Sorry, not shooting content - this one is a mix! It’s been a while. Like, over a decade since I recorded a mix.
And, yes. It is something I have missed.
Mixing was always a duality for me – it was relaxing, in a mindfulness, meditative way – focusing on beatmatching (keeping two tracks in sync both on tempo and structure) is a concentration exercise that I found helped centre me sometimes in the now. At the same time, it was a frustration – as, like I suppose many DJ’s – hear the moment a mix goes out – even though others might not.
My particular style of DJing likely doesn’t help either – I have always been very big about ‘sorting it in the mix’ – putting the upfaders up and forcing myself to be very public about the mix – letting people hear what is going on. This is a result, I guess of listening to the DJ’s I did – Jeff Mills (check this out for the best instructive DJ video of all time IMHO) and Derrick May being key examples, where they let you hear the ‘workings’ – not every mix is perfect and you get to go along with them in the process. It’s the process of DJing that always really appealed to me – hearing what was going on behind the decks and mixer, the ‘third track’ as many of us would refer to it as.
As such, and because this is the first time I have touched decks in over ten years – there is a few clangers. Pots and Pans, a term used for Drum and Bass because of the amount of hi-hats and snares – if a mix goes out, it becomes fairly obvious quickly.
Anyhow – just a short mix – and I will be trying to put a few more up and sharing them here.
This was mixed on Serato – I picked up a second hand 57 (mk I) which limits me to Serato Scratch Live – the old software – but that is fine by me. I am going to have a play with recording setup – as the resulting mix does sound a bit shit. I am not sure if it’s the old MP3s I was playing (maybe the conversion has gotten better over the years) or it’s the internal recording in Live, or it’s the AIFF to MP3 conversion I did – regardless, I hear it, I will work on improving it!
This mix is simply some random tunes I picked out of the old tunes I have – I was intentionally playing with moving up and down in the ‘energy’ side of things – NuroFunk/Tech-Step sorta things. Enjoy!
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