit but huge influence on other artists. its the influence they had over subsequent records. A lot of producers will talk about that lovemix or odyssey as being influential or inspirational. thats why its such a big record to me. it came out in 93 and people were making tracks inspired by it in 98 etc.

I think only the very early tracks had huge influence as they just were first. Later the number of influential tracks increased and it's more difficult to pin-point it onto a single track. That's just my opinion, I don't claim it to be right.
I remember my friend Lisaya was influence a lot by CM - Dream Universe and later Ayla - Ayla. Maybe I should ask him and see what he now thinks influenced him most.

___________________

Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here

quote:

Originally posted by paulversuspaul For me, there is no more influential and important trance record than Humates love stimulation (paul van dyks lovemix). It came out in 1993 and was basically the sound of trance for the next 6-7 years. I would also argue that the countless imitations of it are a major culprit in turning trance into the shit cheesy genre it is today. I think it was Slam actually that once picked this song in a favorite list and said that its often imitated but never duplicated.

There's no doubt that Love Stimulation was extremely influential, but I must say I've never quite liked PVD's mix. It was made several years later, but Oliver Lieb's "Softmix" is far superior, the one I'd play.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J There's no doubt that Love Stimulation was extremely influential, but I must say I've never quite liked PVD's mix. It was made several years later, but Oliver Lieb's "Softmix" is far superior, the one I'd play.

Huge fan of that mix as well. Shit, the other great mix of that is by Tom Middleton. I could play all 3 of those out depending on what else you are playing.

___________________
X-MIX 1 The MFS Trip

This guy needs to come back

quote:

Originally posted by AlphaStarred That still happens nowadays, even more frequently than in the last decade, with the relatively recent resurgence of vinyl. I don't think any classics were made with the artist's aim of making a classic. It just happens sometimes. Most artists, I think, make tracks for themselves, ultimately - having fun and just doing what they want. Some people will like the outcome, some won't - you can't please everybody. On the contrary, I think the internet and SC actually contributed to the resurgence of vinyl, various old and new styles of electronica, and a host of new artists coming onto the scene. Many of the old record labels' demise had to do with artists no longer producing, or simply taking a new direction in their work, where they would get signed to other labels putting out that sort of style. Therefore I don't think the internet contributed to the demise of such record labels. As for putting 'good' DJs and artists out of business - there are still plenty of oldschool artists/DJs doing their thing, so if anything, I think the internet contributed to their popularity, rather than the opposite. Of course, there were some pop and rock bands and such that blamed Napster, etc. for their lack of revenue - and this is understandable - but we're talking more about the EDM scene, in which case I don't think it applies as much, especially nowadays.

This is a much bigger conversation.

Firstly, I'll have to disagree in that artists used to make so much more back in the oldschool days from single/EP sales as if you had a hit it was being sold at 6-10quid or $10-$15 a hit and the split with the label was 50-50 and they covered the pressing and distribution costs.

So take a big record like Gamemaster which sold over 10,000 copies on vinyl in the UK (more than it takes to get a no1 on the UK pop chart now) and you realize that Matt darey probably made 20-30k off that track just on it's initial release.

While vinyl may have made a bit of a resurgence it's bonkers to think that the Dance Music numbers are anywhere close to what they were in the 90's. These figures that get thrown about as the resurgence of vinyl are things like Urban Outfitters and HMV selling reissues and current pop/mainstream artists on vinyl like Adele and Lana Del Rey etc.

The internet did change all of it in two major ways. Firstly, the price points of vinyl got destroyed deleting many record stores and making it both much easier to find (due to access) and much harder to find (due to sheer volume) tracks.

The other part was that it permanently lowered the price of music, even through legit outlets such as beatport or Juno. instead of $10 for a ep it's now $2.

That in turn charged the model of record labels. and unless you had a big track, you're not getting paid anything.

People like and as diverse as Tony Humphries, Signum, Rhythm Masters, Timo Maas, Mauro Picottoc used to make a decent living off churning out their signature remixes for a couple of grand a pop, or releasing their own and again making a couple of grand for each release.

Now, you can have a pretty well received digital "hit" and you'll basically never see a penny.

