Old skool trance

Hi there

When I say old skool trance I’m talking 92-94

I’ve got some really old tapes that I’m going to that I think everyone will really like because

A) I’ve checked and double checked and not one of my Chris C Dizstruxshon tapes is ed to YouTube

B) (should make traffic cone happy) No Mcing, so no Yorkshire mc’s getting in the way, I know not all of you like our mc’s, I grew up with them so seems normal to me.

C) they are just straight trance, not hard trance. Chris C was playing full trance sets while m-zone was still 50% hardcore 50% hard trance.

I always thought Chris c only played trance as that’s all he plays on my tapes, it blew my mind when I heard him play hardcore and hard trance on some of the you tube s.

I’ve got most of the 93-96 hard trance that m-zone, Kenny sharp and noya used to play but non of the stuff Chris c used to play, in fact I’ve never heard any one else play anything like it.

Anyone got any pointers in the Trance direction from those early years ?

Early Trance is not something ive ever really record hunted for,
Listening to the trance on EXperimental has got me hooked on the journey rather than the knees up style hard trance records I own and used to dance to at uprising in the mid 90’s.

I’ve made it my mission to get one of those little tape recorder things that you connect to a computer from the recordjunkee shop in town tomorrow afternoon

I’ve got loads of videos to that aren’t on YouTube etc

How best to convert those vhs over to internet these days?

Think you guys will like the dance paradise ones, good balance in footage between the happy, jungle and techno rooms on those videos, not just happy focused like most vids.
Dj warlock live footage makes my heart warm 😂

I'm interested in what you consider "trance" and not "hard trance", because I don't know if those were that distinct in the early days. Some of the labels that come to mind, like Le Petit Prince, Harthouse, Overdrive, Fax +49-69/450464, Frankfurt Beat - had plenty of releases which you could classify as either, depending on the track.

Even techno and trance were close then: I have a rip of an Essential Mix on Radio 1 by Dave Angel from early 94, and Pete Tong introduces him as a "techno / trance DJ".

Rising High is a good place to start, maybe even with their "Secret Life Of Trance" series - they also licensed loads of stuff from the German labels like Harthouse and Fax.

Also for UK labels, there's great stuff on the Edge / Rabbit City / XVX labels on the trancey tip. Also the early Baby Doc / Dentist stuff as well - not forgetting Platipus too.

The other style that's quite close to trance around those times is progressive house. Particularly UK labels like Limbo, Cowboy, Guerrilla, Hard Hands, Brute, Strategy...also Belgian / Dutch labels, like Wonka, Fresh Fruit, Global Cuts - or Funny Vinyl (who released some of Vincent De Moor's earliest tunes). Loads of decent stuff there if you do a bit of digging :)

Scatter.Gun
I always thought Chris c only played trance as that’s all he plays on my tapes, it blew my mind when I heard him play hardcore and hard trance on some of the you tube s.

Interesting - because by the time he was producing, he was mostly focused on hard house / hard trance...I think his first releases were with M Zone (as Ganesh), although that was a bit later.

Scatter.Gun
Hi there

When I say old skool trance I’m talking 92-94

I’ve got some really old tapes that I’m going to that I think everyone will really like because

A) I’ve checked and double checked and not one of my Chris C Dizstruxshon tapes is ed to YouTube

B) (should make traffic cone happy) No Mcing, so no Yorkshire mc’s getting in the way, I know not all of you like our mc’s, I grew up with them so seems normal to me.

C) they are just straight trance, not hard trance. Chris C was playing full trance sets while m-zone was still 50% hardcore 50% hard trance.

I always thought Chris c only played trance as that’s all he plays on my tapes, it blew my mind when I heard him play hardcore and hard trance on some of the you tube s.

I’ve got most of the 93-96 hard trance that m-zone, Kenny sharp and noya used to play but non of the stuff Chris c used to play, in fact I’ve never heard any one else play anything like it.

Anyone got any pointers in the Trance direction from those early years ?

Early Trance is not something ive ever really record hunted for,
Listening to the trance on EXperimental has got me hooked on the journey rather than the knees up style hard trance records I own and used to dance to at uprising in the mid 90’s.

I’ve made it my mission to get one of those little tape recorder things that you connect to a computer from the recordjunkee shop in town tomorrow afternoon

I’ve got loads of videos to that aren’t on YouTube etc

How best to convert those vhs over to internet these days?

Think you guys will like the dance paradise ones, good balance in footage between the happy, jungle and techno rooms on those videos, not just happy focused like most vids.
Dj warlock live footage makes my heart warm 😂

Looking forward to hearing the Chris-C sets, one of my favourite DJs around 93-96 time. Keep me posted.

Lots of Chris-C Tracklists here if you wanted to look up some of the tunes he was playing:
https://www.yorkshiretracklists.com/dj/chris-c

Tbf I’m keeping my genres within Discogs context so we are are on the same page,
Trance meaning slower than hard trance and often more journey focused rather than almost rusty by comparison hard trance, and yes the lines blur immensely.
More often than not I think we are just referring to trance being a slower variety.

