How to Choose a Trance Production Course (What Actually Matters)

If you're looking at trance production courses right now, you've probably got about six tabs open and no idea how to compare them. One's 17 hours of start-to-finish tutorials. One's a subscription site with courses on every genre. One's a 1-on-1 thing with no price on the page. They all have testimonials. They all look decent.

I'm Steve Allen — I'm a trance producer signed to FSOE and Armada Music, and yes, I sell a course, so read this with that in mind. But I also review tracks from producers every week through my free feedback service, and a lot of them have already bought two or three courses before they get to me. So I've got a pretty good view of what people actually get out of these things — and where they still end up stuck afterwards.

Here's how I'd choose, if I were starting again.

The Five Things That Actually Matter

1. Start-to-finish, or topic tutorials?

There are two kinds of trance course. Topic tutorials teach you one thing deeply — kick and bass, melody writing, a specific drop style. Start-to-finish courses walk one complete track from empty project to final export.

If you can already finish tracks and you want to level up a weak area, topic tutorials are efficient and cheap. If your problem is that you don't finish tracks — the folder full of 8-bar loops — a topic tutorial won't fix that, because your problem isn't knowledge, it's process. You need something built around getting a whole track across the line.

Be honest about which one you are. Most producers buy topic tutorials when their actual problem is finishing.

2. Is feedback included?

This is the biggest gap in most courses, and the one nobody mentions on the sales page. You can watch someone build a perfect track for 10 hours, copy every move, and still not know why your version sounds wrong — because nobody's listening to your version.

Video-only courses are cheaper for a reason. If a course includes feedback on your actual tracks — reviews, sessions, anything where a human hears your work — that's worth more than double the video content. When you compare prices, compare on this first.

3. DAW-specific or universal?

Some courses are built in one DAW (usually Ableton), some are DAW-agnostic. Here's the honest truth: the decisions that matter in trance — structure, low-end relationships, tension and release, arrangement — are identical in FL Studio, Ableton, Cubase and Logic. If a course is taught in a different DAW to yours, you'll lose a bit of time translating shortcuts, that's all. Don't rule out a great course over this. Do rule out any course that spends most of its runtime on DAW mechanics rather than decisions — you're paying for trance knowledge, not a software manual.

4. Self-paced or guided?

Self-paced is cheaper and flexible, but the completion rates on self-paced courses across every industry are grim — most people stall by module three. If you know you're a self-starter, fine. If you've got a history of half-finished courses (be honest — it usually matches the half-finished tracks), pay more for something with sessions, deadlines or accountability built in. The expensive course you finish beats the cheap one you don't.

5. Does the teacher release on labels you want to sign to?

Not "is the teacher famous" — teaching and releasing are different skills, and there are great teachers with modest release catalogues. But if your goal is signing to FSOE, Suanda, Raz Nitzan or Armada, it helps enormously if the person teaching you is actively releasing at that standard now, because "release-ready" is a moving target. Check their recent releases, not their bio.

The Main Trance Music Courses Online, Honestly

A fair rundown of who else you'll find, because they're all legitimate options and different ones suit different producers:

Allan Morrow Studios — probably the biggest catalogue of trance-specific tutorials anywhere: start-to-finish courses across uplifting, tech, classic and acid trance, plus deep topic tutorials, and 1-on-1 sessions. The tutorials are off-the-cuff, so you see real problems solved in real time. If you want volume of trance-specific content, this is it.

Sonic Academy — subscription platform covering every electronic genre, with trance courses taught in Ableton, Cubase, Logic and FL Studio. Their "How To Make" series deconstructs known tracks. Good if you produce more than one genre and want breadth.

FaderPro — in-the-studio courses filmed with established artists. You're watching real producers work in their real sessions. Strong for seeing professional workflow, lighter on structured curriculum.

Ready For Masterclass (ReOrder) — start-to-finish uplifting trance using only Ableton's stock instruments and effects, taught by a producer who's been releasing since 2006. No theory lectures, and it proves you don't need third-party plugins. Great if you're on Ableton and skint on plugins.

Born To Produce — long-running, DAW-agnostic uplifting trance tutorials, start to finish. Solid and unflashy.

None of these are bad choices. What most of them have in common: they're video libraries. You watch, you copy, you're on your own with your own tracks.

Where The Trance Finisher Method™ Fits

My course is built around the gap I just described. The Trance Finisher Method™ isn't a sound-design library — it's a decision-making system for taking a track from idea to release-ready in 4–6 weeks, built from what I do on my own FSOE and Armada releases. Nine modules, real production footage, and the option of guided 1-on-1 Zoom sessions if self-paced isn't your thing. It exists specifically for producers stuck in the loop trap, the endless polish, the shelved-projects cycle.

Who it's not for: complete beginners. If you've been producing less than six months, you'll get more from free content and finishing a few rough tracks first — come join my free feedback group and I'll point you at the right stuff, no charge.

And if you want to test how I teach before spending course money: send me a track for free feedback, or grab the £5 Pluck Intro Formula and see if the decision-first approach clicks for you. Cheapest possible way to find out if we're a fit.

Do You Need a Course at All?

Honestly — maybe not. If you're finishing tracks, getting label responses, and improving each release, keep doing what you're doing. Courses are for when you're stuck in a loop you can't see out of: same problems every track, same shelved projects, same "almost there" that never arrives. That's when a system — mine or anyone's from the list above — pays for itself, because six months of stuck costs more than any course.

Whatever you pick: choose based on feedback, finishing and fit — not on hours of content. Nobody ever got signed for watching the most tutorials.

— Steve