i spend quite a lot of time trying to put together cords in the form of pads to create a emotional and powerful feel particularly in trance but i can never really seem to get the sound i am looking for. I’m sure there is theory behind this that different progressions work well together and create this emotional feel. i was wondering can anyone help me out by sharing any knowledge that they know about cords and these emotional progressions that sit well in a track and give it that powerful feel, usually minor cords and yes i have seen the vid’s on cords 
i would like to make a progression that is one of the main elements of the track and not just a background sound so to speak. i will leave some examples of what I’m talking about. cheers br
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1st one is simple enough, pads come in at 1:00 br
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0XG4hvdH0br
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next one has very powerful pads that are the main element of the dropbr
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRpGnNNbOjY main drop 4:18br
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love these pads, again the main element of the drop, can be heard in breakdown around 2:20br
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5hXBZgr0obr
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every trance fan knows this one, supper pads, come in at 1:38br
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU428aV2Uecbr
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last one, a classic rework, 3 mins inbr
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O07DKbfsIBIbr
I can help you with that, being a long time professional musician and having listened to trance also for quite a few years. First of all, trance chord progressions are pretty simple as compared to some other forms of music such as jazz standards (very popular among aging pop stars), or Michael Buble stuff (Sinatra influenced), or many other forms of pop, jazz and classical music.br
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Here’s what to do: Figure out those chords on the piano or keyboard. If you can play that’s great. Warp up the section in Ableton, loop it and slow it down. I use this technique for many types of complex music. Or if you can get close to the sound with ANA and match the chords by painting them in the MIDI editor. I’m able to write music notation so that’s usually what I do with anything longer than a few bars. Whatever it takes. This process is called transcription and it’s the key to becoming better at music. It never ends. And I would not hesitate to advise learning to write music notation, whether on paper or in software. It’s still a valuable tool, even for EDM producers methinks.
cheers for reply, will do my best with these techniques
[quote]Dan Lynagh (30/09/2013)[hr]i spend quite a lot of time trying to put together cords in the form of pads to create a emotional and powerful feel particularly in trance but i can never really seem to get the sound i am looking for. I’m sure there is theory behind this that different progressions work well together and create this emotional feel. i was wondering can anyone help me out by sharing any knowledge that they know about cords and these emotional progressions that sit well in a track and give it that powerful feel, usually minor cords and yes i have seen the vid’s on cords i would like to make a progression that is one of the main elements of the track and not just a background sound so to speak. i will leave some examples of what I’m talking about. cheers br
br
1st one is simple enough, pads come in at 1:00 br
br
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0XG4hvdH0br
br
next one has very powerful pads that are the main element of the dropbr
br
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRpGnNNbOjY main drop 4:18br
br
love these pads, again the main element of the drop, can be heard in breakdown around 2:20br
br
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5hXBZgr0obr
br
every trance fan knows this one, supper pads, come in at 1:38br
br
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU428aV2Uecbr
br
last one, a classic rework, 3 mins inbr
br
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O07DKbfsIBIbr
[/quote]br
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One of the best examples of this is Rank 1 - Airwave, no lead so to speak just awesome chords used as the main riff.br
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Somebody posted some good videos a few weeks back on this, here’s one of thembr
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[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx8kra_lYsM[/url]br