Melody VS Percussion

This is a big topic for me. Please respond if you've heard any of my recently hard trance sets. What do you like about hard trance? The melodies or the percussion? For the last six months I've been concentrating on a hard trancey-type sound that focuses more on the percussion and I love it!!! I seriously believe that this is future for the underground hard trance movement. It was always the drums I loved about hard trance rather than the riffs. Now something is starting to develop! It's feels like a completely new sound with a real passion for everyone who believes in it!!!! ... Let me know your thoughts...

i've heard you play a couple of times over the last 6 months and especially at the last North everything was going well hard and percussive. there was one hell of a lot of acid sounds being played too from you and m-zone and that uberdruck geezer!! its a sound i would definitely like to hear, the riff-style hard trance can be overplayed. I was in a record shop on Saturday and watched as they went through their whole pile of Hard Trance and every tune seemed to fall into the same tired old pattern. don't get me wrong, you can't beat a good trance riff but it has to be balanced with some dirty percussive tracks. Personally I like DJs who play sets where they build it with lots of techy sounds to a point where they've built it enough to drop a track with a proper monster-riff in it and then back to the percussive techy sound. i think the percussive sound will allow the dj to progress on to other sounds in their set, like being able to drop a few techno tunes without it sounding out of place would open up a whole new world for some fully headcracking sets :twisted: !!!

Don't get me wrong, I love trance but I don't like ten 3 minute breaks in one tune, it takes a bit of the dance out of dance music. Completely agree with you TOXIC bloke, progressively build up to a monster riff, it makes the trance tune sound so much better when its played after a good hammering. Like the eye of the storm...

Definitly todays underground is about the percussion side of things, espicially with the Italians. To be honest, I still love a decent Hard Trance melody but it's VERY rare to find a decent one these days. For example, I love Sky Surfer - Colours and the most of the older shokk + flutlict tracks... but they have ran out of ideas and sold their souls to the devil.

Now I'm happy to give it all on the dance floor to Technoboy or Blutonium Boy stuff and it's what I've been filling my collection with.

Rats to commercialism I say.

Goats to farmers and all that.

but to be fair there is a lot of 'Hard Trance' out there which is not based on the traditional style riffs which is really dark but people are not playing enough... not heard much recently but stuff like UNIX - 'another day' ( if you've never heard this track have a listen http://www.theonlinerecordstore.com/details/MON0003 - i ****ing love it and can't stop rabbiting on about it!) 'Mindblowing speed' and 'acid headcracker' i'd like to hear more of that style too... these tunes with some hard percussive Italian bizness...maybe a bit of indulgence in some techno, the occasional riff monster and who knows what else, would make for the kind of set I want to hear!! am i being too demanding?!?! :lol:

It's definetley all about the percussion for me, stuff like brain ovulation and megaphone's tracks are the way forward. If you must have a riff, make it dark!

This is a big subject for me also!

I would say my style of Hard Trance I play is 'Trancey' i.e Trancey sounding riffs and melodies. I dont think enough people are playing this sound nowadays with most DJ's playing really tough Hard trance or The Dutch 'Hardstyle' / Italian Tech-Trance sound
dont get me wrong Im bang into this sound of Trance but im a traditionalist and I prefer to play tunes with a trancey edge to them and maybe a few vocals here and there.

however I absolutley love percussion!!! not just hard kickdrums but all the little noises within the track that make it an awesome tune! I love 'tribaly' sounding tunes with bongo's in the background or even being substituted for the kickdrum. More people should start making annd releasing 'Percussive Trance' (If there is such a style) because there just isnt enough of it

Target - Harder they come - Tracid Trax 37 - was a quality 'percussive' tune!