Need Help With Trance Project (CD Completed)

[wagtunes]

Then a ton of stuff that Wiki classifies as Trance is NOT Trance.

So take it up with them.

I'm done.

[JoaquinAce]

Then a ton of stuff that Wiki classifies as Trance is NOT Trance.

So take it up with them.

I'm done.

And this has been the general trend of this thread and all your other threads on here. Someone gives you advice or their opinion and if it isn’t what you like to hear, you dismiss it. You don’t even take into account that they might know more about a specific subject than you. ..good luck with your trance track.

[wagtunes]

Then a ton of stuff that Wiki classifies as Trance is NOT Trance.

So take it up with them.

I'm done.

And this has been the general trend of this thread and all your other threads on here. Someone gives you advice or their opinion and if it isn’t what you like to hear, you dismiss it. You don’t even take into account that they might know more about a specific subject than you. ..good luck with your trance track.

So I'll bet that 50% of the groups considered Trance groups, in your opinion, aren't Trance groups.

Because I got a crap ton of stuff I can play you classified as Trance that doesn't have drops. Vocal Trance specifically, to me, sounds like just a regular song with a 4/4 kick. Yet, it's classified as Vocal Trance.

So how do you explain that? Are they wrong?

[wagtunes]

Okay, fine. Just to show everybody, I'm going to rearrange this tomorrow. There will be at least 4 drops, one every 2 minutes. This should qualify this as a Trance song when it's done, since we're going to nit pick this thing to death.

I'll have a new version before end of day tomorrow.

[Tj Shredder]

I never care about genre, never! I never care about critique that claims it doesn‘t fit a genre - simply because its not constructive. I care about music...

Though we want to please listeners with our music, it does not make sense to apply changes to please somebody if it doesn‘t fit my own taste/expression. Never cross that line. Only follow a suggestion if you like it better yourself! Please please yourself...

[AnX]

ok, thats not trance.... you've gone into euro ebm territory (think Icon of Coil/VNV Nation)

also, at the start, the gallop bassline is out of time with the kick, that stuff needs mega tight quantising... kick is too weak and way too much reverb, sounds like its recorded in silo.

Thank goodness I ignore everything you say. LOL.

mostly you prob should, i mess around alot.

this time it is accurate constructive criticism, not personal.

believe it or not, i do have some musical knowledge

[Distorted Horizon]

There will be at least 4 drops, one every 2 minutes.

Depends about style but often there are 1 or 2

[Mushy Mushy]

I know I'm going to regret this post so for that reason I'm going to leave Wags out of it. Wags, got that? This isn't about you.

Personally I believe simply listening to X tracks in a particular genre isn't enough. Sure it gives you the basic understanding but you simply cannot truly understand it. For example if you asked me to make a Hip Hop track I'd be able to put all the elements together into a 4 minute structure but it wouldn't sound like hip hop because I don't get the culture. Trance is a genre that many of us have lived for 20 or so years so we know instinctively know what should happen and when but I should emphasise this is vastly differently to being able to replicate that. For example, if I'm out at a party/club listening to a trance/psy track my body knows when the drop is about to happen and I can feel the tension leading up to that. That doesn't mean I can then replicate it the next day.

After a dance track is complete the prime test is if you yourself start dancing to it. I emphasise the fact that you do start dancing rather than are able to. A great dance track should get you grooving in your chair. Your arms should naturally come up in the air just before the breakdown and your fingers click when it hits. You should make a sudden arm movement with your arms when the drop comes back. If this isn't happening your track isn't happening. Further it's not enough to say I need X minutes of buildup before the drop. Old skool legends had several minutes beforehand while newer guys do it in only a couple; what's important is what's happening in those minutes. Is the tension building adequately? Your body needs to be pushed to the absolute limit and the breakdown serves as recovery time before letting loose again.

Part of the key is in the name. It is trance so you need to be hypnotised throughout. This is why repetition in the genre is a positive thing. This is why only 4/4 trance works and why the bassline is monotonous.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

EDIT: TL;DR keep at it at it will come with time.

[DJ Warmonger]

There will be at least 4 drops, one every 2 minutes.

Depends about style but often there are 1 or 2

Average trance track has 1.73865 drops occuring every 2.74748 minutes. Follow that tip

After a dance track is complete the prime test is if you yourself start dancing to it.

I agree. Getting it right in formal and technical aspect is one thing, but emotional dimension is still something I struggle at.

[recursive one]

Here's my SPAN from the output buss showing max and average.



Here's the new track.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... e-home-wip

I'm not a great mixing guy myself but looking at the span image I see some problems, like way too much energy in the 250-500 Hz area and not enough of it between 40-100 Hz, also excessive high end roll-off above 10 KHz. This translates into a muddy mix lacking a top end and weak kick and this is exactly what I hear. Also you panned youd leads way too much IMO, and I don't like the overall reverb, it sounds too dark and somehow it clutters the mix without really giving it a sense of space.

Please doen't take this as me trying to discourage you, I've been in similar situation myself many times. I wasn't paying enough attention to mixing for a long time, and when I decided to improve my mixes I faced many problems because I had been doing many things in a wrong way. I sometimes have an opportunity to send my mixes to a guy who has way more production experience than me and it's very discouraging when he tells me something like "well, a bit better but still muddy mix/ weak bass/not enough top end" and things like that. However if I weren't told such things I would continue making the same mistakes over and over. I gather that you never did any synth-heavy multilayered productions before so what you now have come up with is actually decent gratned that you had only two weeks.

