the island (labyrinth two?)
By neon liminal on May 10, 2026 9:21 pm
Trance music is a lot of work.
This turned out well but I feel there's a great deal of "affect" and much less "intention". I learned a lot though.
This is also a rare completely-ableton production from scratch, no gear, no M8. Main trance-pad was made in Pigments, the weirdo acid line is Acid V, and the bass is SublabXL which I don't use often enough. All the sound design by yours truly. I consider it a privilege that I can design a sound I want faster than I can find it browsing presets.
It's very big. The vocals are not where I wanted them to be, but that's another sound design challenge which is a little complex but we are getting there.
There's an interesting dialogue in EDM production, varying on genre, on "where do you start?". With the mood? the groove? the kick? the lead? what's more important, the character of the song, or the part that makes you move to it? There isn't an answer, but I'm always fascinated to see where it seems to "demand" attention when I'm diving into a new genre. Sub genre. Whatever. I grew up on trance, but this is fairly different than the trance of my youth.
Also this inevitably dips into cinema. How cinematic is too cinematic for dance music?
Also, repeating, this is a fuck ton of work for one week holy shit.
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