52 - Alpha Wave Modulation

I wanted to make a follow-on mix from my Infinite Trance State mix, blending chillout tracks in a smooth progression of relaxing trance. I knew that I wanted to start with Solar Fields’ stand-out track “Jeezlh”, but apart from that I didn’t know where I was heading.

Almost immediately I ran into problems. Very few tracks in my collection were in C# and around 80BPM. Finally, and I don’t know why I didn’t find this earlier, I found an old classic – ‘Melt’ by Leftfield, which blended perfectly. I was off, and I hit my stride in the key of F at 90BPM. Then came the ending.

I realised it would be really neat if I could also end with another favourite of mine, ‘Castle in the Blue Sky’ by Galaxy. However, it was at 100BPM and in the key of D#, a full tone lower than F. This is very very difficult to work with, as a tone difference is about the worst clash you can have, and it would mean several cunning key changes before I could get anywhere near D# from F.

I did something I haven’t done before in a mix – altered the original. Using an open-source music time and pitch stretching tool, Rubberband , I first converted Castles to 90BPM, then pitched it up a tone. The result isn’t perfect – no reworking tool can be as good as the original synthesis – but it’s pretty good. I did try doing both conversions at the same time in Rubberband but it sounded much worse; there are probably better ways of achieving what I wanted by resampling and then pitch-shifting, and maybe if I discover that technique I’ll redo this mix.

But for now, enjoy!

Completed 16 Feb 2010

Styles

• Chillout

Files

• 52 - Alpha Wave Modulation.mp3 - 160 kbps - 82.0 MB
• 52 - Alpha Wave Modulation.ogg - 160 kbps - 95.1 MB

Total play length: 01:16:16

Track listing

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.