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-- i'm findind it hard to get back into mixing.. :(

i'm findind it hard to get back into mixing.. :(

This is a complete shock to me..

My problem (well some people will argue it's not a problem) is that i have too much music to go through.

When it comes to music i know tunes not names. People will ask if i've ever heard of 'X' song and i'll go i dunno. Then they'll play it and i'll know it.

I've found this to be really difficult as whenever i start messing around on the decks i just don't remember all the names of the tracks i want to play.

I was wondering how you guys remember all the names of your tracks.
Is it the organisation of your crates and genre labels that help you out.
Do you listen to tunes while your mixing to see if it'll go and then choose another tune if you don't like it?

I'm just curious as to how i can get to know names of songs better.

Obviously the more i use them the better i'll get to know them. But do you guys have a specific system of helping you remember new tunes and songs you've known for ages just not their name.

I'm thinking of starting from scratch and building my library up from scratch but i dunno if that's silly.

I dunno, bit of a random thread i guess


nelly

use your ipod all day

I listen to tracks that genuinely move me and I tend to listen to them for hours, days even months on end. It's hard to forget the names when you listen to them all the time. Then I relate those to other mixes/variations. From there, I group according to mood/emotion they create, how they actually make me feel and what kind of work I am best able to do by listening to them. If you listen on your ipod all day, it will come back to you.
Basically, it is easier to remember something by the significance it has in our lives. My collection is small, so its easier for me. There's a good thread on this forum about cataloguing by various methods. that may help. Good Luck

Answer: Get to know your track names better. I would probably have a very tough time putting a coherent mix together if I didn't know the tracks I was including in my mixes.

Are you buying your tracks or downloading them? If you buy from actual dgital sites and/or record shops, I find it very difficult to understand how you can't seem to remember track names.

Now, if you're downloading loads of tracks off Kazaa at a time that's a different story.

Who says we remember them?

Cheers
Nem

When I'm going through records I put a sound to a sleeve and remember that it has an awesome b-side or something.

Incidentally I'm awful at train spotting.

One of the reasons why I like spinning vinyl.
i don't have to remember the name. I just remember how the sleeve and label looks like. I also broke up my records into three groups (Techno, Trance, House) within my bag which makes it all the more easier.

quote:

Originally posted by Nemesis44 Who says we remember them? Cheers Nem

Yeah I haven't got a clue half of the time

I seem to develop a "picture" of what each track is like - I wouldn't have a chance at singing any of my tunes to you, but after listening to each one a couple of times (even when just picking what to buy) I associate this sort of image of how hard, how uplifting, how dirty etc a track is whether I can actually remember how it goes or not - usually this is enough to put together a mix!

When I first discovered pirating music (tsk tsk, although I have got rid of all of my pirated stuff now) I used to download so much that I had far too much to keep track of - I didn't even know what rough genre 90% of tunes I had were. So even before I cleaned up my act I decided to limit the number of tunes I was getting so that I could keep on top of it. Add to that a bit of financial constraint when I stopped pirating stuff and it became quite manageable... but that might be worth thinking about? If you're getting too many tunes to keep on top of, just cut down on the amount you buy / burn off.


And yeah, I totally agree about vinyl, the visual trigger of the sleeve used to really help, plus when I saw the groove pattern on the record it would trigger memories of the structure (as well as obviously being able to see what would happen when) - both things that digital technology still haven't solved properly, the wave display on CDJs is shite.

i never remember what tracks sound like im useless i just see a name of a track and think thats good ill play it.

fortunatley for me i use torq so i have the luxary of quickly loading the track up and skipping through it to rememeber it.. usually after the first few seconds i get the idea of what track it is and then i cue it up and make love

Cheers for the replies lads.

I'm using serato myself. Purchase my tracks but as you were saying Stu, i'm slowly filtering out my pirated stuff. Would have done this earlier but i have been away a year. Currently i'm going through stuff and trying to see if i like it then purchasing them.

Purchasing them obviously helps but after a while you gather quite a few tracks and i suppose i'm just not that good at remember them all.

Either way I think an idea might be to start from scratch. Start building up from the ground up and adding tracks i already know and moving on from there.

In regards to Serato/Torq/FS how many crates/playlists do people have. I've done the same as Taylor by dividing my House Trance Techno, and then i have a sub crate of progressive house a chill out crate as well. But i dunno if i want to go to town with splitting all the tunes up into such a detailed library.

ahhh.. so many options. It's all down to free time in the end of the day hey..

Again,
cheers for the replies.

nelly

i used to remember the cover on my lps so it was easy, i also knew where they where in my boxes but when i sold my decks and started with cd and mp3 it was impossible. i gave up, sold it all and started making music instead. my goal now is to be a liveact or smthg instead.

I use torq and have several playlists by genre, artist, etc, but what I like the most is my playlists of record labels - vandit, hooj, armada, black hole, etc... many tunes on the same label have a similar sound that helps sometimes. Just tried it I like this method.

threadstarter - how do you have a problem if you use serato?? it's incredibly quick and easy to sort/search/playlist music...


i frequently have this problem, especially because I use cds and tend to burn them in huge clumps (like 20 cds of 10 tracks at a time).


I also name my cds after letters and numbers and have a catalog that I use when mixing, which makes it somewhat easier, but it's still a huge pain in the ass


the only real way to combat this when you have a ton of tracks is to prepare a specialized crate beforehand with all of the tracks you might want to play.

I do this for gigs - I have all my tracks cataloged on my computer with a ton of information about them, and then I choose the ones I might be tempted to play at the gig and assemble a smaller, gig-specific catalog.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox I seem to develop a "picture" of what each track is like - I wouldn't have a chance at singing any of my tunes to you, but after listening to each one a couple of times (even when just picking what to buy) I associate this sort of image of how hard, how uplifting, how dirty etc a track is whether I can actually remember how it goes or not - usually this is enough to put together a mix!

^^this is me too

although i seem to have a ridiculaise trainspotter memory for tunes...

Don't get me wrong Serato is class for organising, especially the sub crates thing. But i just didn't want to have a LOAD of crates. Otherwise i'd be looking for which crate a track was in rather than just the track itself.

I know you can search, but that's what this is all about not remembering track names.

Anyway, what i'm doing at the moment is getting all my new tracks and then just starting at the top and i try and mix each track into the next one (obviously this wont work with every track as some of their BPMs are just too varied) but once i've listened to the track i then put it into it's relevant crate and then start messing around with crates when there's a good number of tracks in there.

It's working so far but we'll see how i'm going in a few weeks.

Anywho...

quote:

Originally posted by TaylorR One of the reasons why I like spinning vinyl. i don't have to remember the name. I just remember how the sleeve and label looks like.

Thats how I roll. I remember the sleeve.

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