Make sure your sampler has scsi and like a Zip drive for saving samples. I first got my esi-32 with 2mb of ram and that took a long time to save and load. I later upgraded to 32mb and got scsi and a zip, and that made saving and loading like 100 times faster.

Hey Jamie, I can tell you a lot of the Gear used on Dreamstate. Akai S3200xl, Acess Virus KB, Roland Juno 106, Casio cz101. Fx were partly Vst’s plus Quadraverb, Alesis 3630 and Digitech Studio Quad. Oliver did add a fair bit to his mix too but unfortunately I don’t have exact details on those.

Hope that helps.

Where else but Gearslutz does the original artist of an old trance track comment, Thats fantastic.

PS; This isn't related to the thread, but there is a user on here called Marc the Darc.. Thats not Darc Marc that used to do the early 2000s london acid techno type tracks is it by any chance?

Cool thread.

Agreed

No I don't think so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqsMFXDYYZI

Thanks for all the replies guys! Im leaning towards getting 3200xl or s950.
Thanks Aquilia! Im a big fan of the original track as well.
And holy ****, that Cafe Del Mar video is really ****ing cool!! Wow! That remix is legendary and this shows how they made it.

In addition to the S3200XL, the S3000 could also fit the bill. Same "pro" sound as the 3200XL, easy to find, and very inexpensive.

The S950 is a bit tricky to work with unless you only need to play a few loops at a time and is, IMO, really expensive for what it does. If you have the money and the space, it's a character box that might work well if you already have 1-2 hardware samplers already to cover more ground, but if not, the S3000 is a much better buy (IMO).

What a crappy thing to say.



What a wise thing to say

I am after a similar sound... the good ol' days, but I feel no need to work like it's 1999. It's about the sound and the production, after all; I feel like I can get great sounds that would work on a React/Hooj/Hook/Fluid/TEC/Tripoli release with out dealing with vintage gear. Maybe I'll be proven wrong...

Get older, see the world differently. Some of this is good - giving fewer fvcks about a lot of things that used to be of stupendous importance.

Some of this is bad - retaining anger and energy is not always that easy and if your current life is good but depends on the status quo, what are you going to kick against?

Some of it just sucks. Staying up until five makes me cranky. I used to be able to bite through it.

Just when I thought I was being minimalistic, here comes this classy guy to humble me. It's impressive what you guys did with so little. Obviously, it isn't about the gear, is it?

I have decided to go with the s950 despite it being trickier to work with. I think it sounds more oldschool then the s3000.
So far i have seen a couple of s900 pop up for sale here in Sweden, still waiting for the s950.

My gear list now consists of:

Roland Octa Capture
Minitaur
SH-01a
JU-06
JP 8080
Virus B
MAM MB33 Retro
Quadraverb GT
Midiverb 2

Ensoniq DP4+ i will buy whenever i see one for sale.

Im considering to buy some Cassette Tape Machine later on. If anyone have any suggestions what might suit making oldschool trance and is not to expensive please let me know!

You need S3000XL. Trust me. I was there in the 90's i saw what others were using. If i were to do that kind of music i would go straight S3000XL and Mackie CR1604 (not VLZ!). This Akai provides 10 individual outs. They are super loud & punchy, noiseless outputs. What makes XL special is that it comes with the Multi mode, something earlier Akais don't have. It makes setting up midi channels, polyphony and outputs a breeze. Get SCSI2SD, buy a couple of old school sample CD's, rip them as .iso files, write them on SD and you are done.

Four sample CD's to go for, because almost everything in the 90's originates from them:
-- Polestar Magnetics - X-Static Goldmine (the two CD version)
-- Zero G Datafile I (this one is a MUST!!!)
-- State Of The Art (super high quality)
-- XXLarge The Killer

If you ever build the drive let me know i might help you find the CD's.

This.

yes, imo two most important things are:

SOURCE - old hardware samplers (akai emu), a rompler or two (sy85, tg500 or jv1080) for those pads, vox, strings, an odd analog or two that is punchy fast (101,202, 106, aj2 etc), something old from yamaha fm (tx802 or tx81z) for basses and clicky sequences. and to round it up an early VA like NL1, JP or Virus B.

ANALOG MIX - mixer, live or studio, with ample aux sends, a compressor or two on insert for kick or bass, a bus compressor (or leave it to mastering engineer). 90s reverbs. done.



cassette was used only for quick and dirty demos, not as magic ingredient to add "vibe". if we are talking actual released electronics, about 95% was mixed into DAT , and 5% to a reel to reel (like early squarepusher etc). so if you have a solid converter on your DAW that will do.

Is that right? The S1000/S1100 only respond to a single MIDI channel at a time?

Wow. That’s all I can say with regards to this thread. In a way it has killed my gas.

Was listening to some 90s trance all day. Paragliders was the first trance song I ever heard and still one of my absolute favorites.

