First of all, phrasing the music just right was pretty challenging. Basically what phrasing means is that you have to make sure the transitions between tracks flow just right. Phrasing with Acid Pro is much easier than doing it with two turntables, but I'll admit this mix is far from perfectly phrased.
Overall, I'd say the biggest challenge in making this mix was the sound engineering. Getting all the volume levels just right for all of the tracks in this mix was very tedious. The fact that I'm a perfectionist didn't make engineering this mix any easier either. Just to give you an idea of how much of a perfectionist I am, as I wrote this post and listened to my mix, I was still making volume adjustments to tracks! I started making the mix without worrying about the volume level of each track. Towards the end of making this mix, I was constantly going back and forth between tracks, changing the volume levels to get everything just right. Intially, I ended up running out of time to properly engineer this mix before I had to burn it to a CD so I could play it at a party up in Delaware. As the mix played at the party, my good friend Luke noticed that the Pop Levi track was too loud, and also that I poorly phrased one of his favorite tracks in the mix. The track right after the track he liked came in way too early. He said, "The song wasn't over yet." You were right Luke, it wasn't over yet, so I adjusted the phrasing to let that Bonobo track you like so much play a little longer.
Finally, another challenge in making this mix was trying to get it to last a full hour. The mix CD I took up to Delaware back in July was a full hour, but honestly I was just throwing in filler tracks towards the end, and I think the mix really lost it's flow at about 45 min. Since July 2006, I've thought about how I'd correct this issue. Then a spark of brilliance came to me. "I'll just make it shorter and cut out the filler," I said to myself and that's what I did. I cut out two Daedlus tracks, a Blockhead track ("Expiration Date" was so overplayed amongst my circle of friends in Delaware anyway), and also a track by Pest. I really, REALLY wanted to leave the other two Daedlus tracks in this mix, but the tracks by Daedlus I threw in at the end orignally were clocking in at 120 bpm. The majority of the mix was running at 80-90 bpm, so the transition to 120 bpm was pretty sloppy and just killed the flow of the mix. In the new and improved version of my mix, the fastest track is 105 bpm and the total play time is 50:29 min. Don't worry Luke, I left Bonobo "Recurring" in the mix too.
I know I said I'd release this mix on my blog back in July, but I've been busy with other things and to be honest, the challenges involved in making this mix were really frustrating for me. I bascially gave up on this mix about mid-Augus 2006 and didn't mess with it until about a day ago. So it's finally done.
Tracklist:
1. Treva Whateva - "Singalong" VS. Mr. Scruff - "Fish"
2. Skalpel - "Test Drive"
3. Loka - "Meet Dad"
4. Jaga Jazzist - "Oslo Skyline"
5. Jaga Jazzist - "All I Know is Tonight"
6. Daedlus - "Viva Vida"
7. Skalpel - "Konfusion"
8. Fink - "Biscuits"
9. Fog - "Under an Anvil Tree"
10. Pop Levi - "Blue Honey"
11. Blockhead - "Dough Nation"
12. Ammoncontact - "Beautiful Flowers"
13. One Self - "Hollow Human Beings"
13. Bonobo - "Recurring"
14. Ammoncontact - "Elevation"
15. Ammoncontact - "Omniverses 1"
Download it here. (Link is temporarily down)
Much respect to the Ninja Tune crew.
