trance set

Great job. Here’s some opinions/tips…which you’re free to dismiss if you wish.

What I liked:

You picked tunes that are not all the same. You put some variety in so it’s not one monotonous mix of similar-sounding tunes.

You have ENERGY…which in my book is what trance is all about. I hate when I click on a trance mix and it’s some sedated progressive house mix.

What I would suggest to work on:

Try putting some tunes with vocals into your mixes. I used to be all instrumental/synth in my trance, but found tossing in a vocal tune every 3-4 tracks will break things up even more, and bring the listener “down to Earth”.

Try not to blend melody on melody. You didn’t do this on all your blends, but some I notice you had clashing melodies because you wanted to not have your mix drag out. I’d suggest doing as Armin and the other big names do. Edit your tunes so they’re shorter, but you get nice clean intros/outros. I’ll usually mix in long form, then edit the tunes down in post-production, since a lot of trance is usually one buildup, big epic breakdown, climax, then down to basics before doing it a second time. You could cut things down in that “middle” so you could have tunes play shorter (as I assumed you want), but make things more fluid.

Again, great job. Please don’t take my comments personal. Just want to see you grow. 🙂

Hey. Just finished listening the to mix. Really enjoyed it – the great track selection/variety was a real stand out point for me.

I agree with D-Jam on the melody on melody clashing. To me (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) it definately feels like you’re rushing out of some of the tracks and therefore having to mix in the ‘busy’ part of the track. Having mixed a fair bit of trance over the years I can feel your pain in terms of the structure of trance tracks almost forcing you to play them for longer as the quieter/less busy sections tend to be right at the end.

I like D-Jam’s suggestion of editing tracks. If you don’t want to do that then looping may also be a solution. The world of digital/controllers makes this much easier than it used to be! Many trance tracks have a short ‘rest’ around 2/3 of the way through that you could loop and mix out of without clashing the melodies/energy as much. You wouldn’t wanted to do this all the time but it could get you out of a tight spot now and again.

Feel free to ignore me though! Just speaking from experience!

Keep up the mixes mate. I’ll definately check out your next one 🙂

I definitely with D-jam and groovepunk about mixing on melodies over melodies especially on the first transition when you mixed silex right over zodiacs “drop.” Try on switching EQs when your introducing new tracks such as taking out the Low EQ of the old tune for the new one. Or you can always wait till near the end of the tune where there is usually just a bass kick to introduce the new tune.

Overall great mix.