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A State of Trance

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A State Of Trance
A State of Trance Logo
Genre
Running time2 hours
Country of originNetherlands
Home station
StarringArmin van Buuren
Created byArmin van Buuren
Original release1 June 2001
No. of episodes1209 (episode 000 included)
WebsiteA State of Trance

A State of Trance (often abbreviated as ASOT) is a weekly radio show aired every Thursday at 20:00 (CET) and 14:00 (EST) and hosted by prominent music producer and DJ Armin van Buuren. It is also the name of van Buuren's annual CD compilation series.

History

Background and growth

First airing in March 2001 on ID&T Radio (the predecessor of Slam!FM), the show takes the format of a two-hour mix in which Armin plays new trance music (uplifting trance and progressive trance), both promotional and commercially released. Selected tracks are announced during the show in order to help promote new artists and releases. Its radio-show/website combination has proven popular internationally, as fans—while listening to the radio-show—will converse in the website chat-rooms and forums, such as Digitally Imported, during the broadcast. Progressive trance and uplifting trance producers all submit promotional and commercially released tracks to compete to make it onto the playlist of the show each week. The success of the show has also spawned to include several dance events around the world. The show is celebrated live each year in different locations around the globe with a lineup consisting of many trance artists.[1]

Record label (2003–present)

A State Of Trance is a sub-label of the Dutch company Armada Music. Released its first vinyl release in 2003 and reached its 100 release (ASOT100) with "The Doppler Effect – Beauty Hides In The Deep / Envio – For You (The Blizzard Remix)".

A State Of Trance was formed in 2003 as a sub-label to its Dutch parent company Armada Music. It is also the parent label to A State Of Trance Limited. The style of music focuses mainly on trance and progressive trance with a wide range of artists and producers. The label is focusing on both young producers (such as Filo & Peri, 8 Wonders, Robert Nickson, and Galen Behr) as well as established artists (like Markus Schulz, Sunlounger, Sean Tyas, Signum and Vincent de Moor).

Radio show's legacy

While it was not the first radio show to broadcast a two-hour mix from a recurring DJ, A State of Trance's legacy has arguably extended beyond the trance scene. Part of this may be due to the fact that for most parts of the world, A State of Trance was only accessible via Digitally Imported, an internet radio station. Since A State of Trance has gone on the air, numerous DJ's have created their own radio programs out of the spirit of A State of Trance. Some of which include, Above and Beyond with Trance Around the World (now rebranded as Group Therapy), Aly & Fila with the Future Sound of Egypt, and Markus Schulz with the Global DJ Broadcast. Some radio shows that don't even play trance music have spawned out of the spirit of A State of Trance (such as Carl Cox's Global, Hardwell on Air, and Nicky Romero's Protocol)

A State of Trance special episodes and celebrating events

Special episodes of the show features various live or recorded mixes by Armin van Buuren or other guest DJs. Every 50th episode of the show there are various celebrations in different countries with many trance DJs that plays live.

In March 2011 during the Ultra Music Festival, A State of Trance was given its own stage as part of its 500th episode tour. This was the first time a radio show was given its own tent at a music festival, along with its own broadcast, separate from the festival's official broadcast. Typically a festival stage is hosted by either a particular style of music, or a record label. Since Ultra 2011, A State of Trance has had its own arena at Ultra and the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas.

Since ID&T's shift from trance to house music, A State of Trance's annual episodic celebrations have effectively replaced Trance Energy (now simply called Energy, focusing on electro house instead of trance) as the pinnacle trance event in The Netherlands.[citation needed]

Broadcasts

A State Of Trance radio show is currently broadcast on the following radio stations:[2]

On Demand

DI.FM hosts each weekly A State Of Trance show for their On Demand service. The show is streamed in multiple formats: 256 kbit/s (MP3), 128 kbit/s (AAC), 128 kbit/s and 64 kbit/s (Windows Media), 64 kbit/s and 32 kbit/s (AAC+) for users with the paid Premium package,[5] and free at 96 kbit/s (MP3), 24 kbit/s (AAC+), 40 kbit/s (Windows Media).

Digitally Imported postponed the development of its onDemand feature as of 10 August 2010. This service is therefore currently unavailable. However, they do have plans to bring it back in the future as a more substantial service.

Episodes of A State of Trance are also widely recorded and redistributed in MP3 format on filehosting websites such as Rapidshare, YouTube, private FTP servers and BitTorrent sites. File quality ranges from 192 kbit/s to 320 kbit/s (source file), however, 192 kbit/s is the most common due to the wide (and free) availability of 192 kbit/s source streams as well as the relatively small file size (~180 mb per episode).

In September 2012, A State of Trance was made available to stream on Spotify[6]

Tracklists

Tracklists for every episode can be found at the Episodes Section of Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance website.

Regular features

Each broadcast features three songs selected as Tune of the Week, Future Favourite and ASOT Radio Classic.

Tune of the Week

The Tune of the Week is selected by Armin van Buuren as his personal choice of best new tune in the show. Here is the list of all Tunes of the Week:

Future Favorite

The Future Favorite is voted for by listeners from a list of new tunes from the previous week's show. The poll takes place at A State of Trance.

ASOT Radio Classic

The ASOT Radio Classic track has been part of the show since Episode 284. Armin selects a track from past years of trance and briefly describes what made the track a classic. It is played as the last track of the show. Armin also played a classic track on each of the first 16 episodes in the early days of the radio show. These tracks were productions from the 1990s and showcased some of the very earliest pioneers of the Trance genre.

Armin asks the listeners of A State of Trance to submit original suggestions for the ASOT Radio Classic with the stipulation that the track not be a track already played on ASOT as a Classic. The following table lists all classics played on A State of Trance from Episode 284 to the present:

"A State of Trance Official Episode List"

Progressive Pick

This is a segment for all new progressive trance or hardcore trance remix playlist tracks from newest DJ around the world, whenever they are famous DJs or the upcoming DJs. This segment began with Rodg – Wrong Direction on ASOT Episode 717.

Compilation series

Armin van Buuren regularly releases double mix CD A State of Trance compilations, as listed below:

Armin van Buuren also regularly releases double mix CD A State of Trance Year Mix compilations, A State of Trance Ibiza compilations, and 4-CD unmixed compilations of A State of Trance Classics has occurred annually since 2006. These consist of unedited, full length tracks, in either the original or most popular mix, and state that they are from "uncompressed masters". Despite being called "Classics", the criteria for inclusion weighs heavily towards the difficulty of finding uncompressed digital copies of tracks and as such relatively recent tracks which were vinyl-only or on small record labels have featured.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to A State of Trance.

References

  1. ^ "About – A State of Trance". Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  2. ^ "Radio stations broadcasting ASOT". Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ [2] Archived 2013-01-22 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "Upgrade to Premium". Digitally Imported. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  6. ^ "A State of Trance now exclusively streamed on Spotify!". Armin van Buuren. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
  7. ^ "Corsten's Countdown". Corstenscountdown.com. Retrieved 9 August 2014.

A State Of Trance Festival: The celebration of A State Of Trance 700 (ASOT 700)

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