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DAW

So basically there's gonna be a few things you're gonna need. First and foremost is your DAW. I use and I highly recommend Ableton Live 8. It's powerful and versatile and works both in Mac and Windows. And once you learn the interface, it's pretty easy to get ideas down on the page. Plus it comes with a great set of built-in plugins.


SPEAKERS

The next thing you'll need is a good pair of studio monitor speakers. This is really important because you're gonna need to listen to the full audio frequency spectrum to get the mixdown of the parts of your track just right. You want studio speakers because they have a flat frequency response, unlike say most crappy desktop speakers. A good starting point is M-Audio. Check out their BX8a or BX5a Deluxe studio monitor lines.


SOUND CARD

To go along with that, you're probably gonna need a decent audio interface (sound card). I recommend getting a good external firewire or usb card. The company I like and card that I use is from FocusRite. Check out their Saffire 6 USB Audio Interface. You're gonna want a card that has outputs that will work with your studio monitor speakers. Most of them are balanced 1/4" or XLR connections. I recommend getting something with balanced outputs, as this will minimize any noise that might otherwise be created, and will assure you get the best sound out of your speakers.


SYNTHESIZERS

Next you're gonna want to invest in some decent synthesizers. As a starving college student, I don't have a lot of money to throw around myself, so I only have software synths, but there are some really excellent ones out there. These days, software synths are becoming more and more powerful and give hardware a real run for their money. Most of the soft synths made out there are in either the VST or AU format; these formats are pretty much the standard that basically all modern DAWs like Ableton will be fully compatible with. A couple of the ones I really like are:

Native Instruments Massive

Lennar Digital Sylenth1

U-He Zebra 2.5

U-He ACE

reFx Nexus

reFx Vanguard

FAW Circle

Spectrasonics Omnisphere

Spectrasonics Trilian

Arturia Minimoog V

GForce Software Minimonsta

FXpansion - DCAM: Synth Squad

Rob Papen's Virtual Instruments

One thing to realize is that most of these plugins won't run by themselves. You must run them in a host application, like Ableton to work. I find that this confuses beginners sometimes. You just have to make sure you setup whatever DAW you decide to go with, to look at a specific plugin directory, and then make sure you install all your plugins to that folder so your DAW can see them and they can be ready for you to use (not just your soft synths but other plugin units like fx for example).

As you can see, there's a lot of great synths out there, based on different types of synthesis. And for me this is a really fun aspect of trying to make music. I am still learning myself, as there is so much to learn, but I suggest you try some of those synths out, get to know them, and learn synthesis.

Synthesis is a whole monster onto itself, so I also suggest going online and searching for tutorials on youtube to help with that endeavor.

OTHER PLUGINS

As I briefly mentioned above, synths aren't the only types of plugins you will need in music production. There's other plugins that you will need to use like compressors, filters, equalizers, vocoders, distortion unit, gaters, chorus, and delays and reverb to name a few crucial ones.

There's a whole world out there of these type of plugins, with many great people/companies making some AWESOME plugins. In fact, there are WAY-TOO-MANY to mention here. But alas, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I will list a few, in no particular order, that you can check out:

Audio Damage

PSP Audioware

FabFilter

Togu Audio Line

u-he's Uhbik

2CAudio

Studio Devil

WAVES

Camel Audio

Sugar Bytes

SYNTHESIS

Most synths will come with presets. Again, the fun for me is trying to come up with my own patches and sounds, but at first, some of those synths will look like spaceship control consoles. But I promise, once you learn some of the basics of synthesis, most of those synths will have the same basic functions that you will immediately recognize. So when you first start out, go into those presets, and instead of just simply using them in the parts you write, go into the synth, pick some presets that you like, and try to figure out how those patches were made. Play around with the settings and knobs and see how the sound changes. This will help you translate sounds that you might come up in your head, and then translate them "to the page". I could go on forever about synthesis but I've just hit the tip of the iceberg.

MUSIC THEORY

So do you have to have a degree in music to make electronic music? While it certainly helps, you don't need to know music theory to start making electronic music. Honestly you just need to have a good ear. Also, you will need patience, and dedication, because it's not going to come overnight. There's a lot of established electronic music producers out there that started out with basically little background in music theory. You just have to stick to it, and learn on the way!

If indeed you know little music theory and you're just starting out, a great book that I suggest you pick up RIGHT NOW if you're at all serious about starting production is Music Theory for Computer Musicians. It's ~$20 on Amazon. FTW!

