Transition Lengths / Feedback on Mix

Music Discovery & Curation Mixes
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Transition Lengths / Feedback on Mix

Hi, total newb here fiddling around with Ableton in his spare time.

Just wanted to ask how acceptable are quick, one-bar-long transitions? I rarely find myself with the opportunity to gracefully mix 2 songs together (even in the same key) without completely weird chords clashing. As an example (Mixcloud), the only transitions I can use longer than 2 bars are:

  1. 4:03-4:18
    [A#] Jessie J – It’s My Party / [Gm] La Roux – In For The Kill
    (Admittedly half the chords do clash, but doesn’t sound that bad so…)
  2. 11:27-11:42
    [A#] Britney Spears – How I Roll / [A#] E-Rotic – Turn Me On
  3. 15:08-15:15
    [A#] Alexandra Stan – Bitter-Sweet / [Gm] A7 – Love Forever More
  4. 25:20-25:34
    [Am] Rita Ora – Love And War / [Dm] Christina Aguilera – Bionic
  5. 41:36-42:04
    [F] Iyaz – So Big / [F] Rihanna – We Found Love (Calvin Harris Extended Mix)
  6. 45:09-45:45
    [F] Rihanna – We Found Love (Calvin Harris Extended Mix) / [F] Katy Perry – Hot N Cold

#5 and #6 barely even count as the only part I used from Rihanna is a thumping drum without any notes. Obviously this list doesn’t include “transitions” such as 33:44-34:01 (what’s this called…) and 13:42-13:56 / 36:02-36:18 (2 or 3 segments of the same song playing simultaneously).

From trolling the forums, a generally acceptable transition between 2 tracks is something like 16 bars long. For a track list of 26 songs, 6 transitions (2 debatable) lasting more than 2 bars… So how acceptable is this?

(Other feedback on the mix appreciated too! Track list at Mix 3 - Track List - Pastebin.com. Thanks :slight_smile:)

2

I’d say as long as the transitions sound ok, it’s fine. However, continually hearing the same transitions becomes boring for me. I didn’t listen to your whole mix, but your first 15 minutes sounded fine to me. I’m guessing the reason the transitions between Jesse J and La Roux sounded OK drawn out was because Jesse J’s tune didn’t have any musical stuff going on other than vocals and perhaps rhythm while you were transitioning.

I don’t know anything about using Ableton to mix, but there are a number of options to get a slower transition to sound good. I’d say to try to find places in your music that have minimal amounts of things going on musically in order to transition to start. I don’t know if you can use EQs (take the playing song’s mids slowly down and incoming songs slowly in) or how you would use effects in Ableton, but those are other ways to transition songs. (especially filter for an effect) You could also direct cut the highs and/or lows of one song for the others’ while slowly bringing in the mids as well as use the volume faders to slowly bring in one song while slowly taking the other song out. In slower transitions, listen all along and adjust levels where needed. But again, I’m speaking from using a mixer/controller, not Ableton.