Listening to most melodic trance tracks these days they all seem rather boring with the standard elements. It also seems that less and less record labels are continuing to put out melodic trance while they seem to be moving more and more towards progressive elements. The tracks are getting more complicated with less standard arps blaring euphoric arps and more innovative breakdowns.

Where do you, as an artist, see trance music progressing? Are you being innovative or do your tracks sound like reproduced tracks from 1999?

Just want to hear some opinions on the "progression" of melodic trance music.

My style isn't going to change anytime soon.. The pure melodic element of trance is 70% why I listen/produce it in first place. So long as groups like Airbase and System F stay popular, I would say there is nothing to worry about. The day trance focuses more on beats & lyrics then melody will be a sad one.

As for where I think it's going VS. where it is today, after listening to AVB's A State Of Trance 2004 I think that as synthesizer technology advances beyond the Nord 3 and Virus C you'll start seeing a lot more experimenting with sounds. Meaning, rather then a fully composed arpeggio melody, for example, you will see more producers taking there melodies and slicing them up to get a completly different and new sound.

The melodic element of trance will start to rely more on your producing skills to get a fresh sound rather then your composing skills.

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quote:

Originally posted by FuzzyGreen Where do you, as an artist, see trance music progressing? Are you being innovative or do your tracks sound like reproduced tracks from 1999?

I try to incorporate both new and old to my tracks.

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I expect Trance to get cleaner in the next couple of years. By that I mean that it will be time-corrected by virtue of BT's forthcoming book on time-correction. I can't imagine how tight Trance would be if time-corrected.

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It will go where the crowd want it to go. Right now its recessing into a slightly more proggy/darker sound in general, with the vast majority of release being less commercial. Thats a good thing in a way, but it also means you are more unlikely to hear the next Sandstorm or Castles In The Sky currently. Whether you deem that to be a good or bad thing depends on how narrow minded your view of the scene in general is. Personally I would much prefer the current generation to be getting into trance/house/techno or whatever than Urban. Cheesey groups with cheesey tunes making it into the top 40 ultimately influences the music children like and they are the ones that will push the scene forward when the long term DJ's and producers are gone. I would imagine sometime around 2006/7 will see a trance revival to the heights it was in 1997. It reflects current happenings in the world and in clubland, trance music is undeniably lacking popularity in the UK at the moment and I guess thats reflected in the darker trance.

Thats my incoherent two pennies worth.

I totally agree with mossey.

As for myself, I'm always looking for a way to bring some original sound to the mix, romodelling after Fluke - Zion, Faithless and the like, but also find myself being drawn back to the trance principals that made it popular in the first place.

I love the experimental sound, and creativity is never a bad thing, so just as long as we have a foothold in next gen sounds and keep making the more conservative tracks with our producers, I believe any direction we head in will be a good one.

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I wish that i had a style yet, think that ill have to be producing for alot longer than i have before that truly happens.

As far as where trance is going. I say that the newer sound of trance is going to have fast and interesting basslines. No more off beat basslines. They are so boring i just die listening to more than one song in a row with that style of bass.
The style of trance in the future is represented today by songs like "Dirt Devils - Music is life" or the classic "binary finary - 98" brought up to speed with the '03 "Ronski speed Mix"
The last mentioned is a good example of what will retain of the classic trance sound that we know and love with the sound of tomorrow.
So i hope you like it cause i know i do.

Last edited by B-Good on Apr-13-2004 at 06:39

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BTW : what's standart element?? Pure guitar It rocks in trance not in rock music

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quote:

Originally posted by Sebraaa12 BTW : what's standart element?? Pure guitar It rocks in trance not in rock music

I think he means that highly commercialised sound.

The thing that causes the more underprivileged, less educated of us to refer to trance as "that techno sh*t."

Oops, my elitistness is showing; better hit the sack.

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"The standard elements" worked well in 97-98, when they still were quite fresh elements of trance. And indeed, trance might seem a bit boring these days. If you ask my personal opinion, trance music is in some kind of "searching mode" nowadays, where it seems to have the standard elements of 97-99 trance as a steady ground, from which it seems almost impossible to let go off for 100%, but at the same time trying to find influences from the old trance music, as it all started. In a somewhat near future, I suppose there will arise a new generation of trance music, pictured in my list below as generation 3.

Generation 1: the old classic, highly-repetetive trance music.

Generation 2: the trance boom sound of 97-99 (appr.), which we could in some say call a revolution

Generation 2+: the trance sound of today, relying on the previous two generations.

Generation 3: the next revolution, still to come, where I'm hoping to see a totally new idea incorporated in the trance genre (but still not changing the main idea of trance, of course).

Keep in mind, that this is only something that visualises the ideas and thoughts I have in my own little brain. Feel free to criticize if you think my "generations" are way off the line.

What I'd like to hear a lot more of (and, dare I say it, produce) is that older style. Nowadays, so much trance follows the Gouryella/Rank 1 formula, with big huge hooks that come out of nowhere. Sure, it sounds nice. And sure, at 4am on a dancefloor, it's going to drive me insane.

But what I miss are those classics like BF - 98. In fact, everything on the first Tranceport album. That's the style I really love. Progressive, yes. But also deeply melodic. And most importantly, it's music that flows. Cafe del Mar, for example, is possibly one of the most perfect trance tracks ever produced. Why? Because it doesn't rely on snare fills to build up the track. Uses them, yes, but the track would work almost as well without them. It follows logical musical concepts that we've all grown up with, and seamlessly flows from one phrase to the next.

That's what I'm trying, and failing miserably to do. One day..

Yep, the Gouryella-concept is probably ten times easier to follow than the oldskool style, at least if you ask me. I guess many of us tend to hold on to the, already overused, classic melodic trance genre mentioned above, just because it at least isn't the most difficult of trance subgenres to produce. Buildings a trance track with build-up intro -> silent part -> main lead part -> build-down outro, including snare rolls every here and there etc., and you automatically has a frame to produce your music in. One should instead dare to experiment more outside of this classic concept (although I can't say I'm one of these innovators, instead something totally contrary to that ).