The Art of the Mixtape

[ctrld]

maybe 10 years mix experience has made me lazy...? plus i like to be spontaneous. have a few 'routines' i'll practice. but for the most part i make it up as i go

+1

every DJ has a few blends that are guaranteed to work. but preparing a playlist? no. because in a live situation, it will be useless.

[bumtsch]

In the past I would set a playlist and redo an entire planned mix over and over until there were no timing/beatmatching mistakes, then overdub the EQ and level mistakes inside traktor (that was when you still could do that of course).
This however did not feel spontaneous one bit after the first attempt, which I dislike. So nowadays I just try to play for around 2 hours and keep the best hour.

[BentoSan]

Depends on alot of things i guess -

A intricate studio mix set is going to take longer than a A/B djing set

I can do a normal A->B mixing set in a day and come out with good results, studio sets can take much longer, easily a month or two if you wanted to go absolutely nuts on a really long mix. If i was going to do a studio set i could easily see myself taking about a month to complete it, doing little bits in my spare, shorter if i was really hammering away at it.

[Zac Kyoti]

I'll usually spend a couple of evenings getting tracks into a list and mixing and matching them to get a feel for the overall flow. I'll then run the set through once or twice to iron out any parts I'm having difficulty with. Then I'll go ahead and record it, and barring any really major f@ck-ups, I'll keep it even if it has small mistakes. I've found through the years that the things I notice, no one else does. I'm good with the editing and have no ideological problem with doing it. After all, I play differently live than I do on a recording anyway. Live, I'm all about reading the crowd and improvising, and on a recording I like to go experimental and really create a story. (Most recordings I make aren't for getting gigs, for the promo stuff I keep it simple and bangin').

As for process, all of my audio goes through mastering plugs in Ableton, and is recorded into a clip slot. I'll take the final product, drop it down to 16 bits in an audio editor, normalize it, cut it into regions, name the regions and export as wav/aiff. Then burn with no pauses.

I'm not a fan of re-encoding mp3s, and since that's what I use for source I almost never deliver the final product as mp3. Lossless only.

[Jester]

... Sprinkle liberally with european beer.

[Sherlock Ohms]

I tend to have 2-3 mixes in various stage of done (by way of track selection) I'm always tempted to try and fit a 'themed sample' through the mix a la The Nextmen's Yoga Mix (featuring an odd 60s/70s Yoga lesson through it) or Personal Golf Instructions (featuring an old Arnold Palmer golf lesson)

It's the second bit that tends to prevent me completing enough mixes (though I do a fortnightly radio show that keeps me on my toes)

[jakeintox]

VDJ is my software of choice, and it auto saves a list of the tracks I use every session. If I have a night that particularly kills it, I go back the next day, take that saved playlist, run through it a few times to work out my transitions, then record it.