Making a Mix - Vol. 1 - Subduction Audio Spring 2017 Promo

Instead of just posting links to my mixes to share here, I thought it would be fun to start a series to give a 'behind the scenes' look at my creative process, and tell a story about how the end product came to be.

First up is the most recent thing I've put into the world, and the first mix I did specifically for Portland based DnB collective Subduction Audio.

A quick note for those not familiar with DJ mixes and promos, Drum and Bass, or EDM in general: the art of the continuous mix comes from arranging other people's music in a pleasing way, ideally one that takes the listener on a journey and leaves them wanting more. I'm always surprised at how many people think or assume that the DJ produces all their own songs, and I certainly don't want to be perceived as taking credit for someone else's work. I think this assumption is a symptom of what the modern day EDM movement has become, but I digress. While these songs are not my original productions, I arranged them into this 38-minute continuous mix.

Here's the tracklist for the final product:

1. Aether & Sizzlebird feat. Veela - Raccoon City
2. Neonlight - Neon City
3. The Prototypes - Suffocate
4. Mind Vortex Feat. Daniela - Stand High
5. Jaybee, Andy Sim - Forgotten Funk
6. Ulterior Motive - Tape Pack
7. twentyone pilots - Stressed Out (Hi5 Remix)
8. Aperio - Intentions (Original mix)
9. Quadrant & Iris & Kid Hops - Eternal September (feat. Collette Warren)
10. Evol Intent - Getting High at Low Tide
11. Netsky - Forget What You Look Like (Pola & Bryson Bootleg Remix) ft. Lowell
12. Fugees - Ready Or Not (Champion Bootleg)
13. Glaive feat. Kate Mcquaide - All Is Not Lost (Pola & Bryson Remix)
14. Bensley - Next Generation
15. Carlo Eq - Reflections (Vip)
16. Commix & Logistics - Cold Kiss
17. Delhi 2 Dublin - California

Like most new projects for me, this one started with a big folder full of new music that I wasn't super familiar with. So step one was just listening to everything and deciding what I wanted to use. Even though I was trimming down about 300 songs to just about 80, it was mostly chaos in the beginning.

While listening through everything, the first thing I discovered was how well the Jaybee/Andy Sim and Ulterior Motive songs went together, and then when I thought about the vocal hook "How I wish I could turn back time" played off the twentyone pilots bootleg with the vocal "Wish I could turn back time..." I found my first "line" (jargon for a series of songs that go together). I had the mix between the Quadrant & Iris & Kid Hops and the Evol Intent tunes already in my pocket from an old radio show about a year prior that I was never able to work in due to time concerns, so my plan was originally the end with that mix, since I already know it was quality.

Next up was to choose an intro. To me, choosing a good introduction to a mix is vital. I like "easing in" to the DnB madness, and ideally I prefer to use a song that starts with a long build-up before actually dropping the drums and basses. Also, it's good to play the beginning of a song that doesn't have much rhythm or may be hard to mix into something else so it's less of a headache down the road. Going through the playlist again, I flagged a number of songs that had the type of intro I was looking for, and among the frontrunners were The Prototypes and Delhi 2 Dublin tracks:

(this official video is teriffic by the way, if you want to catch a glimpse of what the DnB heavyweights of the world get to experience)

Delhi 2 Dublin is not a Drum and Bass group, by the way, they are a "Canadian world music group", so from a production aspect, finding a mix out of their tune was a bit problematic due to certain 'unpredictable' aspects of their phrasing. I discovered the Mind Vortex mix out of the Prototypes pretty quickly, so I was basically sold on using that as my intro.

One thing bothered me, though. The Aether & Sizzlebird tune was getting constantly stuck in my head (Veela is becoming one of my favorite DnB vocalists, check out her original stuff or her work with Maduk, Rameses B, or Feint if you like it), but it's a weird little song that didn't really fit in anywhere, and I couldn't find a good way in or out of it. I spent an entire day's dedicated "music" time just listening to all my new songs one by one and trying to mix them, but NOTHING worked, so I gave up and was about to abandon it to the island of misfit songs.

...but THEN

I had the great idea to go through some of my older albums that I hadn't previously pulled songs from specifically for this mix. Almost another day spent fixating on this one song, but when I found the Neonlight song in the same key, and heard how it built similarly, and heard how the Veela vocal played from it, well... it damn near knocked me out of my chair.

At this point I needed to backtrack. I had already been building a mix using the Prototypes song as an intro, and had even built it to incorporate the Ready or Not bootleg and the 2 Pola and Bryson songs I wanted to use (Pola and Bryson are also quickly becoming some of my favorite newcomers to the DnB world, for the record). I REALLY wanted to use my newfound mashup Veela/Neonlight mix, but really had nowhere to put it, except to tack it on to the beginning. I listened to how the Prototypes came out of Neon City about a million times and tried about a hundred different phrasing tricks, but didn't really like any of them. I still don't REALLY like what I ended up with, and if you notice I "shift gears" pretty quickly to showcase the incoming vocals and toss Neonlight into the back seat a little abruptly, but the trade-off was worth it to me both to have such a powerful intro, and to FINALLY be able to use the weird little Veela song that I loved.

Now all I had to do with this mix was pin a tail on it. I had already decided to move the Quardant/Iris/Kid Hops/Evol Intent mix up to its current position instead of ending with it, and found how the Carlo EQ song mixed well with the Bensley tune, but was stuck for an ending. Much like my attention to intro tracks, in my opinion an outro should fade out gracefully, leaving the listener wanting more. I usually take care to choose final songs for my mixes that don't just end with a beat, and I reeeeeeeeeeeeeally don't like the "fade out" or the cliche "turn off the turntable during the breakdown" tactic. Ending with the Carlo EQ song seemed like an option, but that left me with a pretty short mix.

Once again, I delved into the library trying to find where to go. Artist fatigue was setting in at this point and I was starting to get some pressure from the Subduction guys to wrap it up, so I literally picked the first thing I came to that didn't totally suck. I still had the Delhi 2 Dublin song in my back pocket from wanting to use it as the intro, and didn't hate how it sounded at the end, so presto bingo bango, mix done.

Once tracks were selected and cue points set, the actual recording process was easy-breezy. After having a ridiculous amount of tech issues with a previous computer and vinyl/turntable emulation software (that's probably a post in itself), I was gifted a Pioneer USB controller that enables me to record straight from Serato, and found a recording I liked on the third try. Here's the final product, which despite the low number of comments on Soundcloud, was actually pretty well received by the local DnB community.

Hope you enjoyed this pioneer installment of what I hope to be a reocurring series here on Steemit, and hope you can now listen to this final product with more appreciation for how it came together.

Enjoy!