Month: October 2017

In addition to DJing, in the last year or so, I’ve really gotten into sneakers as well. The two seem to be intersecting. When I got sick I named the mix ‘Flu Game’, referencing Michael Jordan’s amazing performance in the NBA finals with a flu, which is used as the nickname of the Air Jordan 12 black and red shoes he was wearing. I seem to keep making mixes that are under 5 minutes, which will MixCloud will reject from uploading out of fear of it just being a single that you are trying to share illegally. So one day, I’ll probably name one of these the ‘Banned’ mix referencing the black and red Air Jordan 1’s that were considered banned after Jordan/Nike got a letter from the NBA that the black and red shoes he was wearing (actually a pair of Nike Airships) violated the uniform code (I think the black and red colorway need to have some white in it). I told you I was into sneakers.

I wanted to make this mix a little more upbeat, or should I say, ‘More Uptempo’ 🙂

Ironically, the two ‘Most Uptempo’ tracks were a little too fast for the mix, so I cut them.  At a consistent 125 bpm, there is a good flow to it, but it is a bit loungey.

Enjoy!

Another quick mix tonight.  I tried to mix 4 songs, but I couldn’t get the 4th one to flow.  I also started looking into adding looped cue points into a mix, but that’s still a little advanced for me.  So this mix is just a fun one to keep the momentum going.

I was down in Portland for the weekend, but I wanted to keep my momentum going.  So I did a super quick mix this week.  Just 3 tracks.  No new techniques, but I think my transitions are getting smoother.

I have a theory that it will take me about 100 mixes to get to a point where I think I’m good at this.  As such, I’m excited to get a chance to do a 2nd mix this week.  I heard ‘Don’t Wake Me Up’ this morning and got motivated to add throw it in a mix.  I spent the rest of my work out thinking of what else to add to it.

Overall, I think I did a decent job on this one.  The key things I worked on was counting bars and using that to find the right place to set up transitions.  Basically, I’m deciding where I want to transition from one track to another, where there is a good start point for the new track (e.g. 8 bars before the transition) and matching up the cue points.  I also played with starting to fade from 100% of one song to 100% of the other.  Thus far, I’d start with 50/50 then go to 100% of the new song.  I think this tweak will help my mixes sound a little smoother.

The transition between Heartbeat and Heartless is a little wonky.  Since the beats don’t really match up, I did it based on time.  Transitioning between two songs with dramatically different BPMs hard.  I’ve heard that you can  manually match beats (e.g. play a 122 bpm song at 120 beats then play two of its beats to one of a track that is 60 bpm), but I’m not there yet.

Anyway, I had a blast making this.  Enjoy!

I was a little under the weather last weekend, so I was bummed that I didn’t really feel up to mixing.  But over the course of the week, I had a discussion with my boss on why he didn’t value goals.  His belief was that it leads people down the path of short term wins as opposed to establish a winning culture.  This article captures the idea:  https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/06/habits-vs-goals/

So, I’m making this mix in that spirit.  I’ll keep experimenting and learning.  And maybe just one day, I’ll be good at this 🙂

I tried again to use an effect.  And twice I used a ‘slam’ transition where I instantly shift focus from one track to another (though I do let the new track fade in in the background).  The coolest things is that I range from 60 bpm to 135 bpm.  There is a definite shift in mood within the 10 minutes of the mix.

Enjoy!