Need Help With Trance Project (CD Completed)

[wagtunes]

Okay, I know I'm going to regret asking this but what are the absolutely most invaluable, can't live without, make your life a ton easier plugins for doing Trance? You can be general or specific.

[Mushy Mushy]

Honestly, none. Can’t think of any. There are alternatives for them all. A few good reverbs, delays and a clean compressor. Done.

Personally I think Serum is the best synth ever made but I was making music before it.

[wagtunes]

Honestly, none. Can’t think of any. There are alternatives for them all. A few good reverbs, delays and a clean compressor. Done.

Personally I think Serum is the best synth ever made but I was making music before it.

Well, then I guess I got everything covered.

[thecontrolcentre]

3 words.
banco de gaia.

Wow. That's a blast from the past. I wore out my old Banco De Gaia cassette tape back in the 90s. Went to see him live at a Megadog with Steve Hillage's System 7 ... happy days.

manchester by any chance?
if so chances are i hugged you or have you a swizzle lollipop at some point

system7 did some good trance stuff too.
there you go wags member of gong dropping dance music using a vibrator on a guitar! what s not to love?

No. It was in Newcastle. Never been raving in Manchester.

[Mushy Mushy]

Honestly, none. Can’t think of any. There are alternatives for them all. A few good reverbs, delays and a clean compressor. Done.

Personally I think Serum is the best synth ever made but I was making music before it.

Well, then I guess I got everything covered.

Mate you're more than covered.

[wagtunes]

Okay, next. Tutorials I need to check out. So far I have

Layering Kicks
Layering Bass

Anything else? Youtube has pretty much everything.

[recursive one]

Wags, is there any plugin that you don't have yet?

Essentially you need a big sounding reverb, a good lush delay, a distortion/overdrive plugin and a bus compressor and a limiter. There are plenty of options, I guess you already have at least one plugin in each category. You probably don't need various analogue modelled saturators, console emulations and other analogue coloration stuff, trance mixes are pretty clean.

The only "special" thing I can think of is a "juicy" filter for making filter sweeps, I use WOW2 but I think The Drop, and probably The Legend FX, should also be good for that (don't have them but they are supposed to have great filters).

[recursive one]

Okay, next. Tutorials I need to check out. So far I have

Layering Kicks
Layering Bass

Anything else? Youtube has pretty much everything.

I wouldn't suggest you to do kick layering if you are just starting out with trance. It's pretty tricky and you need good monitoring. You're better off using Vengeance samples or something like Kick2 or Metrum

[Delta Sign]

With all this talk about trance, I almost wanna give it a shot myself
It would probably end up being super old school, but who cares

[recursive one]

With all this talk about trance, I almost wanna give it a shot myself
It would probably end up being super old school, but who cares

I remember you posted some trance leads in that infamous Zebra thread. The sound was a bit off imo (because Zebra) but the melodies were great, you could make full tracks of them

[wagtunes]

Okay, next. Tutorials I need to check out. So far I have

Layering Kicks
Layering Bass

Anything else? Youtube has pretty much everything.

I wouldn't suggest you to do kick layering if you are just starting out with trance. It's pretty tricky and you need good monitoring. You're better off using Vengeance samples or something like Kick2 or Metrum

Well, I don't have Vegeance samples, Kick2 or Metrum so my only option is layering. I'll just have to work at it until I get it right.

[DJ Warmonger]

I don't have Vegeance samples

I have Vengeance samples allergy.

And layering is commonly used in any genre.

[vurt]

id suggest going for it! then see where the obvious weaknesses are and build from there.
maybe grab one of the many examples posted and try to emulate a section.

don't know what's prompted the urge to go trance, but i certainly applaud it. we learn so much from trying something different. as much as we hate to admit it, if we stick to a particular genre/style long enough we start dialing in tried and tested techniques and it can become stale.
occasional flights in to the unknown give us new perspectives and techniques to bring back to our favoured styles

[wagtunes]

id suggest going for it! then see where the obvious weaknesses are and build from there.
maybe grab one of the many examples posted and try to emulate a section.

don't know what's prompted the urge to go trance, but i certainly applaud it. we learn so much from trying something different. as much as we hate to admit it, if we stick to a particular genre/style long enough we start dialing in tried and tested techniques and it can become stale.
occasional flights in to the unknown give us new perspectives and techniques to bring back to our favoured styles

That's exactly how I feel about this whole thing. Plus, from the close to 70 tracks I've listened to so far, from a number of sub genres, I'm finding that the differences far outweigh the rules. I have run into so much diversity in Trance that I'm almost tempted to laugh the next time somebody says "You have to do ..." Short of the 4/4 kick, the baselines and the drops, I find very little in common between some of these tracks. I'll be posting the list when I'm done listening.

I don't plan on actually starting this project until November or even December. I want to listen to enough of this stuff that it actually becomes a part of me, just like rock and pop and country became a part of me over time to.

I'm in no rush.

[Reefius]

I never saw the point of layering kicks. All you need is a good TR-909 kick sample (or something like D16 Drumazon) and some EQ, compression and saturation to make it sound 'fat'.

Layering synths is another story, this can result in sounds that would be impossible to create using only one synth.