Tech Trance - Style

Style

Tech trance incorporates traditional elements of techno, with its repetitive nature and strong 4/4 beat, while deriving the melodic elements from Trance. Tech trance compositions tend to have a tempo of around 128-150 beats per minute, which is still significantly slower than hard house or hard trance.

Defining features of tech trance are complex, electronic rhythms, heavily quantised and usually driven by a loud kick drum, with filtered, dirty or slightly distorted hi-hat sounds and claps; harder synth sounds, usually with a large amount of resonance or delay; minimal pads, often with sidechaining to increase the volume off the beat. While earlier variants of trance often featured piano, strings or acoustic guitar, tech trance almost exclusively features synthesized sound, though electric guitar sounds occasionally feature. The synths are short, repetitive and contain fewer note changes than Trance, often having the same note played in an interesting sequence. One example of this is Sam Sharp's "Deep".

While breakdowns and builds within a song are important elements of many electronic genres, they are less prevalent in tech trance. As a result, more abrupt stops and starts are used to increase the effect of sudden changes within the music. Vocals are also quite rare within the tech trance genre, with only short phrases or single words normally incorporated.