When I said I thought Chris c only played trance I was talking from the howden distruxshon era 93 94 95, mainly because that’s all I’d ever heard at the time, my tapes, no YouTube as reference back then, hope I’ve tidied that up even just a bit…😂

Also got all the Dentist - DJ fresh Trax tapes from dizstruxshon, not sure if anyone’s heard the one where Dj walker sounds off his cracker in disbelief introducing the dentist, he can’t believe he’s called the dentist and start giggling like a girl 😂😂😂…. Then he says mark briggs mark briggs, your mums at the door 😂😂😂 you can hear all the place erupt in laughter ,

Those early dizstruxshon tapes are amazing, mc Natz always telling every one off for robbing the garage 😂😂
He begs event after event and they still rob it blind after every rave 😂😂😂

Or when he’s always going on about the fat lesbian or the fat dyke looking thing at the garage 😂🙏 says she just jealous cus they are happy people and she’s a fat dyke 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Mc Natz was always calling motivator fat to, think natz was a fat phobe.

I actually kinda know mc natz.
My friend moved to Scunthorpe with a girl he met online (married her) anyway they all love new style happy hardcore over there in scunny and somehow my mate got friends with mc natz through his bird.
One night my mate phoned me up and said someone wants to speak to you, next minute he put mc natz on the line to say hello 🙋‍♂️😂
Had about 10 joking mc battles with natz on the phone over the ed 8-9 years … but never met him once 😂👍

That's what i mean - with trance from those early days, the style isn't as defined by tempo. Because there are lots of tunes which are a bit more typically "trancey" - more on the deep, trippy side of things - that are still quite fast. One of my favourites is "Schneller Pfeil" by Curare (which I first heard on Easygroove's set from Dreamscape 7) - which is a solid 170 bpm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgrQ0efmMnw

Don't get me wrong, you could still definitely call tunes like that "hard trance" - but it's also quite different to the more familiar "rave" style of hard trance, with more emphasis on anthemic angel choir melodies.

You do also see some releases on Harthouse with maybe one tune at 170, and another at 135 - on the same record.

Anyway, I only really mention this to understand what sort of tunes you're looking for :)

Funnily enough, i did have a look for old Chris C sets after my last post, and the one set from 1993 that was up there had quite a lot of bouncy Italian / Belgian hoover style tunes - which to be fair is what I'd expect from someone who went on to hard house :) And some trancier bits too - including 1 that was in my head for my previous post, "Tempestada" by Illuminatae (which is definitely one those tunes you might not know by name, but when you hear it you'll probably know it). He also weirdly plays the first SMD release - both sides!

But that's why i love listening to sets from 93/94, the music was going in different ways and most of the DJs hadn't picked their direction yet, so you get nice variety.

Forgot to mention the label Out Of Romford as another recommendation - run by a duo called "New Decade" who started out hardcore, before going down the trance / techno route around 93/94. And one of them made a tune that might be the greatest UK hard trance tune of all time: "Tears" by Out of Order (if you don't know that one look it up!). They actually started it up again more recently, but as part of Kniteforce (but more on the breakbeat tip).

Scatter.Gun
not sure if anyone’s heard the one where Dj walker sounds off his cracker in disbelief introducing the dentist,

shame DJ Binman never played down there, that would really have blown his mind!

I still think it's mad that 2 of the Dentist's early collaborators was HMS and Simon Sanders (one of the guys behind the label Crapshoot). That really shows you how far the music split apart as the 90s went on!

As for Natz, to be honest I can barely make out what he's saying half the time.

ittedly that's partly because i have sort of trained myself over the years to tune out MCs :D I hear them, but it's not the bit I'm listening to.

I have the same thing when my flatmate plays me grime - I like the style, and I can appreciate the general flow of the MCs, but what they're actually chatting I mostly couldn't tell you

And of course the accent / slang is always a factor too - I can understand why MCs often have more appeal to their local audience, as the Yorkshire ones do. Same with the MCs in the North East.

I'm not saying it's a right way to do it but personally, I don't call it Hard Trance or Trance (when talking about that period, style and DJ's), I call it Hardcore Trance and I tend to group that by labels.

Trance to me is late 90's Ferry Corsten, Signum, Tiesto, Paul van Dyk etc etc right up to present day stuff by Mark Sherry, Davie Forbes, Woody etc.

and Hard Trance is stuff like Dark By Design, Phil York, SHOKK, Uberdruck etc.

It's just how you feel comfortable when it comes to managing your own collection at the end of the day and what sits right with you.

Where it does get messy though if you are doing it my way and grouping by labels is that some labels (Le Petit Prince, Superstition, Universal Prime Breaks for example) start off with what you could consider Hardcore Trance then move onto more mainstream sounding Trance and Techno and even things like Prog House - so again, you really just need to then think to yourself overall what style, in the main, you consider that label to be and roll with it.

There's no perfect way to pigeon-hole it, so no point trying.

I'd recommend the early Reactivate albums as a good start point. To add to the labels that have already been mentions id add the early Prolekult and Bonzai tracks.

Prolekult is a great shout. Excellent label.

