Hard House vs. Trance

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Is it me, or is hard house harder to mix than trance/hard trance? I mix mostly trance. But I have a few hard house records. A few of those records I can throw into a trance set, but I was just trying to do a hard house only set and it was so hard. And it sounded extremely shitty too. I would like to be able to do a set with a mixture of all my records, but its hard. Anybody got any tips or anything?

Verbal
 
When I'm fooling around and I do a house and trance set or something of the sort, I order my vinyl from least trance-like to most trance-like, so there's an easier transition. If you're going to plop some house down in the middle of a trance set, I don't really know what to say...
 
Well verbal, hi, anyhow I do a lot of different genre mixing in Tokyo so maybe I can give some advice on this issue. The first thing I think is that you really have to pick out tracks that you get familiar with first because you are mixing differenet genres it is important to know how these different tracks can fit together. If you can't do that it will make for a set without a story, kind of haphazzard. Also becasue hard house incorporates different rhythms than trance the first point becomes almost essential. I think after you feel comfortable with the hard house tracks then the mixing will feel natural. No matter what genres you mix or cross mix...my sets usually are from vocal house to trance, sometimes disco to trance to hard house(the full spectrum), but i'm just really comfortable with my tracks and I think I can then handle them better that way.
 
I'm not talking about just mixing house and trance. I mean if I sit down and try to do a hard house set, its hard. I don't know if I the records I have just don't go together or what. I mean, hard house is pretty repetitive. And it should be easy to mix because its (basically) bringing in new sounds and removing the old. You would think it would be easier than mixing trance.

I don't know my house records as well as my trance records, maybe that's it. <shrug>

Fokus, any chance you could give me a track list of the sets you have cross mixed? It would help a bit.

Verbal
 
I'll check at home about my cross mixed set, and I'll get back to you on that ... one thing about cross mixing though, I found that if you go through for example positiva and cross mix their hard house with their trance its pretty easy as oposed to lets say a nukleaz record and a flying rhino record...for starters anyways...

I know what you mean though, when I first started on the hard house stuff in asia i was found it a bit tough, but as soon as i got more familiar with the tracks i got better and better at cross mixing.

:cool:

by the way verbal, where are you anyways?:)
 
yeah, to me, an unknown to the 4 to the floor scene, hard
house and hard trance is the same anyway:

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM


hehehe
 
Hard house is basically the same sounds repeated over and over.

Hard trance is is hard but with an actual melody.

Thats the way I see it..

Verbal

[Edited by verbal on 02-09-2001 at 11:41 AM]
 
Hard house is faster, keeping this in mind you have to mix faster too. also with hard house the bass drums are really different from track to track, it is really noticable when you have two off key bass drums. Mixing hard house is more Break mixing for me anyway, trance can be a smoother mix cause it's slower. My suggestion would be to get some nukleuz records, I think it's purple hard house, Green trance...Not sure I'll check my records if you really want to know, but nukleuz is aimed towards Hard House and Trance DJ's.

[Edited by Ckerr812 on 02-09-2001 at 01:38 PM]
 
For me, hard house is more "up", happy music than hardtrance, a little too melodic and deep. The problem I see w/ all "hardsomething" styles is that very few stuff is really, really good, exception made to drum'n'bass that has more quality overall, even at 175 bpm. And it's oh-so-hard that it's really hard (pun intended:D) to actually build a night form the start, slowly raising the bpm as I like to do. A hard house set is SLAM!, in ur face, all night.

Yesterday I went to Botechno, a pre-club bar here and the two djs who played hard trance and hard house sounded like a Nintendo at full volume and outta control, IMO 70% of their set was crap so it's really hard (no pun intended:D) to be a good, complete dj playing both. When done well though, it's energetic and underground as I like it!
 
Yup it's difficult to build a consistent set with hard**** (fill in the stars) only. That's why you shouldn't limit yourself only to those styles. Mix them together... Normal trance, hardtrance, trance, throw a little retro's in it, groovy stuff.

If you want to have an example of good hardtrance mixing, just pay a visit at club Illusion in Lier, Belgium.
Those dj's can mix awesome sets, they used the hardest stuff available (ever heard Dj Vortex vs Rapa's dream???). One time they even took it so hard, they mixed away all the breaks. No break during almost 3 hours. Nothing but the hardest beats... The floor was rocking (and the ears after that too).
 
Build it up!

;) Try to build you mixises up start off with trance then buid to progressive then hard house then theres not not much of a shift of BPMS to the ear! If you want some banging Hard House tunes look at the Tidy Trax label or Hot Twax, with such tunes form Stimulant DJ's and Lisa Lashes!
 
hey fokus your from Tokyo. cool, man do i want to go there so bad. i need to go pick me up a skyline and bring it back with me :D
 
I mix mostly vocal house, tribal house and hard house and I must say that hard house I find the easiest to mix. I think it's probably because I can really discern the beats because they are so "in your face" on most tracks. I like the genre alot although I think alot of people on the east coast think that nyc hard house is crap. I tend to disagree I think there is alot of tunes that are totally commercial and some that although starting out as underground anthems unfortunately eventually find their way into a cheesy "DJ Skribble" compilation and become pure cheese. However I think there is alot of good dark pounding hard house that can really make people move. I like just about anything remixed by "scot project" which means liking a really progressive sound in my mind. Classic hard house labels would be BXR and Chaos along with tracid trax.

Some of my favorite tunes currently:

Insider - Boots on the run - love this song
ASYS - My Acid Nightmare - pounding
Yoda - Definetly
DJ Vortex - Church EP 2
Angel Moraes - The Cure - Junior Vasquez dub
The Moon - Blow Up Your Speakers
Blaze - My Beat
Hennes & Cold - The Second Trip (SP RMX)
Tribal Man - Africa Most Wanted EP

Ramon
 
I don't think that it is that much harder. The rythm is faster, so the beats will tend to drift faster if they aren't matched up perfectly. Sometimes I find it is easier to match up this stuff because I can tell if the speeds are off sooner.
By the way, the hard house you goes are talking about here (Nukleuz, Tidy Trax), I always considered that UK Hard Houseor high energy, and regular hard house stuff that DJ Dan plays. Am I off base?
 
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