Scot Project

When I first started getting into hard trance it was impossible to not hear about DJ Scot Project. In fact, I'm quite certain that the very first mix I ever listened to, which was an early Qlimax set (by either Dana or Gary D) I believe, had at least three Scot Project remixes on it. Although I didn't realize it yet, it also had at least one Arome track, which of course is another alias of the same guy, real name Frank Zenker.

Project is widely credited with almost single handedly creating the sounds of the second wave of hard trance, which is maybe too much credit, but there's no denying that he's a huge name in the scene following the turn of the millennium. That said, I think he's a bit overrated. Sometimes his remixes aren't the best versions of the song he's mixing, and his original output is also sometimes great... but not always. Now, he's got some great material, but there are other artists from the period I like better. (DJ Wag and Kai Tracid were probably just as foundational to the development of second wave hard trance in Germany and the Brits had their Guyver and JK Walker and Marcos and a few others--and the Italians split early on into hard trance and early hardstyle. It really was a Zeitgeist, and giving anyone, even the most visible, credit for creating the entire Zeitgeist, is wrongheaded.)

As one example, the very first set list I listened to had the DJ Scot Project remix of "Incoming" by DJ Vortex & Arpa's Dream. In fact, I heard this so many times from sets and mixes that I can perhaps be forgiven for going for months without knowing that there were other versions of the track. But now that I hear remixes by Mirko Milano, 4 Navigators and Beam vs. Cyrus I find that I like some of them even better; there's a whole synth melody line that Project takes out that adds a lot to the track.

That's not to say that the DJ Scot Project mix isn't a great mix, but rather that if I'd heard all four of them at the same time, it certainly wouldn't have been my favorite.