Another thing (and I know I've banged on about this in other threads) was with the rise of the digital only label, a "hard filter" for quality of the music was instantly bypassed:

With it costing nothing to put out a track, any old shit got release, becuase there was no loss if it didn't sell.

With Vinyl, you either had to pay to get it pressed or a label was paying, and if the track was crap, no one in their right mind was going to pony up $1000 for even the lowest pressing amount of 500 copies. It stopped a lot of shit from getting released.

That barrier disappeared and right as this was happening, thing else had been going on (slowly but it started to peak) which was the ease of making music.

At the time of peak vinyl sales in the mid/late 90's, it was virtually unheard of to be able to make a releasable track just on a computer - you needed expensive outboard/midi gear/synths/fx etc.

However, as time went on, it switched from that, to most people making tracks entirely in the box, and in some cases just a crack of Fruity Loops or ableton.

Again, another barrier to quality was removed, so now you have labels with no inhibition of putting out shit content, with people with virtually no musical talent could conceivably make a "track".

Prior to this, you had to spend at least 10K on music equipment, know how to use it or hire an engineer and chances are , you weren't going to do that unless you had musical talent in the first place.

So really what you had was talented people, who had made a long term and expensive commitment putting out music that was filtered by simple cost of distribution factors. It meant great music was getting made and anything less never really saw the light of day.

Why am I going on about this? Because this is why there were so many classics;

There was an actual payout for being a working producer, and those had been heavily invested both in terms of talent, equipment and investment, and then it would only get a release once it made the grade to justify the expense of getting it pressed.

The other factor was that producers spent far longer making a great tack. These days you hear of stories like Laid back luke knocking out tracks in 4 hours straight to release, but people like Chicane and BT have admitted to working on a single track for 4-6 months before it even went to mastering.

I think in the grand scheme of things, that's really what's missing these days. Every so often, someone puts out a labor of love EP or album but on the whole I doubt many producers spend more than a few days on a single track.

The money today is in producing a big gimmicky track that gets instant recognition, that leads to overpaid DJ gigs to the uneducated ADHD masses or maybe licensing for TV, but it's intrinsically disposable and short lived, unlike the music that came before.

Alright, [/waffle]

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Firstly, I'll have to disagree in that artists used to make so much more back in the oldschool days from single/EP sales as if you had a hit it was being sold at 6-10quid or $10-$15 a hit and the split with the label was 50-50 and they covered the pressing and distribution costs. So take a big record like Gamemaster which sold over 10,000 copies on vinyl in the UK (more than it takes to get a no1 on the UK pop chart now) and you realize that Matt darey probably made 20-30k off that track just on it's initial release.

You just contradicted yourself there, then. Nowadays, you don't see vinyls getting repressed into thousands of copies, as back then, and artists getting paid so much for a track/ep.

quote:

While vinyl may have made a bit of a resurgence it's bonkers to think that the Dance Music numbers are anywhere close to what they were in the 90's.

They aren't, but that doesn't change the fact that vinyls, vinyl pressing plants and various music styles that were all but dead have made a comeback.

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That in turn charged the model of record labels. and unless you had a big track, you're not getting paid anything.

That's not true. Often artists who put out an ep on vinyl nowadays get paid for doing so, just like back in the day. It has nothing to do with making a 'big track,' but rather merely putting out a record. Whether they're making the same amount of money as before is another story.

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Prior to this, you had to spend at least 10K on music equipment...

Completely untrue. There were plenty of classics and vinyls in general being pressed where the equipment used wasn't necessarily so expensive, nor were there any engineers for many of the artists. Keep in mind, popular synths and drum machines years ago were also selling for much cheaper then they are selling for today.

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The other factor was that producers spent far longer making a great tack.

Not necessarily, but I think it depends on the genre of EDM, as well.

quote:

I think in the grand scheme of things, that's really what's missing these days. Every so often, someone puts out a labor of love EP or album but on the whole I doubt many producers spend more than a few days on a single track.

