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Tech Trance is a sub-genre within Electronic Dance Music that draws upon the Techno and Trance genres as the name suggests. Tech Trance was pioneered by Oliver Lieb in the mid 90's. Other early Tech Trance producers are Humate, Chris Cowie and Marmion. Tech Trance later took a new turn in the early 2000 when producers such as Marco V and Randy Katana sprung out as the leading Dutch Tech Trance producers. This new Tech-Trance focused less on the Techno elements and more on a higher commercial value. This appealed to several Trance DJs such as Ferry Corsten, Tiesto, and Armin van Buuren, who each started incorporating Tech Trance into their sets.

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 135-150 Beats per minute. Tech Trance tends to utilize a more driving sound while commonly using distortion as an effect on the melodies. Commonly, the melody containing strings and pads will begin once the beat has completely stopped, playing by itself much like a Trance breakdown. This melody will suddenly stop, leaving the drums and a completely different synth to begin, whereas Trance songs would generally continue with the same melody. The synths are short, repetitive and contain less note changes than Trance, often having the same note played in an interesting sequence. For an example, see 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. Tech Trance is currently quite an underground genre, but is growing in popularity due to its hard-edged nature and growing list of producers.

Since the development of Tech-Trance, hard house producers have evolved their style and incorporated it into the Tech-Trance sub-genre. See such tracks as "The Pod/ Modularis" by Vinylgroover, The Red Hed, Anne Savage, Chad Hardcastle, and M Project. This usually constitutes of hard house percussion/drums, techno keyboards/samples and trance breakdowns.

• E-Craig
• Oliver Lieb
• Chris Cowie
• Marco V
• Randy Katana
• Marcel Woods
• Sander Van Doorn
• Simon Patterson
• P.A.F.F.
• Virunga
• Dave Schiemann
• DJ Jason Knight
• Chad Hardcastle

• Oliver Lieb - Phuture Tech Trance Volume 1
• Marco V - Live At Innercity 2000
• M Project - HardWired Flight # 0002 & 0003
• M Project & MUI - Tru Visions
• Sander Van Doorn - Identity

• Incolumis - Tsunami
• Ivan - Red Star (Pads Mix)
• John Remedy - Ventricle (Lamoen & Lishious Mix)
• Krzysztof Chochlow - Release / Reserve Midnight / Island Of Sound
• L.S.G. - Blueprint (Version 1) / Netherworld
• Marmion - Schoeneberg
• M Project - TranceWired / HardWired Flight 0001/0004
• Mark Sherry & BK - Amino (Original)
• Mindspace - Mindcontrol (Tech Mix)
• Natious - Amber (Oliver Lieb Remix)
• Sander van Doorn - Pumpkin (Original Mix)
• Spicelab - Two
• Vegas Soul - Retrograde
• Emjay - Real High (AK47 Remix)
• Oliver Ho - In The Dark
• Hydragen - Creature Of Habit
• Randy Katana Play It Loud / Play It Louder
• Sander van doorn - Grasshopper
• Marcel Woods - Advanced
• Marcel Woods - Cherry Blossom / Beautiful Mind

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