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20-10-2008 From The Outside Special with Peter Dubs
- Thread starter dan
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everyone
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a lot of James Holden tracks, for instance 'I have put out the light' or Ficta - Eli
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M
Margoss
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just listened to those two, they do have a lot of bass, however maybe not as playful as in some other progressive tracks :grinning:
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a lot of bass? hmm.. i don't think so actually, maybe James Holden has a thick bassline yes, a bad example , sorry, i was more pointing out the melody with those tracks
... what do you think about uplifting then? an enormously massive amount of bass in those? those playful melodies are mostly found in progressive house i think.. I have to say that's what i really like in that style.. but some deeper tracks can be great too
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M
Margoss
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yes exactly, that deep throbbing bass in there, that's what progressive is about, the melodic parts are more in the background IMO, even though they also play an important role of course. (more in the foreground in progressive trance of course)a lot of bass? hmm.. i don't think so actually, maybe James Holden has a thick bassline yes, a bad example , sorry, i was more pointing out the melody with those tracks
IMO uplifting doesn't depend on the bass, as i wrote above you could reduce the bassline to just the kick and nothing else and still keep the same uplifting theme. (or even remove it completely if you wanna go the ambient path) some bass is needed of course to give it energy, but the bass more supports the melody, whereas in progressive it's exactly the other way around. IMO anyway.what do you think about uplifting then? an enormously massive amount of bass in those?
yes well i'm not talking about the melodies, only the bassline part, i think that's what defines progressive (and also gives it the name). of course you need the melodic parts too, but remove the bassline and percussion from a progressive track and it won't be progressive any more
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hmm i really don't agree with that. Melodies are more important than basslines in progressive tracks. Actually i think melodies are at least as much or even more important than they are in trance. I play lots of progressive sets and all of them are totally about the melodies in it. I really don't think the bass is that important as you say. Of course you can think what you want, but being in progressive 90% of my time i have to say basses are there to support the melodies, actually progressive basslines mostly have melodies hidden into them to support the main melody even more. Want examples? Sasha - Magnetic North (Subsky Remix), Subsky - Let It Flow and of course Sasha - Xpander , the most famous progressive trance track of all time.. all melodies, and no big bass or only a nice supportive melodic bassline to be seen BUT those tracks are still seen as progressive trance/house
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M
Margoss
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so what is your definition of progressive then? what features is it that makes a track progressive? and where's the difference between progressive house and progressive trance? i'm curious...
as to the examples you give i only have xpander handy, it does have the playful bassline i'm talking about (and yes, a melody embedded into it, which is also what i mean with "playful"), but of course since it's progressive trance, the melody is very strong, as opposed to a progressive house track, where it isn't (but still present of course). mind you i'm not saying the bassline is the most important feature, i'm saying it's the most distinct feature.
as to the examples you give i only have xpander handy, it does have the playful bassline i'm talking about (and yes, a melody embedded into it, which is also what i mean with "playful"), but of course since it's progressive trance, the melody is very strong, as opposed to a progressive house track, where it isn't (but still present of course). mind you i'm not saying the bassline is the most important feature, i'm saying it's the most distinct feature.
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it's hard to say what the difference is, the borders between progressive house and progressive trance are very very small... Myself i could say it right away, but i really can't give a definition to it.. I would say that if you're talking about playful basslines, you're most likely to find them in progressive house. I'm not agreeing with you that Xpander has a playful bassline actually, but the melody somehow quite is, without being super happy.. I'm also thinking that melodies are super important in progressive house tracks, but maybe a little less then in progressive trance. But i still would say it's the most important part of progressive house tracks.
For me, progressive house tend to be more funky, while progressive trance will be a bit more 'serious' in most of the cases. That doesn't want to say that all progressive house will be funky, i know lots of tracks that are deeper than the average progressive trance track. But well, it's hard to say what the difference is. If you're used to hear a lot of progressive you can easily make the difference between them, that's all i can say.. It's like learning another language, like French.. In the end you will have earned yourself a skill that makes it possible for you to 'feel' what gender the words are.. well.. by listening to a lot of progressive you will create that same feeling that makes it possible for you to say if the track is progressive house or not.
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Margoss
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well unfortunately that doesn't really help a lot. you give the example of languages, they have a clearly defined structure, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, rules. that's what makes up a language. the same applies to music genres. i can also tell when a track is progressive right away, but give it to a noob to listen to who has no idea what progressive is. you can tell him "this is progressive", but that won't tell him much, he still doesn't know why it's progressive, and he couldn't tell if another track is progressive or not if you don't tell him. just giving examples doesn't cut it, it's meaningless by itself, there's a reason why a genre is a seperate genre, and the reason is that there's a certain set of features that define a certain track as this genre. and while i'm not claiming that my definition is 100% correct, it does agree with most (if not all) tracks i came across and also with what other people are saying, and also people say "yeah makes sense" when i tell it to them. so it seems to get the job done quite well, even if you don't agree :grinning:
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about the language thing, i'm talking about the 'feeling' you get when you know a foreign language. I don't know if you know what i mean but i can tell the gender of any french word without having to use the rules for that. Actually i don't know those rules at all, but i'm still capable of saying what gender every word has. That's what i mean. I'm also not saying your definition is totally wrong, but well, it's not 100% too. That's all i wanted to say, defining genres these days is hard, as every style blends over with other styles, it's undeniable and makes it harder to define different genres. Actually i really don't like to put tracks in boxes like that, but i do care when people say 'progressive sucks' or 'it's all bleep bloop buzzy stuff' without realising what progressive house really is.
I do agree with you if you say in progressive trance the melody is more present than in progressive house. But there also there's a very strong presence of melodies, actually it's also the number 1 important thing in those tracks. Bass is not that important as you say it is, yet, it is frequently used to support the melodies.
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