If you actually think about it in the grand scheme of things, not much has changed. If you scour through vinyls that were released back in the day, you can find plenty of garbage that makes you wonder how it was pressed in the first place.

quote:

The money today is in producing a big gimmicky track that gets instant recognition, that leads to overpaid DJ gigs to the uneducated ADHD masses or maybe licensing for TV, but it's intrinsically disposable and short lived, unlike the music that came before.

That may be true, but then again, there are plenty of artists who aren't doing it merely for the money, and thus don't compromise their artistic vision, or whatever you want to call it. Many of these artists also either hold day jobs or are getting by through the combination of touring/gigs, promotions, releases, etc. Like you mentioned, artists are generally not getting paid like they used to back in the day for their productions, but that doesn't deter many of them (and new ones) from putting effort and 'heart' into their music.

He didn't contradict himself. You just didn't read it properly. You're also being pointlessly pedantic and over-literal in your interpretation of phrases like "you're not getting paid anything".

Anyway, there's no doubt that the Internet absolutely murdered physical record sales, even in dance music. There's also no doubt that producers make comparatively nothing from selling or streaming their music compared to the money a successful club hit could make in the '90s. The only way you could argue with that point is if your entire frame of reference is extremely niche sub-styles that never made any money in the first place.

With that said, I think this narrative that tracks are more "throwaway" now is pedalled mainly by grumpy old timers who don't know where to look for good music anymore. It's disingenuous to compare Laidback Luke to vintage-era BT. A more apt comparison would be the legions of throwaway shit commercial house music churned out in the '90s and played by jokers like Brandon Block, Judge Jules, Jeremy Healy, CJ Mackintosh and all the other handbag crew. I'm still amazed by the levels of trippy detail that go into modern tracks that will only ever shift a couple of hundred MP3s at the absolute most. Tracks are the calling cards for DJs these days, and it's a race to stand out. Successful producers will get lots of DJ gigs, and the international market is extremely strong right now.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Outside of the trance genre, the music today is as good as it ever was imo. Now the parties are not as good but in the age cellphones and the fact that everyone is on their own potpourri of drugs instead of just the same ecstasy pill going around town at the time that is not surprising.

___________________
X-MIX 1 The MFS Trip

This guy needs to come back

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN The other factor was that producers spent far longer making a great tack. These days you hear of stories like Laid back luke knocking out tracks in 4 hours straight to release, but people like Chicane and BT have admitted to working on a single track for 4-6 months before it even went to mastering.

If they did work that long on a single track they were extreme outliers. There was a small group of sucessful artists that worked primarily in the album format that spent a lot of time on their records but they were definitely outliers. I think Photek spent an entire year on Modus Operandi beause he got a fat advance vom Virgin but on the other hand you had Jeff Mills who claims that he wrote half of Waveform Transmissions 1 within a single day and that way of working was way more common just because of how much a pain in the ass recall is without modern computer technology. If I had to make a guess, I would say that 90% of all 90s techno and house classics were written somewhere between a couple of hours and a few days. Of course, anything involving the chopping of breaks and samples took way longer just because of how long that took but many these kinda tracks were still written within a few days or so. I think the "throwaway" thing is a misnomer precisely because many, if not even the majority of great 90s tracks became great pieces of music almost because of their hectic and careless circumstances, written by people without much engineering or music theory knowledge within a frenzied couple of hours mashing keys and buttons while probably high on something. I have friends that have tried copying certain tracks with the same gear by carefully analysing etc. and it just doesn't work, there's this chaotic energy in these tracks that you can't replicate if you sit on it forver analysing.

If anything, I think that people work way too long on tracks these days. If you hang around the typical producer forums, you'll all these endless stories about people messing on tracks for months, greating a billion versions etc. With that way of working you get a lot of club music that's meticulously engineered but not a lot of music that can channel that rough and emotional feeling of many 90s records. Most of the records coming out these days with an authentic 90s type feeling are made as quicks jams by people with largely hardware setups.

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by Woony I think the "throwaway" thing is a misnomer precisely because many, if not even the majority of great 90s tracks became great pieces of music almost because of their hectic and careless circumstances, written by people without much engineering or music theory knowledge within a frenzied couple of hours mashing keys and buttons while probably high on something. I have friends that have tried copying certain tracks with the same gear by carefully analysing etc. and it just doesn't work, there's this chaotic energy in these tracks that you can't replicate if you sit on it forver analysing.

