Hard Trance - Is it fizzling out?

[DJ RE:HAB]

Further to a post i was reading from Mark & Hakka, is the sound of hard trance i.e. Psr - History, becoming more of a trend than an actual sound.
Myself for instance have found myself playing alot more Hard Style i.e

Techno noise
Pyscho hardstylers
Kicks and Bass
and various FSC and uberdruck.

Now dont get me wrong i enjoy melody, but it takes a very good one these days to get me goin. 2 very good examples i would say that i have bought recently are Avatar - Second Step. these i thought were excellent productions, a nice mellow breakdown followed by a spine tingling melody. These tow tracks brought me back to thinkin of the days with Life on Mars - Cosmophobia - Tetsuo -.


Anybodys elses views on what they think of the hard trance sound, is it becoming repetitive, or does it need a good injection of some of the old skool stylee, mentioed above..

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[DJ IKON]

Nah I dont think it is at all. The sound will always be there if producers are still producing it and people are buying the records - which they are on both counts!

Ive always been a fan of the melodic side of hardtrance and anyone who knows me or has heard me play on this board knows (up until maybe a year ago!) that I love labels like - Fog Area, Axwax, Drizzly etc
Labels that release good melodic trance but with that harder edge to them.
I have had stick from other DJ's about it but it dont bother me because this is the style of hardtrance that does it for me.

I was never a fan of the 'Tracid traxx' sound - i.e Scott Project, Kai Tracid, Hennes + Cold, Overdose, Tracid traxx (you know what sound I mean)
to begin with yeah it was great, a new sound, but after a while of hearing full sets of tunes that sounded the same all night long it started to get a bit tedious and people got bored of it.
this is my worry about the Italian sound (Hardstyle) - I think its being played to death and people are going to get bored of it very quickly.
At the moment its still in its early stages and some awesome trax are being released but I have started to notice a similar sound to a lot of trax on different labels and from different producers, sound familiar?
dont get me wrong I am spending stupid amounts of money on Italian labels at the moment but for how long is the question - I dont want it to go down the path of the 'Tracid' sound because it is an exiting new sound and has a lot of potential especially for the 'underground' ( I use that term loosely) scene.

The point im trying to make is that melodic/bouncy hard trance wont faze out because I believe that people are still gonna want to hear it in the clubs, as they want to hear the whole range of hardtrance rather that 'hardstyle' all night!

[DJ RE:HAB]

I agree with you completely Ikon on a certain level.. The point i was trying to make was that if you look at some of the more melody trance being released its level of production with some releases is very weak, compared to the release from 99-00, i think personally it has been on some decline for a while now.... Overdose for example, seem to be releasing a lot of Gatecrasher anthems at the mo, and i remember tracidd went down the same way with there melody trance.. Arrakis "the spice" i remember hearing get played there a while back on rapture.. Dont get me wrong i too enjoy melody, i just think at the moment alot of the stuff being released, is on the border of commercialism..

You cant possibly say that 99-00, when for example energy was Mc'ing at events the trance played then was bordering on commercial.. It was a completely different sound, more underground, and a better one for that.. This is just my opinion of course.. But the sound was lot better.

I still buy dose and pulse and i will be buying PSR, but in my eyes the tracks like DJ Wag Avatar - Dj Wag - Second Step, are exceptional Hard trancers, that is the stuff that is needed more..

[mattshephard]

yeah, its a wierd one this. I looove hardstyle but i can see it being similar sounding, so its good to have a few melodic tunes chucked into a set for a change....which i say some djs on the scene do very well do make it sound different.

Thats why the hard trance sound was mint pre 1999. Hard, fast and some superb meldies that screwed your head up which was quality. This dimished after 99 and i though hardtrance was sounding very weak and to be honest crap due to gatecrasher and the likes until end of 2000 when its started getting harder again (thank god). Sinned666 - im not sure if your saying that you thought the sound of 99-00 was better or not?

To be honest im not worrying as theres very talented producers out there, as long as hardtrance/hardstyle it stays hard and exciting im gonna keep on buying it.

[epidemic001]

This dimished after 99 and i though hardtrance was sounding very weak and to be honest

I know what you mean m8, there was a point around 2000 when it seemed laughable to even call it "hard".

[MARKEG]

yes, i think the offbeat bassline and hard kick was always the thing that defined hard trance but then it became infected with cheesy melodies last year. thank god for italy. but now EVERYONE who knows anything about hard trance has jumped on this and off the german sound. but recently i've missed the melodies that go together with the hard bottom end to form the german sound. i know many people feel the same. and because of this some people in certain areas of the country where hard trance has been huge are playing the old stuff. and i think when you start to play old stuff, something is wrong.

hard trance will never fizzle out, but it is going through a period of immense chage like never before. i think it's a very exciting time and it makes me work even harder to find my own sound.

[Hakka.]

When you say play old stuff Mark do you mean an entire set or just the odd track? Just that I love the idea of placing hard trance classics like Sky Surfer - Colours for example with the the new stuff of today.