S
stickyelectro
Guest
I want to share my recent experiences writing harder style trance with people who like me several months ago may not know some of the things I have picked up. For all you experts who are already better at it than me dont reply with lol simple etc. It took me ages to find this info when i didnt know sifting through forums etc.
Firstly have a well mastered drum kit and save it so you dont need to keep remastering a snare everytime you load reason. (this is a reason type post) have gated reverd on the snare or clap or both if you like that. Interesting basslines are not where to start because trance relies heavily on arps etc so their is not much room for your melody with a jump up bassline (however cool or slamming they may be lol)
Ok assuming you can write a beat and master it well. I usually always synth my own sounds so...
Bass.
For that throbing hard trance bass sound almost like electro hoovers but cleaner get a malstrom initialise the patch set osc 1 and 2 to sawtooth and lower the octave, Detune them each by 5 or 6 cents and if you like the motions by +2 or -2 make sure both go to the filters by clicking the little button. Open filters for now. Take an audio splitter and route the output of the malstrom to the left side spiltter (the right is the merger). Now take a 6:2 mixer and connect the dry freq to the first channel. Open a chorus/flanger and a scream distortionand take a spilt from your splitter into each device and then connect them to your 6:2 mixer (if this is to technical email me i can explain). Now you should have a malstrom split into 3 channels one going to the mixer one to the chorus and one to the distortion.
Set the distortion to tape and play untill heavy enough, set the chorus lfo rate to 16/4 anf the modulation to 0 we dont want the bass changing sound, turn down the delay and the feedback and play with the levels on your mixer to get the right balance of sound
Combine these and route your filters to the combinator dials filter out the rasp unles you want it and boom you have a nice bass.
Trancey sounds -
Grey area what are trancey sounds well the cliches are easy mostly sawtooths with a lot of fx but a lot of trancey like sounds come from the subtractor in reason.
Take a subtractor leave the waveform of osc 1 change the waveform of osc2 to one of the 36ish numbered wavges their are some sound like bells others percussion doesnt mattter right now. Turn on osc 2 obviously.
(a good tip while doing this is have a matric pattern seq running so you can here your sound repeated all the time i like to just write a simple cdef set it to 4 steps and play)
Now you should already be hearing some sort of trancey sounds just by playing. Big point is subtraction synthesis set osc 1 and to to (-) sounds much more trancey and sometimes depending on your preference turn the FM nob a little. Bandpass filters make trancey sweeps but sometimes remove the good bits to so play with your own filter settings. When it comes to the filter envelope depending on what you want this can be vital. it can make it scream sqeulch or hum so experiment. This is how i get mine by experimenting with the synth hoping by writing this to give a little insight into how to play though. I posted on forums asking how and people just laugh and say play with it learn etc yeah big help thanks.
Secondly delay effects if you have a 3 step arpeggio dont have a 3 step delay as the first note will repeat on itself sounds simple i know but what a diff setting it to 2 makes.
thirdly reverd trance uses quite dry reverb on arps so dont be to heavy or you will muddy the mix but essential nevertheless.
Arps - Try going in the seq and setting it to a 16th and go c,a,g and repeat for a few bars changing only the top note. This is basic arps but with a 2 step delay a nice sound from experimenting with the subtractor and some reverb are quite effective.
Atmosphere - drops to silence good but if you at least have some wierd noise going on it can maintain just get a malstrom and find some wierd and wonderful waveforms and raise the attack and release to made a pad effect and put it on low volume some of the modulators are good for making wierd sounds.
Computer music do a great tutorial although i have to say i learned most from playing and playin and playing took me 2 years to write good arps but now im signed and stuff so i wanted to make it easier for any newbies out there email me if you want anything.
Sticky
Firstly have a well mastered drum kit and save it so you dont need to keep remastering a snare everytime you load reason. (this is a reason type post) have gated reverd on the snare or clap or both if you like that. Interesting basslines are not where to start because trance relies heavily on arps etc so their is not much room for your melody with a jump up bassline (however cool or slamming they may be lol)
Ok assuming you can write a beat and master it well. I usually always synth my own sounds so...
Bass.
For that throbing hard trance bass sound almost like electro hoovers but cleaner get a malstrom initialise the patch set osc 1 and 2 to sawtooth and lower the octave, Detune them each by 5 or 6 cents and if you like the motions by +2 or -2 make sure both go to the filters by clicking the little button. Open filters for now. Take an audio splitter and route the output of the malstrom to the left side spiltter (the right is the merger). Now take a 6:2 mixer and connect the dry freq to the first channel. Open a chorus/flanger and a scream distortionand take a spilt from your splitter into each device and then connect them to your 6:2 mixer (if this is to technical email me i can explain). Now you should have a malstrom split into 3 channels one going to the mixer one to the chorus and one to the distortion.
Set the distortion to tape and play untill heavy enough, set the chorus lfo rate to 16/4 anf the modulation to 0 we dont want the bass changing sound, turn down the delay and the feedback and play with the levels on your mixer to get the right balance of sound
Combine these and route your filters to the combinator dials filter out the rasp unles you want it and boom you have a nice bass.
Trancey sounds -
Grey area what are trancey sounds well the cliches are easy mostly sawtooths with a lot of fx but a lot of trancey like sounds come from the subtractor in reason.
Take a subtractor leave the waveform of osc 1 change the waveform of osc2 to one of the 36ish numbered wavges their are some sound like bells others percussion doesnt mattter right now. Turn on osc 2 obviously.
(a good tip while doing this is have a matric pattern seq running so you can here your sound repeated all the time i like to just write a simple cdef set it to 4 steps and play)
Now you should already be hearing some sort of trancey sounds just by playing. Big point is subtraction synthesis set osc 1 and to to (-) sounds much more trancey and sometimes depending on your preference turn the FM nob a little. Bandpass filters make trancey sweeps but sometimes remove the good bits to so play with your own filter settings. When it comes to the filter envelope depending on what you want this can be vital. it can make it scream sqeulch or hum so experiment. This is how i get mine by experimenting with the synth hoping by writing this to give a little insight into how to play though. I posted on forums asking how and people just laugh and say play with it learn etc yeah big help thanks.
Secondly delay effects if you have a 3 step arpeggio dont have a 3 step delay as the first note will repeat on itself sounds simple i know but what a diff setting it to 2 makes.
thirdly reverd trance uses quite dry reverb on arps so dont be to heavy or you will muddy the mix but essential nevertheless.
Arps - Try going in the seq and setting it to a 16th and go c,a,g and repeat for a few bars changing only the top note. This is basic arps but with a 2 step delay a nice sound from experimenting with the subtractor and some reverb are quite effective.
Atmosphere - drops to silence good but if you at least have some wierd noise going on it can maintain just get a malstrom and find some wierd and wonderful waveforms and raise the attack and release to made a pad effect and put it on low volume some of the modulators are good for making wierd sounds.
Computer music do a great tutorial although i have to say i learned most from playing and playin and playing took me 2 years to write good arps but now im signed and stuff so i wanted to make it easier for any newbies out there email me if you want anything.
Sticky