Trance music

Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s; released two albums in the late 1970s: Oxygène in 1976 and Equinoxe in 1978. Also a possible antecedent, Neil Young's 1982 electronic album, Trans, bears a resemblance to the trance music genre.

Examples of early Trance releases include but are not limited to German duo Jam & Spoon's 1992 12" Single remix of The Age Of Love.^:15, German duo Dance 2 Trance's 1990 track "We Came in Peace",^:35, with the 'harder' styles of trance (such as psytrance) generally being a higher BPM. Occasionally, trance may be faster and slower. A kick drum is usually placed on every downbeat and a regular open hi-hat is often placed on the upbeat or every 1/8th division of the bar,^:253 though trance featuring breakbeats is not uncommon. Extra percussive elements are usually added, and major transitions, builds or climaxes are often foreshadowed by lengthy "snare rolls"—a quick succession of snare drum hits that build in velocity, frequency, and volume towards the end of a measure or phrase.^:266

Synthesizers form the central elements of most trance tracks. As with other genres of electronic music, important synthesizers are the Roland TR-808, TR-909, and TB-303, which is the source of the "acid" sound. There are also several synthesizer sounds that are almost completely unique to its genre. One of these sounds is the supersaw, a waveform made famous by such classic trance synthesizers as the Roland JP-8000, the Novation Supernova, and the Korg MS2000. A technique called "gating" is often employed in creating lead sounds (turning the volume up and down rapidly in rhythm with the piece to create a stuttered, chopped sound). Rapid arpeggios and minor scales are common features. Trance tracks often use one central "hook," or melody which runs through almost the entire song, repeating at intervals anywhere between 2 beats and several bars, in addition to harmonies and motifs in different timbres from the central melody.^:266

While many trance tracks contain no vocals at all, other tracks rely heavily on vocals, and thus a sub-genre has developed. The sound and quality of the production relies to a large degree upon the technology available. Vintage analog equipment is still in common use, with names such as Moog, Roland, and Oberheim staples in the trance sound palette. However, the mainstream availability of digital technology has allowed a whole new group of producers to emerge. While top shelf digital (or analog modeling) synthesizers cost thousands of US dollars, high demand and a small supply of clean vintage analog synthesizers causes them to be extremely expensive.

Trance records are often heavily loaded with reverb and delay effects on the synthesizer sounds, vocals and often parts of the percussion section. This provides the tracks with the sense of vast space that trance producers tend to look for in order to achieve the genre's quality. Flangers, phasers, and other effects are also commonly used at extreme settings; in trance there is no mandatory requirement for sounds to resemble any real-world instrument, although real-world instruments or synthesizer sounds which replicate them are not uncommon.

As is the case with many dance music tracks, trance tracks are usually built with sparser intros and outros in order to enable DJs to blend them together more readily.^:19 Records that adhere to this "build up, strip down" arrangement during intros and outros are referred as being "DJ friendly". As trance is more melodic and harmonic than much dance music, the construction of trance tracks in such a way is particularly important in order to avoid dissonant (or "key clashing," i.e., out of tune with one another) mixes by DJs who do not mix harmonically.

Sub-genres