View Course
Sonic Academy welcomes James Dymond to take the controls and guide us through this all new ‘How To Make Uplifting Trance’ in FL Studio 11.
25 year old James is a classically trained musician-come-producer from the UK who has exploded onto the scene in a blaze of light of musical glory back in Sept 2011 and here he delivers a trance masterclass with an emotionally charged melody that would fill the biggest of dance floors, a huge breakdown that instantly lifts the mood and of course, driving percussion that raises pulses.
No wonder Armin on his ASOT show stated - “If you were to look up ‘uplifting’ in a dictionary, I’m sure you’ll find James Dymond in there somewhere!” .
We think James is soon to become a major player in the Global trance scene, so enjoy learning from this unique talent.
1 Like
after years, finally some of trance!! thanks
This course was everything I needed and more. I have learned so much. Cannot thank you guys enough for putting this together!!
Really great course a lot of great knowledge shared! #soundingprettygood
I would recommend Sonic Academy to host Toby Davy, He is a badass FL Studio Guru, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Pretty basic things that are for free on youtube. There's a lot of knowledge left out and tbh it's nowhere near the quality he usually brings to the scene. If you are new to producing this will teach you ofcourse, but as said it's pretty basic.
Hey Martin, sorry you thought it was basic, I found it very informative and insightful, and showed exactly how to achieve that main room trance sound. What area didn't you think was covered well so we can look at it for future courses.
Common sonic academy you have done epic trance tutorial you have also done Peaktime Trance before..no one absolutely no one listens to this very outdated genre..beatport top 40 in trance is all trance 2.0 or modern trance
We havnt done this style in FL Studio... We have the Trance 2.0 fast track build in ableton
Sonic Academy needs to step it up a bit. the stuff out there nowadays is brilliant. No more beginners tutorials please. there is plenty of their old tutorials that are great and designed for beginners, but it's time to start making music that sound like beatport charts. this will help us producers that have been your members since the beginning of it all. Thanks..i appreciate all the hard work :)
Hi Moro, thanks for the feedback - over the past while we have had James Dymond who has had several beatport top tens, Dancing Divaz who have remixed everyone from Prince to Queen, Sharooz, who was a founder of beatport's own sample company 'sounds to sample' and one time beatport executive, Rob Activa who has worked with everyone from Above and Beyond to Paul Oakenfold and is regularly touring the world even playing for PVD on his birthday , and the excellent Chymera who's course which went down a storm - have a read of all the positive comments on his course page. Not to mention interviews with Protoculture, Chicance, Matt Lange, Maor Levi, Ilan (all 2.0 trance, not to mention all the very left of field producers we feature) and the soon to be released trance 2.0 stars 'Genix' and '7 skies' we have some special news on him coming soon!. So I believe we have 'stepped it up' quite bit recently and we are getting unbelievable feedback on these courses each and everyday. No other site is bringing you all these artist and showing how it is actually done in the real world.
I think that this style of trance may not be your thing and thats cool, but we have always and will continue to cover every genre in the dance music family, as you can ALWAYS learn something from all aspects of music. We have also have a 'EDM Prog House' course in the works with an artist who has had beatport no1s and suport from Testio, Aforjack, Nicky Romero, Guetta, Hardwell etc etc.
Always glad to hear which style and or artist you would like to see on SA!.
Hope this helps Moro. -- Chris
Chris, Phil...in my opinion you guys nailed it with this tutorial from James Dymond and also the one from Activa, and I hope that you keep more coming on this genre and tutorial style. I've found these tutorials full of important professional tricks that's not easily found elsewhere for free (at least not in a consolidated manner).
Even considering that James' tutorial is not on my DAW of choice (I'm a Logic Pro X guy) I found that this was secondary to the actual important content of the tutorial, since the actual professional tips can be applied no matter what DAW you use.
I'd highlight these aspects:
- Great depth of details on all the aspects of the track
- Excellent idea to use ANA and focus on using some presets. Many other tutorials spend a lot of time on sound design and I believe that part should be kept separate on dedicated SD tutorials. The real substance on this tutorial is how to effectively use the effects and arrange the track to reach that professional Dymond/Tyas/Patterson type of sound, and it delivers that.
