Trancemaster

For me the best trance compilation series ever!
It's just a pity that it was only set after episode 7006 (76).
The reason for this was certainly the declining sales figures and the illegal increase in s, which no longer brought in enough money for the record company. That's really a pity.......

Trancemaster forever!!!!

Thank you Trancemaster crew. Excellent CDs. They were great for chilling at home after raves with a few friends. Dont really go for anything after 2000, but everything before that was spot on for that time in history. Cheers.

I'm the happy owner of the first to 14th compilation here, spanning the trance genre from 91 to 96. What came later is none of my taste, though there could still give good tracks. I think that the trancemaster series from the time I speak cover different trance genre without falling into the easy crap cheap hardtrance sound. Some of those opus hold the best and finest treasures of early trance. So if like me you like the oldschool sounds, dig into this collection, but please don't go ahead the 15th, I think it's not worth it. Best part is from beginning to 96.

Does anybody know who has compiled the first Trancemaster compilations 1-11 and the first Trancemaster Goahead XL-Mix?
In my opinion all ratings under 4 don't display the quality and meaning of this serial, especially those parts from the years 92-95.
The guys behind this compilation project gave all Germans who did not live in the big cities a first quality source to dig deeper into the stuff. All important labels had been appeared, together with images of the labels logos and all important infos about the composers, remixers and producers. They did a good job with the design, I mean this especially again for the first parts (1-13). For sure I know its a question of taste but from own experiences I know how much effort it is to finish projects like this.
There had been good underground trance labels, very good trance tracks which did not appear on Trancemaster but a cd/vinyl has limited space and those tracks they did take are today part of the techno/trance history.
Some other reviewer(s) mentioned problems because of edits and shorter-than-orignal versions - it may happen somewhere but I had never a feeling that this a significant problem of Trancemaster - IMO it was even the opposite - I was happy back in the days that the versions appearing here had a dj-friendly long lenght in opposite to other compilations.
I would highly recommend still today young interested listeners the parts of the compilation I wrote about.
PLUR

I rather agree with Jarren.
However, I would go a step further and guess (in addition to the DL issue) that Trancemaster got into troubles in "copying" the tracks of labels such as Vandit, Blackhole, and other huge labels and here especially Armada which IMO got a kraken with its dozens of (at that time pretty good) sublabels. And Armada themselves flooded the market with CDs/Compilations and also Anjunabeats offered their top tracks on their own Compilations (but also Anjunabeats tranformed to a pretty average label)!
The heads of Vision Soundcarriers should have looked and searched for new and other small but top and definitely existing labels and producers and presenting them to the audience. In this light I understand the decrease of sales and crisis around 2010 latest.

However, somehow I realised a change recently. After Armada changed to an arbitrary label with an in general awful style/music and some kind of "crisis" where so much crap (aka EDM) was produced and played, there is a shift recognizable in going back to quality trance. IMO Ferry Corsten's change and great return with his guise Gouryella with Anahera back in 2015 is really remarkable. And also Solarstone and many more did hard to make the turn. Now (and after many many years) I discover great tracks again on labels like Pure Trance Recordings, Flashover, Soho Music, Always Alive Recordings to name a few and the bigger ones and there are definitely the many small labels which you have to search for! And this takes time...
And here I realised an existing gap. Compilations disappeared (except Armada still offering their crap stuff), even the digital compilations disappeared labels themselves offered (like Flashover with "Trance Therapy")! And here I'd see a chance for i.e. a compilation like Trancemaster to fill this gap again in offering the good overview of labels, producers and tracks they gave over such a long time in the past. Because I really have to say that I get too lazy - and I simply do not have the time any more - in searching for good tracks hour after hour and I would really appreciate such a compilation offering the great overview again which is at the moment missing!

While they did have the habit of including radio edits and edited 12" versions (much like Reactivate), Trancemaster should still be given 100% respect for the tracks that they helped spread to a wider audience.

From the early 90's up to around 2000, they were one of the sources for quality Trance. Of course, that all changed with the explosion of the internet (now we could all search for tracks ourselves instead of relying on labels like this to show us).

These cds are not all they are cracked up to be. From what ive listened to so far, too many radio edits and cut down originals. A few of the tracks on each set have anything from a few seconds to a couple of minutes cut off. The track selection is also quite boring compared to other similar series (D.Trance etc...).

Doesnt even compare to Trance Traxx which have immaculate track selections, almost all are vinyl only obscure gems and almost all are untouched full length tracks.

If you want good, none-commercial Trance that is full length and this series is perfect for you! Very good top notch series and I regret not ing it earlier. Only started to pick up the CD's now and they have some amazing tracks on them with many hidden gems. Another series to check out for vary of styles that include hard trance is D.Trance !

You'd be much better off looking elsewhere for your old trance fix: rave mission, reactivate, or the first few ravermeister editions. There's some good stuff in here, but with the sheer volume one would expect a lot more of quality tracks.

Trancemaster was once my ever-reliable, 'subscription service', I guess you could call it. I don't have all the volumes I want just yet, but I've pretty much decided that TM 5000 is the cut-off album. I used to own a few beyond it, but I feel the quality really started to dip around 2006*, and the quality of most Trance itself dipped from 2008* onward.

For the old-schoolers, the volumes before 3000 are really worth a listen. I personally love the 2003-2005* era, which was about the mid-3000s to mid-4000s. Once you get all you want from this series, you can turn onto D.Trance and Eye-Trance, two very similar compilation series, each of which include a bonus third disc, mixed by the compiler. (* = years, not volumes)