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One of the biggest downsides of being a producer is that you tend to judge music based on technical merrit rather than enjoying the music for the music. To me, the time period that defines trance as trance is not circa 98/97. Trance is about uplifting melodies that take you on an emotional journey. People constantly complain about the constant use of the infamous 'supersaw', but this is what defines trance as such. Why should people use different instruments when this works and works well. It might be boring to some, but what would rock be without guitars? Certainly not rock. Why should a person have to re-invent the wheel everytime they make music, just let them be, let them make what their heart leads them to. If you don't like the end result, that's fine, it's within your perogative to dislike and disagree.
I agree that in terms of emotional uplifting melodies (or the opposite), trance has seriously been on a decline. Many of the tracks I recieve suffer from what I like to refer to as 'random chord progressions' which is to me as effective as hitting random keys on a keyboard. It works for some, for others it doesn't. I've always found myself attracted by emotional melodies ala Gouryella, this is what trance should be about.
Someone mentioned about producers catering to the DJ and Club scene, this is unfortunately the truth but it comes with reason. In this day and age, in order for your track to be deemed 'successful', it has to do well on the dancefloor. If it's not club worthy, it won't sell, simple as that. The market is already in some serious trouble, money is very tough to come by.
As for the comment about people being too software dependant. Acoustically, trance as it sounds today makes trance circa 97 sound primitive at best. Software is not the problem, many 'famous' producers utilize software in their studios (Above & Beyond, Armin, Airwave, Thrillseekers, Tiesto, Mike) to just name a few. Having a studio full of hardware is not necessarily the formula of success. The real problem is inspiration, producers back in the day didn't have A State Of Trance to listen to, they derived their inspiration from many sources and I'd bet not many were electronica based. That is why so many songs sound alike, sound "ASOT".
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