- Dymond has a style of teaching that's focused on providing that knowledge that goes beyond the basics but in a very approachable way (i.e: how he uses the EQs to get rid of the resonance on kicks and basses)
All in all excellent guys.... I would hope that we could have a similar one in the future with my all time favorite Sean Tyas :)
Thanks... Quanta
speak for yourself. also, beatport top 40 <> the be all and end all. I thought these tutorials were sound!
I felt like this tutorial was like a YouTube video of Gorden Ramsey showing you how to make a Spaghetti Bolognese. If I follow his instructions it will taste ok, just like when I followed James' Tutorial my track sounded ok. I dont want it to sound ok, I want to go to the next level which is why I pay my subscription. Most tracks and tutorials are laid out the same. but I have to agree
with Moro. The tutorials need to step it up a bit. Its ok taking the
bottom end off everything but the bass and slapping a bit of EQ on it,
but this alone does not make a good track. What I want to know is....what
makes a good melody, bass line, chord progression. Why certain sounds
go together, and why certain sounds suit specific genres.If this is how James Dymond makes his tracks, by following his own advice here, then Im suprised he has got to where he is today. ( No offense James I can tell you know what your doing, I just feel your not telling the whole story, just like most 3 star Michelin chefs don't )
I totally sympathise with what you are saying. But for some (maybe most) producers. The "art" of knowing whats a good melody, what chords go together or what sounds go together I s just an instinct rather than a set of rules they follow. this instinct is learned through years of trial and error and practice. I've tried to dissect my instinct for some of these elements in the trance 2.0 course. So I'd recommend checking it out.
Thank you Phil for the reply,
Ill go check the Trance 2.0 out now. Further more, I don't wish to sound like Im saying the tutorial was in anyway a bad tutorial, just that I was hoping it was more in depth in certain areas, the Pads being one of them. Id like to have know a little more in this area, such as what makes them fit and chords that go with them, If the F minor was chosen for a reason, and if certain Chords suits genres better. Maybe its just me craving for more information. :)
No probs, F is a good note for the lowest bass note usually. In the trance 2.0 I tallk quite a bit about chords and registers etc and what works and why.
Some people are expecting too much. You can't learn everything from one tutorial! It takes years to learn and become proficient. If you just take away one aspect from each tutorial you're building up your knowledge base. One thing I found great about this tutorial was his insight on having great transitions. If you want to learn how to make chord progressions, melodies, etc try learning more about music theory and don't just sit watching tutorials about how to make melodies. Learn by making them yourself, find out what sounds good to you. There was plenty of great info in these videos and I highly recommend it, especially for people who have trouble with arrangement.
I think your opinion is 100% valid but my impression is that what you're looking for should be addressed on a different kind of tutorial. I believe that tutorials like this are more oriented to the genre and the producer himself, so aspiring producers can learn a few tricks on how someone like James Dymond or Activa achieve their signature sound. For me that point was fully covered on these tutorials and even more.
The more musical aspect of producing which involves melodies, chord progressions, key selection, etc. I think should not be addressed within the same tutorial realm as the "Producing x genre" type of tutorial, because it would require an instructor more profesionally trained to be a trainer on those musical aspects of production.
Today's professional producers are used to work very rapidly because most of the time they need to fulfill label's targets, so they develop this machine-gun style that sometimes is mind-boggling... just consider the chapters where James made the arrangement of the track full with intro, outro, breakdown, transitions, etc in just a matter of a few minutes.... but in order to do so they had to compromise by having pre-made .mid files with melodies and chords and using presets, otherwise the tutorial would need to run for 25 hours instead of 5.
Take a look at the tutorials by SeamlessR... who is not a producer as successful as Dymond or Activa, but instead is a very very successful instructor who makes most of his income giving personalized lessons about DAWs and production techniques.
Very nice! No you will not learn music theory or the one secret to getting signed to FSOE in 5 hours. But the nice thing is you can download it so you can use it as guide (TUTORIAL) to design your own sound and if you need to learn about progressions, keys, scales and the like there a lot of great sites out there :) yes you can just copy the presets out of the folder or better you could work toward a sound that "speaks to you" after all that is what music is all about. Yes you can find some of this info on YT for free some of which may be totally wrong when used in practice but I'd much rather have they whole thing in one place by the same presenter and avoid hours of searches. All in all this tutorial is well worth the price, I learned some new techniques within FL that make a much richer and cleaner sound as well as how to take my own ideas for progressions, melodies etc and expand upon them.... thank you 5/5