Classic Trance

What it is

Frankfurt got there first. Between 1990 and 1994 a handful of studios around the Omen club and the Eye Q and Harthouse labels took the acid records they had been importing from Chicago, slowed the squelch down, and put a long sustained chord over the top of it. Dance 2 Trance, Jam and Spoon, Sven Vath and Oliver Lieb are the names that recur. What they invented was an arrangement rather than a sound: hold one riff, take the kick out for thirty two bars, bring it back. Everything later in this family is a variation on that move. The drum programming is deliberately thin, because a 909 was playing all five parts at once and there was nowhere to hide a sixth.

What it sounds like

A 909 and not much else. The kick is dry and mid-heavy rather than deep, the clap is the machine's own clap with the accent turned up, and the open hat on the offbeat is mixed almost as loud as the kick, because on those records it genuinely was. Above that sits a single sustained pad, usually a Juno or a Waldorf, and a monophonic riff that never modulates. Delay is used more than reverb, and it is a hardware unit set to a dotted eighth so the riff answers itself. Nothing is layered. If a part is not audible you turn it up rather than doubling it.

Key elements

• The 909 offbeat open hatOn every and, ringing until the next kick clips it. Mixed loud enough that it reads as a second pulse rather than as decoration, which is what separates this from house.
• A breakdown with no drums in itThirty two bars with the kick muted and the pad and the riff left alone. Trance is the family that made this the centre of the arrangement rather than a transition between two of them.
• One riff, no modulationA monophonic line of eight or sixteen notes that repeats for the length of the record. It is allowed to change register and filter position, and nothing else.
• Dotted eighth delayA hardware delay set just under a quarter note so the riff overlaps itself. It doubles the apparent note density without a second part being written.
• Almost no closed hatA quiet tick on the quarter notes and, apart from a two hit lead-in at the very end of the loop, nothing between them. The open hat is loud enough that sixteenth activity underneath it turns the top end to mud.

How to get them

• KickA 909 kick with the tune knob high and the decay short, around 200ms. Do not add sub. These records were mastered for large but not especially deep systems and the weight came from the mid.
• Open hatSet the 909 open hat decay to about three quarters and put it in a choke group with the closed hat. Mix it within six decibels of the kick, which will feel wrong until you hear it in a room.
• The padTwo detuned sawtooths, a filter envelope of about four seconds, and a chorus. Play one chord and hold it for eight bars before you change anything about it.
• The riffSixteen sixteenth notes on a monosynth, one octave, no more than five different pitches. Automate the cutoff rather than writing a second phrase to follow the first.
• DelayA dotted eighth delay at around 30 percent feedback into a high-pass at 500Hz, so the repeats sit above the bass. Send the riff to it rather than putting it in the channel.
• The breakdownMute the kick, the clap and the hats together on a bar line and leave them out for thirty two bars. Do not fade anything. The abruptness is the effect you are after.

Reference points

Dance 2 Trance, Jam and Spoon, Sven Vath, Oliver Lieb, Cosmic Baby, and the Eye Q, Harthouse and MFS catalogues. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements.