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| The development of Trance music |
Is Trance music dead or has it only changed? I have decided to write this short article because some people nowadays think that the real Trance has been already dead for some years. In my point of view (someone can disagree a bit with what I am about to write) something has really changed, especially talking about structure and sounds.
The Trance music started in the early 90’s in Germany and it was rawer, quicker and pretty simpler constructed than what we have today. This is what I call “first generation of Trance”, which ended around 1998.
Then a new “generation” started in 1998/1999, which was in my opinion the core of the Trance evolution. From 1998 until the end of 2001 a lot of releases were available on the market and a DJ had to do various choices in front of a wide supply of great vinyls. Buying everything was almost impossible and the variety of melodies was great. Producers used to build their tracks using some hardware synthesizers such as the legendary Roland JP-8000, Waldorf Q,... Now hardware synthesizers are less utilized because a lot of producers prefer virtual instruments.
After the second generation something happened in the following years and the style evolved in what we can define Trance today. The structures have been transformed in something more progressive and the old warm sounds of melodies are now thinner. I would call the Trance of the last years the “third generation”. In fact if you compare a modern track to one produced in the year 2001 you can listen yourself that there is a big difference in style.
If the third generation is better than what Trance was in the previous years, I don’t know. It depends on personal tastes. Maybe the technical quality is better, but creativity is now poor. Only a few releases are really good in a year, while some years ago the choice was really bigger.
In my opinion the reason is also because some producers can afford VSTs and other virtual instruments software. In the 90’s someone who wanted to start producing had to buy hardware stuff, which was expensive. Today a young guy, maybe also good in producing, can get some VSTs for a low price or for free illegally on Emule. This fact is killing creativity in music production and some artists copy each other. There are a lot of sounds nowadays that are present in the majority of Trance releases. Some tracks have always something to do with others.
There is much to say about this topic and related ones, but I prefer to stop here. Anyway, I really hope that this missed creativity will come back sooner.
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