Strange choices of album covers some of them though.

great label, but a lot of the best releases are after the 92-94 period :)

one label that is worth a mention, and maybe not obvious for trance, is Labworks. In fact - that's a good example of what I mean by techno & trance being together back then, because they put out plenty of trancey bits, alongside the heavier acid madness. Sometimes on the same records.

And some of their artists have tons of great stuff under many other names (like Patrick Sjeren - or Thomas P Heckmann)

Right, could do with some help here please, who knows about computers or computer audio??? 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️

Been on Reddit and quora and the mini tape conversation device, Walkman looking thing is regarded as not as good as the (cassette deck separate to some kind of interface that acts as a analog to digital converter)

Struggling on how to get best results from these tapes, I mean I have a good denon tape deck, a computer, tapes and all the will in the world, all I need is this interface thing, which I know nothing about.

When I used to use my old tape to pc converter it was for track ids not for actual whole tape rips, I mean I could of but I didn’t cus the sound was terrible.

i was having a mix earlier and reminded me of a few gems:
https://www.discogs.sitioby.com/release/14705-Country-Western-Reincarnation-Positive-Energy - this is one of the "progressive house" tunes that to me is a trance classic.

ok I'll stop there :)

Poltergeist - Vicious Circles

I think that one goes well with a lot of the above. Always loved that. Really haunting.

Scatter.Gun
Right, could do with some help here please, who knows about computers or computer audio??? 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️

Been on Reddit and quora and the mini tape conversation device, Walkman looking thing is regarded as not as good as the (cassette deck separate to some kind of interface that acts as a analog to digital converter)

Struggling on how to get best results from these tapes, I mean I have a good denon tape deck, a computer, tapes and all the will in the world, all I need is this interface thing, which I know nothing about.

When I used to use my old tape to pc converter it was for track ids not for actual whole tape rips, I mean I could of but I didn’t cus the sound was terrible.

Do you have a line in on your computer? I record from my tape deck direct to the line in on my computer.

Otherwise, I think you will need something like this: https://www.thomann.co.uk/focusrite_scarlett_solo_3rd_gen.htm

https://youtu.be/ZXT6iZ7f9Us?si=2Z-sSNgH1m7vLqKg

Not trance, well kind of b2, but this dp is mega regardless, just putting it in cus it’s mega
https://youtu.be/_nimNelvVN8?si=6AHLT0gSWIgoXulF

https://youtu.be/d7yLMsyCQ9c?si=3DDlv6qhF4vRS1bU

Carlkutta
Sin-e-adRight, could do with some help here please, who knows about computers or computer audio??? 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️🙋‍♂️

Been on Reddit and quora and the mini tape conversation device, Walkman looking thing is regarded as not as good as the (cassette deck separate to some kind of interface that acts as a analog to digital converter)

Struggling on how to get best results from these tapes, I mean I have a good denon tape deck, a computer, tapes and all the will in the world, all I need is this interface thing, which I know nothing about.

When I used to use my old tape to pc converter it was for track ids not for actual whole tape rips, I mean I could of but I didn’t cus the sound was terrible.

Do you have a line in on your computer? I record from my tape deck direct to the line in on my computer.

Otherwise, I think you will need something like this: https://www.thomann.co.uk/focusrite_scarlett_solo_3rd_gen.htm

Good call Calcutta, I’d seen someone talk about these on Reddit, they are perfect for the job

I've been meaning to look into those audio interfaces, because my current laptop doesn't have a line in. (I think that might be common nowadays as I'm pretty sure my previous two laptops didn't have a line in either).

However - as far as I can tell, most of the audio interfaces are for proper studio use, where you might want to connect multiple devices of different types, as well as proper studio monitors...

Considering all I want to do is record my mixes, buying an interface like that seems like overkill - I'm a little reluctant to pay £75 just to connect my mixer to my laptop...

traffic_cone
I've been meaning to look into those audio interfaces, because my current laptop doesn't have a line in. (I think that might be common nowadays as I'm pretty sure my previous two laptops didn't have a line in either).

However - as far as I can tell, most of the audio interfaces are for proper studio use, where you might want to connect multiple devices of different types, as well as proper studio monitors...

Considering all I want to do is record my mixes, buying an interface like that seems like overkill - I'm a little reluctant to pay £75 just to connect my mixer to my laptop...

You can get less expensive interfaces, I bought a cheap one for about $25 over here in California, but had issues with my laptop recognizing it. Also had a hell of a buzz when recording and very little play with recording volume (loud and distorted or too quiet). I have an old desktop pc that has a line in that I keep for recording my mixes and tapes

Right - I guess what I was hoping was that you could get one that was cheaper because it had more basic functionality, rather than poorer quality. Or even just an adapter that I could plug the cable that would have gone into the line in into.

It's just weird having to suddenly buy an expensive device to do something that my laptop from 15 years ago (which was much worse for its time than mine is now) had built in :D Isn't technology great.

Yeah, that’s why I kept an old pc just for recording.

I may have just got a shitty brand or faulty interface. Some of it could have been my cables and connections.

I think there are audio out to usb cables. Not sure what the quality would be, but it might be worth trying. I shouldn’t think they would be expensive.