Dune 3 vs Sylenth 1 vs Seum for techno/trance

[LeVzi]

ADVENTUS alas the synth that never was. But had an amazing sound at the time.

This? https://softplug.com/

I remember it from many years ago. I kind of liked it. Iirc, the developer lost the SE "source code" of Adventus, which is why he never updated it.

That's the one, had a massive sound for an old 32bit SE plugin, but yeah he lost the original source code, and it could never get updated. I'm amazed he's still selling it tbh.

Someone did offer to reverse engineer the code but he never spoke with them, Gino Cote I believe.

[machine_spirit]

I think this is a pretty fitting example of Progressive Trance

I remember the despair when trance around the world and a state of trance started to become completely dominated by these "progressive" tracks around 2007 or so, with melodies that went nowhere, teasing anti-climax breaks that just led back to where they began and heavy emphasis on groovy basslines (which is perhaps the one thing i don't mind). But honestly house does most of that better imo. Almost everyone "sold out" around that time and the foundation was made for the whole Avicii/mainstream stuff that it eventually merged into and somewhere around there was when the awful term "EDM" started popping up everywhere. That's how i remember it at least. Some argue that the "selling out" started in the late 90s but i've never been a fan of the earliest trance stuff so i disagree... That's just how it goes

[AnX]

Late 90's, yep, that's when most electronic music went tits up.... big time.

[Passing Bye]

I remember the despair when trance around the world and a state of trance started to become completely dominated by these "progressive" tracks around 2007 or so, with melodies that went nowhere, teasing anti-climax breaks that just led back to where they began and heavy emphasis on groovy basslines (which is perhaps the one thing i don't mind). But honestly house does most of that better imo. Almost everyone "sold out" around that time and the foundation was made for the whole Avicii/mainstream stuff that it eventually merged into and somewhere around there was when the awful term "EDM" started popping up everywhere. That's how i remember it at least. Some argue that the "selling out" started in the late 90s but i've never been a fan of the earliest trance stuff so i disagree... That's just how it goes

Yeah, 2007 was the year where it all ended pretty much. Was listening the other day debut of one of the now known acts from psy scene and it was released in 2008, guy pretty much took 9 tracks from 2005/2006 and made his interpretations of them, interpretations is overstatement, he practically made almost the same tracks... 9 different sounding tracks, you can clearly hear the original tracks which were all from different artist that had particular sound, there wasn't anything remotely unique about his interpretations, there wasn't anything that really standed out as his signature sound, nothing, you just go, yeah, this is this track from that guy, oh this is that track and etc, you can play them in the same time, they actually align perfectly...

That reminded me about majority of releases of that year that were just same tracks recycled across the board and same sounds, there was so many releases in those years and most of them were just copy-paste of same thing. People got lazy to experiment, to try something new, same arrangements, same sounds, same fills, same breaks, everything, I mean reverse-engineer some tracks, but don't release those attempts as your own music...

Don't get me wrong, there was always folks who had their signature in there, but even they went for shortcuts and pretty much in few years they manged to become parodies of themselves, thing became a joke.

About that time there was rise of Swedish/Dutch cheese fest and that influenced whole EDM spectrum in that direction, for worse, than even those guys couldn't parody themselves anymore and people got sick of hearing same shit all over again, amount of people making same thing just went berserk, until their dogs got sick of hearing it. Even Beatport changed their focus completely from it and now things are much better actually, but still far away from ideal, same copy-pasting, everyone just ridding same waves until everyone got sick and find another. Guess newer generations are incapable of making anything new or have mental capabilities to do it, most want just to get validated by public in land of likes and streams, sad stuff.

[4damind]

TATW... the copy & paste party, where everyone sounded the same and sometimes even complete ideas were copied from others
Sylenth was the most used synth there, but currently I think it's Serum (at least I've seen Serum very often, e.g. with people like David Boldini "7skies").

[Biome_Digital]

For Trance I would choose Dune 3 for the awesome presets and supersaws.

[machine_spirit]

What's the secret with this KVR spam filter? I haven't even tried to link anything. This one will probably go through though because it's so short. Apparently the filter goes away after five posts so i'll just create some quality posts like this so i can actually post what i wanted to say lol...

[MrDiamond]

I like Sylenth! it sounds great

[4damind]

Btw. are there still many trance artists who make new and successful music? What I've heard of the old familiar names are actually only remixes or that they play their 10 year old tracks (Astral Projection). Other formerly very well known trance artists like Infected Mushroom have gone a bit mainstream (and apparently very successful, after all they were on the US charts once).
A lot of the other stuff is IMO more EDM. Even Armin van Buuren actually makes some kind of crossover music.... Techno/Progressive Trance/EDM.
A few up and comers in recent years like Boris Brejcha is doing more minimal/techno and not trance.
In any case, the sounds you hear are all very similar. There's hardly anything unusual, but whether it's Dune, Sylenth or Serum. I think hardly anyone really hears that.