Jam El Mar in an interview said that he could get sounds out the equipment just because he had read the manual better than others. Unlike many others he did have a classical music education and was a studio beast and perfectionist. Making tracks or remixes indeed didn't take very long. That's what I heard many say. Jam & Spoon - Tripomatic Fairytales 2001 and 2002 took a year to make while Jam was remixing and doing other projects as well.

Some videos show that at least in the early/mid 90's these guys were working in studio's with expensive equipment and using pc's, but there often are people who helped. It's not like messing around a bit with Protracker like in the late 90's. I don't get the idea they are high all the time though.
Here some vids of which I think give a nice impression:

German Techno news feature (1993)
Without the intro in a bit better quality: How to make Techno music on 1994

Sven Vath: How to Make Techno Music (German Tv) 1995

Zu Besuch im Harthouse Label Studio Interview mit Sven Väth

Ramon Zenker talks about the 90s, Interactive, Perplexer, Mega 'Lo Mania, Hardfloor and more!


Regarding sales numbers of hits (vinly and maxi's), 10,000 was nothing compared to hits like this: DJ Quicksilver - I Have A Dream / Bellissima sold over 600,000 copies in the UK and 480,000 in Germany and that was without compilations counted. Source:DJ Quicksilver with Jens
Jens says he sold 480,000 with a track by Interactive.

I bet a vinyl revival won't show numbers like that.

___________________

Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here

quote:

Originally posted by Trance-M Some videos show that at least in the early/mid 90's these guys were working in studio's with expensive equipment and using pc's, but there often are people who helped. It's not like messing around a bit with Protracker like in the late 90's. I don't get the idea they are high all the time though.

Some of the artists (e.g. Robert Leiner) were also sound engineers for labels such as R & S Records, so they (and their cronies) had access to studios and equipment which weren't even their own, often a time. Others worked from their own home with a few hardware machines (with or without a computer), and the end result was often the same. Often it was actually just 'messing around,' resulting in classic and popular tracks.

Here's an example: Massturbator recording session - It's arguable whether they were high or not.

quote:

I bet a vinyl revival won't show numbers like that.

No, but what a vinyl revival did was enable new vinyl pressing plants to be opened, keep vinyl stores in business (many had closed over the last decade), among other things. Most (vinyl) label owners do it for the love of music (and vinyl) anyway, knowing that nowadays they're not likely to earn much profit, if at all.

Last edited by AlphaStarred on Feb-04-2018 at 06:29

quote:

Originally posted by AlphaStarred Often it was actually just 'messing around,' resulting in classic and popular tracks.

'Messing around' was what they did for sure with Hardcore and Gabber and very likely high or at least still high from the weekend.
The first EP of Neophyte ‎was called 'The Three Amiga's' referring to the equipment they used. It was an advantage for hardcore that the sound wasn't to good as it they wanted it to sound rough.

But what are examples of popular tracks that were made after 'messing around' in trance or maybe techno?

E.g. a track like Capricorn - 20Hz in 1993 also was recorded in a professional studio (also R&S Records). This is what the guy who made it, Hans Weekhout, said about producing in the 80's and 90's:

quote:

In the 80s and 90s it was only possible to make a good record in the best (and most expensive) studios. That was also the place to find me for years, 7 days (and nights) a week. If at all possible behind a mixing console from Solid State Logic and peripherals brands Urei, AMS Neve, Lexicon, and Pultec Tube Tech. The sound of these machines now is in my DNA ...

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No, but what a vinyl revival did was enable new vinyl pressing plants to be opened, keep vinyl stores in business (many had closed over the last decade), among other things. Most (vinyl) label owners do it for the love of music (and vinyl) anyway, knowing that nowadays they're not likely to earn much profit, if at all.

Is it enough to keep vinyl stores alive eventually or just a handfull? The artist probably don't really benefit from it as it's not enough to have sort of an income.

___________________

Longest (classic) Trance playlist on YouTube (5000 tracks released up to and including 1997), click here