Music-wise it sounds like VNV Nation meets Cascada. It's not the kind of trance I like but well, maybe it's some kind of trance. "Trance" is now a really broad term like "rock" or "metal", it covers so many barely related genres and subgenres so probably tracks like that could fit somewhere. We may call it "operetta vocaloid trance" is you wish

Loved the strings in the ending

[wagtunes]

Well, after reading the overnight responses, I was tempted to say "the hell with it" and just leave things as they are and be done with all of this and maybe even just lock up this thread. But ultimately, and yes, this IS important to me for whatever reason, I said I was going to do a Trance CD. And if having to have a drop in a song makes it Trance and not having one makes it not Trance, then I am going to rearrange this song. It's THAT important to me to get it right.

I want to address a couple of people whose posts actually helped me quite a lot though they probably didn't think they would.

@Mushy - I get what you're saying. Doesn't matter how technically accurate a song is put together. If you don't feel it, you don't feel it. I didn't want to do a "typical" Trance song where it's essentially a 7 second loop stretched out to 7 minutes. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do Trance but still be me and not a clone of something. If I'm just going to copy somebody, what's the point? I think you can see that I at least have enough technical skill that I could have done that, played it safe, and made this an "acceptable" track to this forum. So maybe, given my own personal "requirements" this was a bad idea right from the start and was never going to work. You live and learn. I won't make this mistake again. My integrity is more important than pleasing this forum. Still, I want the song to at least be "technically" Trance and since it's not, I am going to make those changes. It may still not move people and it still may end up sucking as a Trance track, but at least people will have to say, "Yeah, it's Trance. It ain't very good, but it's Trance." Yes, it's THAT important to me.

@Recursive - You have no idea how much I value and respect your feedback and criticisms. I am going to try to fix the problems that you pointed out. You don't like the panned leads. Fine. I won't pan them as much. I will try to somehow fit them into the mix so that they don't get buried. Panning is usually an easy way to avoid that, which is why I did it. But if you don't like it, I'll change it just to please you. I know people are cringing right now that I'm doing this because one person said it. I could try to explain to you why but it doesn't really matter. The why is only important to me. I will also try to fix the other problems as well. If you can post a screen shot as to what an "acceptable" SPAN should look like, that would be helpful. Is it a straight line across? If so, from what point? Where should there be no activity? Below 50? Below 100? Above 5K? It's simple enough to kill the problem areas. Just get out an EQ and start cutting. I just need to know what the SPAN is supposed to look like.

For those who think I'm crazy for caring what anybody thinks, I'm just tired of everybody telling me that everything I do is crap my entire life. I'd like to at least do ONE song before I die that people will say "Damn, that was well done." We all have egos. And when you're constantly told you suck, it doesn't feel good. I mean try to imagine how YOU would feel if everything you did everybody said to you it sucked. Trust me, after 40 plus years of it, you wouldn't feel very good either.

I am going back to the drawing board. I am going to make this Trance and I am going to make this SPAN acceptable if it kills me.

I'll try to have something later today but it may be a few days until I do. I don't know. I need to get an acceptable SPAN printout so I know what it is I have to work with.

Thank you all, especially Mushy and Recursive. You helped me more than you know. I really want, no, NEED to get this right.

[Mushy Mushy]

You're welcome Wags.

Keep at it and you'll succeed, I have no doubt about that. Keep us updated and post the changes.

[recursive one]

@Recursive - You have no idea how much I value and respect your feedback and criticisms. I am going to try to fix the problems that you pointed out. You don't like the panned leads. Fine. I won't pan them as much. I will try to somehow fit them into the mix so that they don't get buried. Panning is usually an easy way to avoid that, which is why I did it. But if you don't like it, I'll change it just to please you. I know people are cringing right now that I'm doing this because one person said it. I could try to explain to you why but it doesn't really matter. The why is only important to me. I will also try to fix the other problems as well. If you can post a screen shot as to what an "acceptable" SPAN should look like, that would be helpful. Is it a straight line across? If so, from what point? Where should there be no activity? Below 50? Below 100? Above 5K? It's simple enough to kill the problem areas. Just get out an EQ and start cutting. I just need to know what the SPAN is supposed to look like.

These is no such thing as "acceptable Span image", but sometimes Span image indeed can help idenfying the mix problems. I suggest you to pick few tracks you really like and run them trough Span. But don't try to eq your master output to get a look-a-like Span curve, it all should be done in the mix, by picking right sounds and processing them in a right way. Of course, you should trust your ears first but Span may be a rough guidance.

@panning. I often pan my leads but not too much, typically it's no more than 10-15% left or right. Always check mono-compatibility. Not because people will be playing your mixes in mono but because good mono-compatibility is an indicator of good (powerful and coherent) mix.

I'm glad my comments were helpful

[wagtunes]

@Recursive

I downloaded your track Psychomoter. I really liked it. I hear the evenness in it. The smoothness. Nothing sounds harsh. The bottom is nice. So I did a span readout and this is what it looks like.



I then compared it to mine to see the differences.



I do see where there are significant differences, especially in the low end where I have that big dropoff but you don't.

I'm going to use this as a guide. Not for the master, as you said, but for the mix. I guess I cut off too much from the bottom when people said it was muddy. The mud was probably more in the middle.

Anyway, this will get me started. I will cut down on the panning and go through each track to make sure the SPAN on that track puts me "in the ballpark" and then adjust accordingly.

This is going to take a long time so I don't know when I'll be back.

[recursive one]

That Psychomotor track sounds crap

It was one my very first attempts actually. Moreover when I "mastered" it and put at Soundcould I was drunk. I mean I really was, I found the unmastered file I had made years ago and thought it sounded cool (because I was drunk) so I put Ozone on it, tweaked some stuff and uploaded. I have no idea why people like it, but some do

Ayways, it by no means shoul'd be a reference track to anyone. But still, you do see the differences in low and high end areas, that's what I was talking about.