MIDI CONTROLLER

Now, the next thing that really helps to have around in your studio, is a good midi controller keyboard. Now with most DAW's you'll be able to write midi parts out just by the click of your mouse, but trust me, this isn't really fun. Having a midi keyboard makes your life, a whole lot easier, it's more fun, and you can get parts down faster onto your DAW. You won't need anything too fancy. I suggest looking at the M-Audio Axiom line of keyboard midi controllers. The 49 key ones are nice ;)

SAMPLES

Now, some people like to create their own percussion elements. Whether by recording their own sounds, or tweaking the shit out of existing samples they might already have. This can be time consuming, and when you're just starting out, you just want to get ideas down. Since you're starting out, and you said yourself you just wnat to start making the beats you hear in your head, I'd suggest looking into getting some solid percussion sample packs. You're not gonna be at the level of making your own, so you're gonna need a little help when you start out. And many established producers use percussion sample packs which will have many single shot drum samples of kicks, hats, snares, claps, fx. Some packs will have loops, but I generally stay away from them. I suggest using the single shot sounds, and try and create your own loops from scratch. The place I like to go to get some solid packs are

Loopmasters

Vengeance Sample Packs

OTHER RESOURCES

Another good resource is COMPUTER MUSIC Magazine. It comes out every month, from the UK, so go to your nearest chain bookstore, because they're bound to have it. CM has great articles and tips, and reviews on the latest software and hardware that's coming out. They also have great interviews, and it also comes with a CD that comes with a lot of good free and trial software that you'll find useful. There's also usually a video interview from a top DJ/Producer/Electronic Artist which are always really insightful and great resource as you can see the perspectives of music making straight from other artists themselves. For these interviews, they'll usually go explain and show you how they made one of their tracks; like I said, an awesome resource from which you'll get some great tips.


IN CONCLUSION

I hope that what I've written you will find useful, and will be a good starting point. If I think of something else, I might yet add it here. And of course like it's been said, you just gotta go in your DAW and FUCK AROUND; that's the only way to get better - through PRACTICE. And go to places like YouTube and search for production videos. You'll find some good tutorials from which you'll learn some good tips, synthesis, and production techniques.

If you stick to it, dedicate yourself, you'll get there in no time. You're gonna find yourself making those beats you hear at night in your head, and turning them into reality.

EDIT: Added Music Theory and Other Plugins section :)

I don't know if this is interesting, but what the hell. I was mainly into hip-hop (everything from Do or Die to Master P) in my teens. I really didn't branch out from the genera except for the occasional R&B album (112, Keith Sweat, stuff like that).

I ran into some old racer buddies of mine (yes, those annoying Hondas with the exhaust systems, you know the kind) and one of them had just had his first experience with MDMA not too long before we met up again. He went on about how moving the experience was, the pure bliss he felt, etc. So me, not really giving a shit and looking for a good time said, "what the hell, I'll give it a go."

Jump about a week later. My buddy gets a hold of some pills from this chick in Boulder. They were called white elephants and according to the source, fucking good. We'd planned on chilling at his house and just listening to music when taking them, nothing too crazy. I didn't know what to expect. I had taken a few pills at some random raves about a year before (this was in 2001) but didn't really feel anything at those events. I had no clue that this night would change me as a person forever.

We took our first pill around 8pm and bullshitted, talking trash, having a good time. About an 30 minutes later, I get this funny feeling my stomach. Like my body was nervous and anticipating something. I can only compare it to the feeling you get right before you ask a girl for her number. Then this overwhelming sense of unity with everything took over. Like a tidal wave of warmth. Soon after I started feeling my pill's effects, my buddy asked me if I'd ever heard of George Acosta. "No", I said. I didn't even know what trance was at that time.

He put Release: PM edition in his CD changer. Now, he had this MB Quart speaker system set up in his grandmothers basement, and this thing SHOOK the house. It was one of the best home entertainment systems I'd ever heard at the time. The opening song nearly took my breath away. It was like I was on this beautiful, epic journey that seemed to unfold right there, in my head. I could literally feel the deep longing in the melody; the feeling of triumph at the end of the breakdowns. Every song there after took me to another chapter on this journey. I never knew music could paint such a complete, emotive picture.

Well, suffice it to say: I never looked back. I had to listen to trance whenever I could. And I still feel this way, almost 10 years later.

TL;DR: Took a bunch of pills one night, never looked back.

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Speaker-System-Z523-Subwoofer/dp/B002FU5QMK/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1342545729&sr=1-1&keywords=logitech+z523+with+subwoofer

Probably the best bet under $100. If you were willing to spend more, I would definitely have different recommendations for you! :) Hope this helps, let me know if you don't like those or want something different.

