One synth to rule them all?

[TweakHead]

No worries mate. What kind of trance are we talking about here? I make psychedelic, mostly. Think it's still possible to come up with original ideas for it.

[Berni]

Originally Posted by TweakHead

No worries mate. What kind of trance are we talking about here? I make psychedelic, mostly. Think it's still possible to come up with original ideas for it.

Well anything that isn't the generic crap I am hearing right now. I just listened to the 'trance' top 10 on Beatport which included artists...above & beyond, ferry corsten & armin van burren & it was abysmal.
I REAALLY wish someone would come up with some original trance. I was playing it back in the day before it was even called trance...it's now music for kids doing there first E.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

Well anything that isn't the generic crap I am hearing right now. I just listened to the 'trance' top 10 on Beatport which included artists...above & beyond, ferry corsten & armin van burren & it was abysmal.
I REAALLY wish someone would come up with some original trance. I was playing it back in the day before it was even called trance...it's now music for kids doing there first E.

IMO there are two main elements that distinguish good trance from bad: good melodies and good mix quality. Sadly those are the two things that only a few seem to really know how to do well. The drums are relatively simple so it's too easy to throw in a drum loop and some bassline that's been heard a gazillion times elsewhere, and out pops a generic turd with nothing special about it.

If you don't like AvB though, in general I doubt you'd like anything I've ever created. He, Markus Shultz, Paul Van Dyk,etc. are some of the best around in their genre. Thing is that appreciation of a genre varies, so if you don't like it then you don't. I'm the same way about 99% of R&B, and although I like some dubstep, watching every 12 year old out there who saw a youtube vid on how to create a wobble doesn't take long to get old.

The trance I like to listen to takes melody and crafts it into emotion, and combines that with a really clean mix. It's getting harder to come by these days as the EDM crowd is a fickle floozy that likes to chase after the newest thing, so less people are creating good stuff.

[TweakHead]

Originally Posted by MBTC

IMO there are two main elements that distinguish good trance from bad: good melodies and good mix quality. Sadly those are the two things that only a few seem to really know how to do well. The drums are relatively simple so it's too easy to throw in a drum loop and some bassline that's been heard a gazillion times elsewhere, and out pops a generic turd with nothing special about it.

If you don't like AvB though, in general I doubt you'd like anything I've ever created. He, Markus Shultz, Paul Van Dyk,etc. are some of the best around in their genre. Thing is that appreciation of a genre varies, so if you don't like it then you don't. I'm the same way about 99% of R&B, and although I like some dubstep, watching every 12 year old out there who saw a youtube vid on how to create a wobble doesn't take long to get old.

The trance I like to listen to takes melody and crafts it into emotion, and combines that with a really clean mix. It's getting harder to come by these days as the EDM crowd is a fickle floozy that likes to chase after the newest thing, so less people are creating good stuff.

Yeah, not so much into the melodic stuff myself. Even though I don't like it when it just feels like random fx flying around - it needs to be musical, but I've grown to like the real alien like sort of music. It's a matter of taste. Also think the mix is key, but don't necessarily agree that having emotional melodies is an essential part of trance music.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by TweakHead

Yeah, not so much into the melodic stuff myself. Even though I don't like it when it just feels like random fx flying around - it needs to be musical, but I've grown to like the real alien like sort of music. It's a matter of taste. Also think the mix is key, but don't necessarily agree that having emotional melodies is an essential part of trance music.

I probably should have mentioned the fact that there are a lot of different variatons of trance which still qualify as "trance", I just think of trance and psytrance as two different genres despite the term trance being present in both.

Not that Wikipedia is the end-all defining source of music definitions, but I think the definitions put forth there do a reasonable job of representing how I think of the two genres, and how others I know and have collaborated with think of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trance_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_trance

I do like psytrance too, but I feel their musical goals are different:

I think of good psytrance as sort of an assault (in a good way) on my ears of some creative use of FX-heavy sounds, that mostly strives to identify itself by originality of the sounds themselves and arrangement of them.

Trance I think is more like traditional music in the sense that it tends to stick to a base of standard "instruments" (sound categories), like an analogish bass sound, plucks / stabs, lush supersaw pads, usually that evolve slowly, dreamtrance synth patches, 4 on 4 drums with an aggressive kick, arp synth sounds that aren't "too" far out there and alien, etc. The creativity comes into play not so much with the sounds themselves but the melodic arrangement, the way tension is built up and released, etc.

