12 - Journey to the Centre of the Mind

As I improve my mixing skills, I get more critical of my own ability and the mixes of others. I’m now at the point where I think it’s too easy to just take any two pieces that are around the same BPM and mix them together. You end up being able to hear the fade-out of one track and hear the fade-in of the other track because they’re completely different keys; there’s often a point in dance tracks where the piece stays on the same key for the rest of the song to make it easy for DJs to mix out on. I’ve heard this in several ‘famous jet-setter DJ’ sets on CD and radio, as well as in my own music. To me, the art of mixing is to create a seamless blend of song so that the listener ends up forgetting which track is currently playing and doesn’t notice the transitions between tracks because they sound like just another part of the music.

I’ve tried to do that in this mix, but it’s hard. The hardest thing that I’ve found to do is to hear one track and be able to pick the next track that will mix in seamlessly with it. You not only need perfect pitch, but an eidetic memory for the melody and rhythm of every tune – something that would probably develop better if I was listening to my music and trying to mix with it all day (which I’m not, more’s the pity sometimes). I’m still only mixing by sorting my collection in ascending order by BPM and then working through the collection from the track I’m mixing, attempting to find a matching song by playing each one in sequence. Sometimes I have flashes of inspiration, and sometimes I’ve mixed two songs together that sounded good so I know the next track to look for. But it’s still not as intuitive and obvious as I’d like.

Completed 1 Dec 2002

Styles

Files

Total play length: 01:09:37

Track listing

Track

Artist

Title

Remix

BPM

Start

Finish

Length

1 Push Tranzy State of Mind 136.10
2 Man With No Name Vavoom! 136.10
3 Loveclub The Journey Light remix 136.80
4 M.O.R.P.H. Maximum Overdrive Benicio remix 136.90
5 Tenth Chapter Wired Stonk mix 136.90
6 Art of Trance Madagascar Transa remix 137.90
7 Man With No Name Low Commotion 137.90
8 Push Strange World 139.00
9 Moogwai Viola Armin Van Buuren remix 139.10
10 Brainchild Symmetry C Lange Breakbeat remix 139.30
11 Quench Dreams 139.40
12 Sunscreem vs. Push Please Save Me Vocal mix 139.50
13 Total Eclipse Toxic Caterpillar 139.70
14 Total Eclipse The Crucible 139.80

I welcome any suggestions, criticisms and recommendations for new music to listen to. I will consider doing specific mixes for people, but this is only a hobby. Hope to hear from you.


Main index / mixes / 12 - © 2004-2023 Paul Wayper
last updated 1 Dec 2002
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