Anyway, I had Apple Music make a station based on Paragliders. Very interesting because it mixed and eventually transitioned to contemporary trance. The mixes were brighter with that wide unison sound, but wow did the kicks sound anemic. What I immediately noticed was the difference in the transient. Much sharper but thinner sounding kicks, compared to the thicker and rounder 90s. Also, the harmonies and melodies were much more uplifting, compared to the darker and somewhat tragic (I’m not sure that’s the right word) 90s sound. 90s sound had much more tension.

a Portastudio and a couple of Cassettes

It responds to any MIDI channel, that's not a problem. But it is permanently in "single" mode. Therefore you have to set each program manually, enter in the program, set outputs, midi channel and polyphony, close the program, go into another one and so on. And once you've made the "perfect" setup, you can save it as a Volume on the SCSI drive. So you can think of that as a multi. However, for each setup change (song revision), you need another Volume, and pretty soon you end up with an empty SCSI drive. The Multi is far superior solution. For compatibility reasons XL version included the Single Program mode so that you can work old school (for those who worked for years on Akais and got used to), or go Multi straight away.

Exactly. The old school leads had a bit of an edge. I would like to call it melancholic. The melodies in today's trance music are way too happy for my taste. At least the commercial stuff.

Completely agree. And i would argue that what you describe went even broader and deeper than this.

The early 90s were a little grim but brought a lot of legit art well into the mainstream. If you watch shows like X-Files here or movies like Singles in 2019, you can practically sense the unemployed Pacific Northwest loggers in the background influencing Kurt Cobain and shaping the culture!

This post has some info on gear used by MWNN.
The ultimate Goa Trance technique thread!
You can hear the Yamaha DX21 on his Moment of truth album. Does that punchy FM bass.
A Juno 106 and Nord lead 1 was also used by MWNN.

Have you tried faxing that number on the vinyl?

If that doesn't work, I second Don's suggestion: A good foundation would be the S3000XL + Mackie mixer + samples CD (btw, Lieb's own sample CD was super used too https://www.discogs.com/fr/Oliver-Li...elease/6721332)

The rest (synths & racks, etc.) will not define *that* sound as much as sampling i guess. (and that includes sampling yourself too: when you were lucky to have synths around, you would sample entire chords/bars to free them for another part!)

What is this necromancy?!

But it's worth noting that at the time (from ~98 till early '00s) Oliver Lieb heavily used Microwave 2 XT

L.S.G. Into The Deep album is filled with it and it's that synth which is all over Dreamstate remix

Just click through this video demo'ing presets (especially pads) and you will find quite a bit of a familiar character

A local guy had a big trance hit in 99, licensed to a big label in 2000 and played to death by alllll the corny dj’s of that time.

He used a mackie 1604, akai s2000, and Novation supernova to make the track. He had enough connection to know the name dj’s who came through town and other underground producers, so I’d guess he got recommended these pieces from others in the know at the time.

I’m sure the big names had enough money to have whatever equipment they wanted. I’m sure the local guy did after that hit as well. But I’d bet that the early jams by non rich people were all made on set ups just like this one.

And for those saying “it’s not the gear”.... of course it’s the gear. It always is. If you like that sound, this is how it’s done. You can approximate or whatever all day long and write a similar styled track, but it will never sound the same unless you worked the way those old tracks were made.

Stop thinking of limitations as a bad thing. Stop thinking about convoluted ways of working as a bad thing. These things forced one to think and work in a specific manner.

I personally wouldn’t really try to emulate this era of sound, I didn’t care for the music or the production quality even at the time. It just wasn’t for me. I only wanted to look in this thread to see how accurate the replies were to what I knew for sure happened in the late 90s. But the fact is... if you want it to sound like that music did, get this equipment and work this way. That’s the only solution. If you use a DAW it will sound like somebody using a DAW to try to copy 90s trance (������).

A hole is not a better hole because you dug it with a teaspoon instead of a shovel. Convoluted ways of working have no intrinsic value.

The infinity a DAW adds is something you would only get on an SSL with racks full of effects in an obscenely luxurious studio for the time. If all you have is a Mackie, you don’t get compressors per channel, or even multiple ones - at most you get one. So, you have to be a miser with what you can do. Instead of having as many multitimbral flavors of virtual analog as you want, those were big investments, like samplers - so you would have one at most, so you’d want it to have a starring role in most cases, with other sounds being handled by lesser devices.

The hardest part by far is exercising that restraint.

Of course it’s the gear. But it’s also the zeitgeist that you’ll never get back. Most of it has been demystified, so going back is not possible - we know too much.

This problem is not unique, and nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Is this the Chab of 'tribute to Bedrock mix' fame? That is one of my favourite ever tunes. Would love some insight into how you were making tunes back then.

I guess maybe YOUR music is able to be compared to digging a hole.

Mine.... not so much.

But when you just use the real tools... it’s not hard at all.

I don’t care about nostalgia.

I care about sound and feel.

Working in the same way makes the sound and feel right. Everything else is a weak copy.

You can say anything else you want and it does not change that fact.

Casio SK-1