Trance Etude No. 1

Wjniemi

New member
This was my first foray into Trance. It was mostly done with SampleTank 4 and Miroslav Philharmonik, but I also used the Arturia Modular V and their Arp 2600 plus a couple of hardware synths (Juno-106 and Korg TR-Rack).

This is probably not much like anything else you've heard in the genre. It bends the genre. The original purpose of this track was experimental; I have a friend who loves Trance and is creating a series of one hour exercise videos. My purpose here was to show him the capabilities of the studio.

Video done with Magic Music Visuals.

 
cool idea but feel this could really benefit from a stronger sidechain, may wanna look into downloading kickstart plugin by nicky romero
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I will try the sidechain. There's not one in the mix. I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
I think its an interesting experiment and I am impressed with your production skills. This track really incorporates a lot and it all sounds quite good. That being said, for me the track does not work as a "song" to to say. Some of the elements in this track felt more "rock-like" to me (and the end is obviously more classical). The parts in between perhaps have the BPMs of a trance track, but do not really contain some of the key characteristics of the genre (at least from my point of view), i.e. the dream like arpeggio's over a beat that goes on and kind of gets you in the "trance", not to mention a drop which causes the typical euphoria. Not that these are strictly necessary for the genre (or any track really) per se, but if its trance your after I would expect one or two of them in there.
 
Excellent observations, DZM, thank you.

Actually, I started this out as a trance piece with no prior experience in the genre, even as a listener.

However, I found a page that was REALLY helpful to me.... 10 Trance Subgenres You Need to Know | Insomniac

The other thing that happened is that I sort of lost interest in trying to write trance. I really like some of the ideas at the link above, but I was boring myself trying to write it. There's a lot of good trance out there! Everything I was writing was sounding a bit mundane to me compared to the best stuff I was listening to. So I fell out of the genre.

Everything is at 138 until the orchestral walkdown to the clarinet-cello duet. I think I lose about 10 bpm but I can't remember off the top of my head. It comes back up to 138 at the end. Sort of chromatically.

So, 2 things; 1) I don't know why trance or any other genre has a specific tempo. Is it psycho-physiological? 2) Everything at 138 is NOT trance!

Thanks for the kind words & excellent critique.
 
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