acid trance

The tradition & historical record

Acid trance is a genre of trance music that emerged in the late 1980s, focusing on using the acid sound. The trademark sound of "acid" is produced with a Roland TB-303 by playing a sequenced melody while altering the instrument's filter cutoff frequency, resonance, envelope modulation, and accent controls. This real-time tone adjustment was not part of the instrument's original intended operation. Acid trance is the best known form of trance music in Belgium. The form was first showcased at the popular Antwerp Rave 24 in Belgium, and has created four national number one singles in the country since. Acid trance may be considered a descendant of acid house, since the genre of trance had not yet been invented during the advent of acid house (or acidhouse). Acid trance is typically a faster tempo than acid house music, which is a genre that came before the birth of trance. This specific subgenre has a more simplistic approach to arrangement than the trance music commonly associated with the late 1990s. The first volumes of Trancemaster compilations contains a few tracks in acid trance style, just as classic trance tracks. The difference is, while acid trance tracks focus more on the changing TB-303 lines, classic trance (e.g. Dance 2 Trance, Cosmic Baby, Age of Love, and Jam & Spoon) tracks are more atmospheric, they use "softer" synth-lines, often strings and other ambient music elements. ¹

Attack Records Harthouse Moonshine Music Platipus Records Rising High Records ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Acid trance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

acid trance is subgenre of trance music, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 5 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²