Altair
Senior Member
Your post is great but this part isn’t right though.
The big difference between now and then is that if you dive into trance from 1996-2007 you’ll find a MUCH wider range of sounds, the drums used, the rhythms of melodies, etc. It’s not a narrow definition, but a very wide one. There was hundreds of ‘ideas’ with various producers being so good that you’d instantly hear it was them, even though they did not recycle sounds at all.
In contrast to what we have had now for the last decade, where 1 idea forms 80% of our scene (the template hard kick rolling bassline small clap 16th note arp female adlib type). With an extreme form of recycling too. People just use the exact same kick sample in various tracks. No, not a “similar styled kick”, I literally mean the exact same sample. And that goes for bass, fx, synth choice.
The problem isn’t a narrow view of ‘us old listeners’ at all. The problem is today’s producers - who are also “old males” btw. They lack the time (family, fulltime job), talent, and motivation to explore the 99 other ideas and possibilities, and all end up with the extremely narrow range of ideas we have now.
Facade said: do producer need to invent? Is that a must? No, the answer is no. It would be nice though, if producers tried 1 of the other 99 ideas that are hardly ever done by anyone. There are sooo many possibilities, you don’t have to invent, just for once… select a different clap… try to draw a melody that is not 16th pluck notes, to begin with…
Oh I'm in full agreement - I was moreso getting at the people that I've seen on this forum (they probably know who they are) who can't find anything positive to say about ANY new trance, and haven't been able to since the mudslinging about 2.0 that started a full fifteen-odd years ago (or even before that). But every subgenre of music ends up attracting such types unfortunately.
I do have my own samples and presets that I reach for often, but I've tried to make a lot of my own, or use preset packs that aren't as mainstream. And having a full time job myself I can empathize with wanting to be a bit lazy here and there - the FX sweeps in that remix were mainly Vengeance samples since I was too lazy by that point to synthesize them myself (though I did timestretch a few to give them a different sheen).
But Mr. "Show me how many labels you've released on" here definitely ain't coming from this angle.