[Passing Bye]

Btw. are there still many trance artists who make new and successful music?

Astrix, sure he might sound like Tristan now, but it's hard, he was the sound that was copied so much, at one point think he felt like AI was making all the other tracks based on his music and music totally sounded like that, poor guy, but that's the price of greatness.

Vini Vici, they are doing EDM now and I'm pretty sure they were ghost producing Armin too, think they can totally take the lead on that whole USA candy rave culture, saw their set from Tomorrowland and they killed it, actually think that's the platform for majority of so called psy acts, they always sounded perfect for those crowds, but never got out from the psy scene, Protoculture did and quite successfully to, maybe now gates will open and all those cookie cutter candy psy entertainers will find their crowd, fame and money.

[recursive one]

Btw. are there still many trance artists who make new and successful music? What I've heard of the old familiar names are actually only remixes or that they play their 10 year old tracks (Astral Projection). Other formerly very well known trance artists like Infected Mushroom have gone a bit mainstream (and apparently very successful, after all they were on the US charts once).

Astrals released a couple of collabs with Outsiders and Raja Ram, also there are rumours that they are preparing an album.

Astrix and E-Clip are alive and kicking (though I much prefer their older stuff). Tristan is one of the most successful psy artitsts these days, I think his discography dates back to the 90s. U-Recken's discography spans from 2006 to 2020. Protoculture ventured from psy (2003-2006) to mainstream trance and is now back to making psy as Shadow Chronicles.

I don't know much about mainstream trance these days, but I think you can find some examples here too (maybe Thrillseekers, Solarstone, Above & Beyond)

[Norqa]

Tristan is one of the most successful psy artitsts these days, I think his discography dates back to the 90s. U-Recken's discography spans from 2006 to 2020. Protoculture ventured from psy (2003-2006) to mainstream trance and is now back to making psy as Shadow Chronicles.

I don't know much about mainstream trance these days, but I think you can find some examples here too (maybe Thrillseekers, Solarstone, Above & Beyond)

Well Tristan has remained true to himself so it comes as no great surprise he's still in the game.
Met him once, really chilled out guy.
Nate/Protoculture seems to have found a well deserved home at Sonic Academy.
I liked his hybrid Track tutorial not that is was Psy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9eT9mc0xKM

[discogsaddict]

Personally I think it comes down to what interface you feel at home programing sounds with.. or which has the best presets you like (If you're not so much of a sound designer)

I would also include Adam szabo viper and tone 2 icarus 2 (maybe even warlock which would be a good call since its cheaper and does all you need, easy and simple to program and also has a lot of quality presets!!)

[machine_spirit]

Late 90's, yep, that's when most electronic music went tits up.... big time.

Yeah, 2007 was the year where it all ended pretty much.

I think there was some kind of generation shift that happened there (possibly partly what happened in the late 90s too), alot of electronic music went more or less mainstream which introduced big money to the scenes and led to a sort of lowest common denominator race to the bottom. I guess it was around that time that DAW:s and synths became truly accessible for anyone with a computer which probably plays a part - the amount of music created increasing by an insane amount in a very short time, everyone chasing similar kinds of sounds and basically validating the stuff in the process through the snowballing popularity. Even hardstyle and DnB had some mainstream success.

Regarding recent years, upvotes in social media are pretty similar to currency and have similar effects on people's behavior imo, one big feedback loop that color and streamline people's lives much more than anything did before. Also information overload is probably frying everyone's brains but now i'm going way off topic.

Btw. are there still many trance artists who make new and successful music?

Always thought of Astral Projection and Infected Mushroom as strictly psy/goa but what do i know. When i think of modern trance it's more like Daniel Kandi (his earlier stuff was better imo). Tracks like Signum's remix of Oceanlab - Beautiful Together is in my mind as good as it ever got. I like the somewhat sad but vaguely hopeful and "genuine" melodies that were popular in that era, i can't stand the bland cyclical EDM/pop stuff, there's something about the chord progressions and general tone that's just terrible... Uplifting melodies can be good but in these cases it's more like ignorant optimism. And don't get me started on that clap on every beat and a snare on every 8th shit, who came up with this garbage? Damn i sound like a miserable old man with a hangover.

[Aiynzahev]

For trance specifically, I think you'll get on well with Dune 3. It has all the right stuff and lots of it.