Maybe a bigger defining factor is that with trance, there tends to be sort of a recurring anthem that identifies the tune. That anthem and other melodic parts could be then taken out, and a gazillion remixes created of the track using different genres. For example, you could take a basic trance song and come up with a psytrance or hardstyle remix of it, while retaining the basic roots. On the other hand you rarely see the converse being done -- a psytrance track is rarely remixed into an anthem trance track, because there's less raw material to work with and it wouldn't make much sense to do it? It could be done but it wouldn't be preserving the original most likely, if that makes sense.

Again not trying to say my definitions are the way things are, that's just how I view the difference.

[Berni]

Originally Posted by MBTC

IMO there are two main elements that distinguish good trance from bad: good melodies and good mix quality. Sadly those are the two things that only a few seem to really know how to do well. The drums are relatively simple so it's too easy to throw in a drum loop and some bassline that's been heard a gazillion times elsewhere, and out pops a generic turd with nothing special about it.

If you don't like AvB though, in general I doubt you'd like anything I've ever created. He, Markus Shultz, Paul Van Dyk,etc. are some of the best around in their genre. Thing is that appreciation of a genre varies, so if you don't like it then you don't. I'm the same way about 99% of R&B, and although I like some dubstep, watching every 12 year old out there who saw a youtube vid on how to create a wobble doesn't take long to get old.

The trance I like to listen to takes melody and crafts it into emotion, and combines that with a really clean mix. It's getting harder to come by these days as the EDM crowd is a fickle floozy that likes to chase after the newest thing, so less people are creating good stuff.

I was a fan of PVD, Ferry Corsten etc. back in the day but not so much now, there sound doesn't seem to have progressed much. Unlike guys like Sasha who where big trance DJ's back then but now seem to be more into the progressive side of House (still hammering his remix of Hot Chip's 'Flutes' every saturday night) The same thing is happening with dubstep like you say, when it first emerged it was a cool & interesting new sound but now everyone & his dog are making it with the same cookie cutter attitude it has got boring as hell really fast. You can hear my first & only attempt at it on my Soundcloud, the track is called 'I think were dead'

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

I was a fan of PVD, Ferry Corsten etc. back in the day but not so much now, there sound doesn't seem to have progressed much. Unlike guys like Sasha who where big trance DJ's back then but now seem to be more into the progressive side of House (still hammering his remix of Hot Chip's 'Flutes' every saturday night) The same thing is happening with dubstep like you say, when it first emerged it was a cool & interesting new sound but now everyone & his dog are making it with the same cookie cutter attitude it has got boring as hell really fast. You can hear my first & only attempt at it on my Soundcloud, the track is called 'I think were dead'

I dunno, I think all genres have their good and bad. PvD and AvB have done things that are pretty well outside the trance genre too. This one by PvD came to mind, more of a pop/rock type of tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO0PMclabt4

[Berni]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I dunno, I think all genres have their good and bad. PvD and AvB have done things that are pretty well outside the trance genre too. This one by PvD came to mind, more of a pop/rock type of tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO0PMclabt4

Still sounds like a commercial trancey sound to me & when I first heard this kind of thing on the radio it was the end of my love affair with trance. Once it got out of the underground scene & into the mainstream I lost all interest.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

Still sounds like a commercial trancey sound to me & when I first heard this kind of thing on the radio it was the end of my love affair with trance. Once it got out of the underground scene & into the mainstream I lost all interest.

It is definitely more mainstream pop, but I think that song drifts far from trance by definition. Anyway, your situation may be different because correct me if I'm wrong but you listen to EDM every night and probably preparing mixes for work and stuff during the day? I would think that's going to completely change your burnout rate for different EDM genres. I have such varied taste in music that I only occasionally listen to trance. Plus, other factors need to be in place for it to work. I don't really like listening to EDM early in the morning getting work done or whatever. It's more for night time listening with some brewskis

[TweakHead]

Originally Posted by Berni

Well anything that isn't the generic crap I am hearing right now. I just listened to the 'trance' top 10 on Beatport which included artists...above & beyond, ferry corsten & armin van burren & it was abysmal.
I REAALLY wish someone would come up with some original trance. I was playing it back in the day before it was even called trance...it's now music for kids doing there first E.

Know exactly what you mean with "generic crap". But if you're after good produced trance, you need to avoid beatport - as it's just a showcase for the commercial trends. I personally like some of the new high tech (real fast) psytrance. It's maybe a bit to fast for most people,and maybe not your cup of tea, but those guys are exploring new territory in sound design for sure: such things as bombax, virtuanoise, oxidasi, kindzadza, so forth and so on. I still think Eat Static and Simon Postford and some of the old masters still deliver mind blowing music - Shpongle is like candy to the ears imo.

Did you have another name back in the day? For how long have you been producing music? Please enlighten me. I was lucky enough to catch the psytrance scene when it was still very cool in my country, which is portugal btw.