EDIT: Link with Prime; added some more links.


Also, these (for a little bit more money) would be MUCH more solid.

http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-ProMedia-Certified-Computer-Speaker/dp/B000062VUO/ref=sr_1_1_m?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1342545791&sr=1-1&keywords=klipsch+2.1


And if you want a 5.1 under $100 (I prefer 2.1 for PC speakers)... here is the best one.

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Surround-Sound-Speakers-980-000430/dp/B003VAK1FA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342545925&sr=8-1&keywords=logitech+z506

that's where i heard it, too! i'd love to be able to find some more trance like this... any suggestions? a friend of mine who had heard the song a while ago pointed out that there's a pretty good mix by DJ Irene available on Amazon (as well as other places) but... other than that, any suggestions?

Wow I didn't realise it was that hard to find. I've noticed there are some cheap used CDs of it around - the amazon marketplace might be a good place to look.

Here's what I get searching for it in the UK

Never thought BT would let it go out of print, I must admit. I really like that album too, although I think Movement in Still Life, the follow up, is better.

There used to be this trance.edu site, some researcher had a bunch of articles, some of it was pretty interesting, He wrote a couple books, here is one of them:

​

https://www.amazon.com/Trance-Technology-Dennis-R-Wier/dp/1888428384

​

He had some interesting ideas about music, said he found techno and DnB to be more trance inducing though.

I'm reading Mike Senior's Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio to figure out how to get my tracks to sound professional and a big theme is setting up the right monitoring environment and a consistent workflow. I have a habit of mixing while I compose rather than waiting to add effects later. While my friends really like my arrangements, my tracks always seem to fall victim to muddiness.

Do you have any tricks that you employ to keep a workflow organized and sounding nice while at the same time promoting the 'finish your tracks' mentality that you've already mentioned?

EDIT: Grammar...

If you haven't read Moby's book I highly recommend it. Basically he talks about his life in the 90s. Very interesting to hear what music production and touring was like during that time.

• Tranceport - Paul Oakenfold
  
  
• Most of the Euphoria series of compilations
  
  Trance was a big thing before the vocals became a part of it (even subtle ones>) The stuf from '96-2000 was some of my favorite Trance ever produced. That being said, it's grown and evolved from there while not abandoning the foundation entirely.
  
  I actually feel that it's possible to enjoy Tranceport (and similar mix albums from that 5-year span) as much as some of the weekly broadcasts today.
  
  

Conjure One - Center Of The Sun (Solar Stone's Chilled Out Remix)

Conjure One - Sleep (Solarstone afterhours mix)

I highly suggest you buy the Chilled out Euphoria CD by Solarstone and Euphoria: Chilled by Red Jerry

HD 598s
+
FiiO DAC

This is the combo that fit my budget, I am not a audiophile though - and I also to Drum and Bass. If you are listening on a PC, the DAC is a must-have. Whatever audio board my Asus Sabertooth motherboard had did not do these headphones justice. It was a brand new listening experience with the DAC.

The HD598's are on a good sale now! 0.0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0042A8CW2?pc_redir=1409137846&robot_redir=1
Definitely gonna consider this!
Thanks.

ICU Session 1 : Kimball Collins is another mix from the era that has a similar vibe. Awesome mix.

Listened to any of the Gatecrasher albums?

Personally recommend the Gatecrasher Anthems album.

It’s out of stock on Amazon but I’m sure you’ll find it elsewhere.

THIS is what you're looking for. Sennheisers are the way to go and this model, the HD 497 is affordable and the sound quality is amazing.

One of my favorite compilations:

Gatecrasher Anthems: Paul Van Dyk

If you feel that this decision was wrong and would like to contest it, you are free to use the modmail feature and ask our moderation team for a second opinion.

However, please note the following before doing so.

1. Trance is not a feeling, it is a genre of music. A track may make you feel "tranced out" but that doesn't mean that the track is a trance track.
   
2. This track is not regarded as trance by Beatport, Amazon or Discogs.

Not to be confused with the other Classical Trancelations, which is trance music performed by an orchestra as classical music

I remember it from trance nation america 2 back in the day, which of course has some tracks of similar style.

http://www.amazon.com/Trance-Nation-America-George-Acosta/dp/B00005MKIH

Dj Jean-Madhouse Winter Edition 2000

I'm 29. I blame this:
https://www.amazon.com/Ministry-Sound-Trance-Nation-1/dp/B00000K20T/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1487871689&sr=1-1&keywords=Trance+Nation