Tech trance

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Tech Trance is a sub-genre within electronic music that draws upon the Techno and Trance genres as the name suggests. Tech Trance was pioneered by Oliver Lieb in the mid 90's. Other early Tech Trance producers are Humate, Chris Cowie and Marmion. Tech Trance later took a new turn in the early 2000 when producers such as Marco V and Randy Katana sprung out as the leading Dutch Tech Trance producers. This new Tech-Trance focused less on the Techno elements and more on a higher commercial value. This appealed to several Trance DJs such as Ferry Corsten, Tiesto, and Armin van Buuren, who each started incorporating Tech Trance into their sets.

Tech Trance incorporates traditional elements of Techno, with its repetitive nature and strong 4/4 beat, while deriving the melodic elements from Trance. Tech Trance compositions tend to be around 135-150 Beats per minute. Tech Trance tends to utilize a more driving sound while commonly using distortion as an effect on the melodies. Commonly, the melody containing strings and pads will begin once the beat has completely stopped, playing by itself much like a Trance breakdown. This melody will suddenly stop, leaving the drums and a completely different synth to begin, whereas Trance songs would generally continue with the same melody. The synths are short, repetitive and contain less note changes than Trance, often having the same note played in an interesting sequence. For an example, see Sam Sharp's "Deep".

While breakdowns and builds within a song are important elements of many electronic genres, they are less prevalent in Tech Trance. As a result, more abrupt stops and starts are used to increase the effect of sudden changes within the music. Vocals are also quite rare within the Tech Trance genre, with only short phrases or single words normally incorporated. Tech Trance is currently quite an underground genre, but is growing in popularity due to its hard-edged nature and growing list of producers.

[edit] Tech Trance compilations

Oliver Lieb - Phuture Tech Trance Volume 1

Marco V - Live At Innercity 2000

[edit] Tracks

Ivan - Red Star (Pads mix)

L.S.G. - Netherworld

Spicelab - Two

Mindspace - Mindcontrol (Tech Mix)

Vegas Soul - Retrograde

Hwee - Boomsis

Incolumis - Tsunami

Jesselyn - Omnia (Tech-Trance Mix)

John Remedy - Ventricle (Lamoen & Lishious Mix)

Krzysztof Chochlow - Release / Reserve Midnight / Island of Sound

L.S.G. - Blueprint (Version 1)

Kuisma and Rush - Yogatech (Incolumis Remix)

Schiller - Das Glockenspiel (Humate Remix)

Natious - Amber (Oliver Lieb Remix)

FilterFunk - S.O.S. (Message In A Bottle) (Sander Van Doorn Remix)

Emjay - Real High (AK47 Remix)

Evolution in Tech-Trance Production

Since the development of Tech-Trance, hard house producers have evolved their style and incorporated it into the Tech-Trance sub-genre. See such tracks as "The Pod/ Modularis" by Vinylgroover, The Red Hed and Anne Savage. This usually constitutes of hard house percussion/drums, techno keyboards/samples and trance breakdowns.