Trance Anthem

Oh boy, many many years ago, there was a tune I heard on a Ministry of Sound compilation that had me gripped from the word go.

Around 1999, Lange remixed "Happiness Happening" by Lost Witness and it was a beauty with angelic vocals, epic lead synths, melodies and chords to die for.

Here is the original:

Remixing Trance Anthem

Over the years I've heard the vocals sampled in many drum & bass tunes and many different club remixes (Lange remix is the one that you hear above which took the original to new levels).

This is a tune that inspired me to get into Trance music from 1999-2003, prior to my love for dnb, and will always have a special place for me.

Mixing trance and drum & bass genres is something that I've been trying to do for most of my time in producing music over the last 11 years and so this would be a real test.

Music Studio Process

As always, I try to keep to the original melodies as much as I can whilst putting my own spin on it and I wanted to recreate the plucked synth melodies from the original without being too cheesy.

The plucked synth works well in trance, not so well in Dnb. The piano though...

So that was that sorted, the piano filled in the space.

Of course, the track wouldn't be anything without the vocals and I managed to find an acapella to download, timestretch it and fit it to the tempo of the dnb bpm at 174!

Next up was finding the right synths that had a space feel to them - I didn't want to fully mimic the original chords but at least keep the same feel.

I took the same approach with the synth melodies and thought I'd put my own on there. I had actually made two separate lead synth melodies that you hear at the beginning of the first drop and second drop.

I liked them both so decided to put them both in and let the track naturally evolve!

And the result? I'll let you listen for yourselves - anyone who was able to enjoy the original when it was making waves in the Ibiza night club scene lived through the best trance times IMO :)