Trance | Shamanic Meditation Generator

A mix is a set of parts. Each part is an instrument playing a looping pattern, and each instrument family has its own lane. In Cycle mode one part per lane plays at a time: after the chosen number of bars it hands over to the next, either cleanly on the bar line or blending over a bar or more: the next part rises in before the line and is at full strength on it, and the part it replaces fades away after the line. The lanes change at different moments, so something is always shifting while the pulse stays steady. All together plays every part at once, the classic way.

To keep the music breathing, one or two lanes take a rest now and then, sitting out a turn or two before coming back in (the Inner-Light edition can rest up to four). A resting lane shows a 💤 resting badge with a countdown; tap the badge to veto the rest and bring the lane straight back. The phrase is the length we choose under Phrase length (4 to 64 bars): it sets how long each part plays before its lane moves on, and it is when the rests are chosen and when the changes we ask for land. The strip above the lanes shows where we are in the phrase, and marks on the sixteen bars ahead show exactly when the changes we have asked for (and the DJ’s) will land, and when a pause or sleep will begin.

We can play the lanes ourselves. Tap a lane’s switch, or press the number keys 1 to 9, to mute it: a muted lane sleeps until we wake it, and when we do it carries on from where it was, resting a little longer if it was resting. Each lane has a + to add a part; each part can be muted, swapped for a cousin, removed, or tapped by name to play next. These changes wait for the music: by default they land together at the start of the next phrase, marked with a dashed outline and a countdown until they do, and tapping the same control again takes them back. Our changes land can make them wait for the next bar, or happen straight away, and holding Shift makes any one change immediate. Volume, pan, tone, patterns and tempo always change at once.

Choose a mix in step one and it waits for us in step two, the Player controls. Press Play (or Space). Or press New mix and build one lane at a time. A break is the moment before a drop: over the last bar or two of a phrase most lanes fall away, leaving just a pad, a drone or the pulse, while a guest or two from outside the mix step in for those bars in the families that dropped out (as if the DJ had cut to another record), and everything returns together on the phrase line with the guests gone. Set how often breaks come, how long they last and how many guests they bring, or press Break (or B) for one at the end of this phrase.

Turn on the DJ and Trance keeps evolving by itself: every few phrases it swaps a part, brings one in or lets one go, deciding a whole phrase ahead so we can see each change coming (in violet). Any DJ decision can be vetoed with a tap: on its violet badge in the lanes, on the violet mark in the bars ahead (which vetoes everything the DJ has planned for that bar), or on a ghost row’s veto button. It never wakes a lane we have muted, and it keeps working in the sequencer, leaving alone the last phrase before the next mix comes in. It can also turn a part into a variation of itself, the same instrument with its rhythm or tune turned over a little, and (Inner-Light, off unless we ask in Settings) move the whole mix to another key on a phrase line, round a ring of two or three keys (home, the fourth, the fifth) and home again; the key shows a DJ mark while it is away, and a saved mix keeps its own key.

Tap a part’s pencil to open it: set its pan, tone and lane, and see its pattern light up as it plays. Parts we have not placed ourselves are spread across the stereo field for us, with drums and bass kept in the middle. Play pauses at the end of the bar; Sleep winds the music down over the rest of the phrase and sleeps, and sessions with a time limit end the same way. The name of the current mix sits at the top of the Player controls. When it is stopped, our changes are saved as we make them (a preset we change becomes “its name (User Mod)” in My mixes, and the pencil renames it). While it plays, nothing we or the DJ change touches the saved mix: Keep them saves what we hear, Back to saved returns to it. Each lane’s + lets us choose a part to add; its ✨ lets the DJ pick one that suits the lane.

Under the Player controls are four tabs. Lanes is the mix itself. Sequencer holds a running order of mixes as cards: press + Add to sequencer and, whenever the current mix is one of the cards, Play carries on through them, each mix playing for its own number of phrases before the next blends in on a phrase line, always in its latest saved version. Each card has its own settings (how many phrases, how it hands over, whether it keeps the tempo before it), and the one playing glows and fills as its phrases go by. My mixes lists everything we have saved, with its parts and tempo, to load or add to the sequencer. Duplicate copies the current mix under a new name and puts the copy straight after it in the sequencer; from then on our changes go to the copy, so the two can grow apart. Quick save keeps the sequencer as it is, and Quick load brings it back; the Inner-Light edition can also save sequences by name. Settings is how Trance plays for us: the mode, phrase length, blend, rests, order and breaks, when changes land, the DJ, the fades and warmth. They stay as we set them in this browser, whichever mix we choose: a mix brings only its parts, tempo, key and scale.

The sound shapes everything we hear: a filter that sweeps darker or thinner, a three-band EQ, and the record player, a needle on dusty vinyl that sits under the whole mix for as long as it plays (free, and ours rather than a mix's: hiss, crackle and a scratch on every turn of the platter, as close as we like). Spoken word pads play recordings (a word, a phrase, a line of a poem) on the next bar line, through the effects, at their own volume; any sound file dropped into the voice folder becomes a pad. The Inner-Light edition adds drive and an echo in step with the tempo, eight sound effects that land in time with the music (a riser to the next phrase line, sweep down, boom, gong, echo throw, stutter, wash and thunder), supporter-only recordings, and a voice that drops in by itself on a phrase line every so often.

Keep the volume comfortable, and take a break if the rhythm ever feels too intense. With headphones, moderate levels protect our hearing.