It’s hard to do much with such dense music. Trance has so much going on that FX or layering adds very little.
I’d say try layering different genres, like breaks or melodic techno, something with more “open space” in it. Or just go off the deep end and go with live production/remixing with Ableton Live. Reordering tracks, breaking them into layers and reconstructing them differently each time, adding your own bass lines and parts, turning your mix into a narrative with themes running through he whole thing (choose a break and see if you can layer it at the beginning, middle and end of a set with a different feeling each time. I’ve heard it done.), add your own vocal pieces from audiobooks. Cut out a simple 4-count loop and keep it going, play a new track over that and loop a tiny part of that one, add another track over the top and loop a piece of that one, keep going to see how many you can add before you have to take one out.
Seriously, if you’re bored with Ableton you’re bored with life. You can be endlessly annoyed with it’s little foibles, but bored, never.
lol psy blows
yeah i think with most trance except the cheesey euro pop stuff, less is more. A lot of tracks tend to use similar effects to what you’d throw at them anyway with traktor etc. I really think long, layered harmonic transitions suit trance perfect. Don’t feel like you have to use the bloody beatmasher just cos its there, basically
i find this myself. I spin trance with traktor in the house but if im playing out i always just play on the cdj’s. I dont think there is much you can do with trance imo without making it sound stupid/crap or too much going on.
When im playing techno tho i usually go for the 4 decks mash-ups because i find there is alot more space in techno tracks to play about with them.
Just one of those things i suppose but its always good to experiment and find out for urself and maybe i could be wrong
as far as trance goes… Harmonic mixing is pretty much where its gonna be at. I’m still trying to get my head around it, but I find if I can mix harmonically, with appropriate eq use I can use about 3 decks, and a sampler. granted, the third deck is really just stabs and the like, and the sampler isnt really necessary. If you were going to mess with it, I figure the break is about the only part you can have fun with. LFO, filter sweeps, little flange maybe, and a beatslicer.
Yeah, just ditch trance. Use the different genres, like breaks, that dark electro dance stuff (Noisuf-X), dubstep and techno to create whole new feelings, dude.