TranceHits.com

Honestly, when I saw the first post I wasn't bothered to read shit!

Here's a thought in response to many comments here:
Do you think that House is more "engineered" for DJs rather than trance?

I have to agree with a point SamEr mentioned here.
To give you a clear image of the issue, let me compare this to empty rooms which you have to fill them up with stuffs.

a House living room might include a Couche, a small square Table, and some chairs. However, the couche can convert to a bed. The square table has extensions to make it longer to fit more people.
In a Trance living room, there will be more furniture, like 2 Couches, a Table, Chairs, a TV Stand, Frames on the wall, etc... The thing is, they are simple. Couches most probably will be only couches (that is, they cannot be turned to a bed or something).

That's how I can compare the production of House and Trance.
House music takes less time to produce, and its focus is on manipulating the elements.
Trance music takes more time to produce, because first you have to put more elements and synths, and its focus is on manipulating the melody.

I hope the rooms example makes it a bit clearer.

The difficulty or ease of each genre depends on the producer and how far or deep he is willing to go in his project.
We also have to point out that Time and trends have killed or uplifted creativity in one of the 2 mentioned genres .

Although Trance might be more difficult to produce it doesn't mean it's mega difficult that you have to take lessons for , Trance production is extremely basic, construction wise, and the melody part of Trance projects 90% of the time is based on simple Chord progression with no attention whatsoever regarding the music theory, the scales are usually in Minor scales b- that goes on and on in sequence mode with few alternating on the last note or two notes in the last bar of each segment, flats or sharps, but they have to be relative to the 3 "root chords", ex an A minor based root will have relative chords such as A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, you can go between those chords as many times as you want or even off these chords only by a small note that won't tick off the listener even if it's legit but the western ear is trained to follow chords in relative pitch. Minor scales are excessively used in Trance just for the "Sad Feeling" ex notes in G# while Major scales are used to give a happy feeling, either way once the melody construction is done it can then feed the rest of the parts of the tune, Pads, Synth the Arp sound, Bassline arrangement will go in respect to the chords the melody is written in, multiple or what's known as layered basslines should go opposite to each other, that's why you have the main bass or chord stabs to compliment the melody and an off-beat bass that goes in contrary to the first 3 chords but follows one of the relative chords.
whatever is added later on is just a painting to cover up the flaws you might have made, I think there's a lot of cheating in creating Trance music while i find house more "classy" sounding and underestimated.

that was one long topic !!!!


i think , now more than ever , boundaries have been crossed alot , soooo much house and trance elements have been used in both to slowly diminish the so ever called boundaries of music between house and trance !

of course you will never be able to compare beach house to tech trance , but you get my drift !

i am not a producer , so i dont know how to answer that subject from a technical point of view . However , i can tell that many trance producers have been very technical and unpredictable in their sounds lately . Experimenting with new ideas , and make it all sound soooo good and fresh !!

I'm personally against labeling of genres, plus I think this thread generalized two huge schools of EDM in a way that gives neither it's right. Furthermore, I think if we want to talk objectively, we should add dubstep, drum & bass, grime, etc to this discussion, since I can assure you that working on a d&b's drum and percussion structure alone could take as long production time as that of a whole trance or house track. And what about techno bro?

I like what Nick is said though I think he is on about the musician side of productions and crow wants the technical aspect which comprises of several stuff, the lead melody being just one of them.

a really lively and great discussion on TH for a change ! nice topic Crow. Allow my 2cents:

I've recently (6months) been tinkering around on Logic Pro and Ableton 8 and 'producing' (in quotes because no one can call themselves a producer after 6months of bedroom productions) mainly deep and tech house (124-126bpm). I do this because this is pretty much the music I listen to now, love the groove in it, the bounciness and the limitless tinkering one can do. I'm also lucky to be surrounded by some really good producers who have shown me the ropes here in Dubai with both programs. I still barely konw about 20-30% of the programs I'm using but I'm not doing this for a career change only because after 17yrs of listening, clubbing, more listening, raving, etc.etc. I needed a new outlet with electronic music.

From what I've learnt, and watched others do: there are arguments for and against both. Its not a secret that trance track can have a lot more elements than house. You have the ups and downs, the synths, the melody, the breakdown with various dreamy elements, and the fact that most songs are on the 7-10min range. But you also have very broken down and simple trance melodies that work very well without the complications.

And its the same with house. When I first started, my friend was helphing me out and we'd literally use 7-8 different elements to make the track. it woudl be 6-7 min long and boom its done. Since then I've stuck to 7-8 elements but I've also messed around with about 20-25 different sounds, samples, loops, 1970s soul acapellas, guitar riffs, about 5 different bongo sounds, etc.

The bottom line is: it doesn't matter! Raneem said something I really like which was: KEEP IT SIMPLE. at the end of the day, what you listen to and love is all that matters. Trance and house are not a fine wine that need to be over analyzed to death.

Again, great topic Krowster