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Trance is dead(free sticks available for poking)
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| Beatflux |
I've been listening to trance for quite a while and I've come to a point where all of its flaws are staring me right in the face.
The good?
Atmosphere and catchy leads.
And the bad?
Where should I start? Drums. Drums are the worst out of any genre. 16th note hihat patterns seem more like a strict utility instrument to make sure that the track sounds fast and energetic. The patterns are usually very simple and they are typically quantized to a T which makes it sound even more boring. The typical 4 bar melody is actually a downgrade from the eight bar melody. I have a problem with plucks. I like the sound of plucks but they restrict inspiration of creativity in a perverse sort of way. There is hardly any volume after the initial attack,so it's written as strictly one type of note duration: the 16th note. The 16th note is nice, but there are several other durations and varying them adds to the expression of a track. Oh, and vocal trance lyrics are usually utterly smeared in on-sale 99 cent canned squirt cheese.
Speaking of vocal trance...
For fun let's listen to In and Out of Love(Radio Edit). Ignore the beats, bassline, and everything but the vocals. Don't listen to the lyrics either...Listen to the notes, the note duration, her breathing, the timbre of her voice, the vibrato, the attack and decay... Do you hear THAT?! THAT is what trance is missing. It's simply not enough the beat and melodic patterns are simple; everything sounds too similar and too quantized to move the listener.
But...nobody really gives a . How can I tell?
The most obvious answer is that I can hear it, and the second answer is that the producers don't really care based on what they talk about. Drum pattern topics are as rare as a public water fountain in sahara desert and topics about music theory are typically resisted with the "it's stiffing my creativity" argument. What's the most popular? Talk about getting the new sample pack, the new plug-in or piece of hardware, how do I make Sound X(...so they can make a really ty melody), layering, sound design , and more about mixing. Learning about mixing before writing a track is funny. It doesn't matter how good the sound design is or how well it's mixed, if the music is . Would you rather listen to Bach who couldn't design, or the best sound designer in the world who can't write a piece of music?
After a decade of listening to mostly trance, it's dawned on me the music is mostly ty and boring. |
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| palm |
| what sort of trance are u talking about, pre or post 2003-2004. its a huge difference. |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
After a decade of listening to mostly trance, it's dawned on me the music is mostly ty and boring. |
welcome to the club |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
So is there an era of trance you do like, or are your tastes simply moving away from all trance entirely?
I would not call simple repetitive melodies a flaw, since trance is all about hypnotizing the listeners -- which is why it is called "trance" after all -- and making them dance. |
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| adi_hanson |
What happened to tracks like The Gate-Iron Eden , which used a kooky off key melody.
Im into doing this at the moment , it awesome. |
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| Morvan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
Would you rather listen to Bach who couldn't design, or the best sound designer in the world who can't write a piece of music? |
Just as a side note, but classic music requires a good sense of orchestration which is not too different from mixing considering it incorporates frequency division to prevent unwanted sound masking. |
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| Nightshift |
| Progressive Trance FTW |
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| palm |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
99-09 |
try looking longer back, 93-98, and then from 98 look at prog |
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| owien |
well this topic kinda brings me to my point in dj robby thred last week about people making there own rather then using the same tired sounds.
sound design is more improtant then people give it creddit for the problem is no one wants to make anything really new or if not new at least different enough to put some mark on their tracks.
of course learning how to make good tunes is hard work and so putting a new spin on things gets put back to the list of importance.
as producers we all want to make the the best tracks we can making track for enjoying at home is very differnt then what is played in clubs for reasons that are obvious.
i will say thoe a lot of trance out there is still good but its all made up of differnt genres and crossovers and even the good stuff is still recyeled. |
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| Eric J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
For fun let's listen to In and Out of Love(Radio Edit). Ignore the beats, bassline, and everything but the vocals. Don't listen to the lyrics either...Listen to the notes, the note duration, her breathing, the timbre of her voice, the vibrato, the attack and decay... Do you hear THAT?! THAT is what trance is missing. It's simply not enough the beat and melodic patterns are simple; everything sounds too similar and too quantized to move the listener.
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I actually liked this track solely based on the vocal when it came out. Unlike a lot of the other singers I hear in modern trance who seem to be exclusively focused on EDM, Sharon is the singer in a Dutch symphonic metal band that I was a fan of before this track came out. She has a fairly distinctive style that kind of gets away from the typical singers you hear in vocal trance. I thought it was pretty cool that Armin (or his people) worked with a singer not normally associated with the genre. This used to happen a lot more back in the 90's than it does today.
| quote: | Originally posted by palm
try looking longer back, 93-98, and then from 98 look at prog |
It does seem that it all changed once Binary Finary came out around 98/99. |
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| Nightshift |
| Electro House is ded! |
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