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-- Adam Solomon - Music For Flying Part 1 (aka Morning Lights aka one of my best mixes ever)
Adam Solomon - Music For Flying Part 1 (aka Morning Lights aka one of my best mixes ever)
Hey guys,
I'm super happy to present the latest mix project I have worked on: Music For Flying (part 1 of 2 - and don't worry, part 2 is pretty much done already).
I think this is my best mix ever. My main goal with these kinds of mixes is to always capture a mood, a place, a moment in time. To me, capturing the sensation of flying, on a clear bright day above a sea of blue, the atmosphere - through music, was always something I wanted to do. I certainly have come close in the past (I believe) with last year's "Low Altitude", but I think with this mix here, I really managed to nail it.
This is a 2-hour adventure through sound - I featured some deep house, dub, melodic techno, ambient, among others. You will also notice the birds - yes, they are in fact audible throughout the entire mix. I just love tracks with bird sounds in them and thought, why not do that in a mix. And I should mention it's not just the same sound clip looped over and over - it is totally unique throughout the 2 hours.
I won't say more - I'm bad with these descriptions. But I am really super proud of this mix, and haven't been this excited to share one with you in a long time. I've posted mixes on TA for several years now - I hope this is a good indication of how far I've come since the early days.
Of course as always, and particularly in this case, feedback is greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Track List:
As One - Shambala (Reflected by Balil)
Mr Cloudy - Flug Positron
Thomas Fehlmann - Im Uberblick
Peter Van Hoesen - Attribute 39 (Donato Dozzy Remix)
Sven V�th - L'Esperanza
Octal Industries - Himingl�va #3
Freund Der Familie - In Distance
Stojche - Ritual Dub
Steve Moore - Panther Moderns
Instra:mental - Lets Talk
Sanasol - Feelarama
Synkro - Stop & Think
Voices From The Lake - In Giova
Segue - Snow Dub
Deepchord - Grand Bend (DC07 Mix)
Arne Weinberg - Solar Flare
IMPS - Almost Live But Definitly Plugged
Ohrwert - Realm
Philogresz - Move Me (Ron Deacon's Move Me Dirty Dope Dub)
Newworldaquarium - The Force
Pitch Black � Flex (Son.sine Remix)
Petar Dundov - Ideas From The Pond
Powel - Getting Out
Cheers!
Tracklist looks absolutely fantastic. Will definitely be listening to this.
Re: Adam Solomon - Music For Flying Part 1 (aka Morning Lights aka my best mix ever)
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Adam420 You will also notice the birds |
Baalin'. Can't wait to listen.
Cheers, fellas
So I listened to this and I have a few conflicting feelings. I'm going to try and explain myself as objectively as possible, without feeling like I'm criticizing this work too much.
Firstly I should probably advise you against claiming you have created your best mix ever, because that is generally very subjective and will vary widely amongst your listeners. Even if you feel like you totally nailed it, treat it as another mix and let your listeners decide how it stacks up against your previous work instead. It also sets somewhat of an unreachable standard where people who are listening will be judging you much more harshly than they would normally.
Secondly, this mix has a load of really nice tracks in it and I enjoyed listening to it quite a bit. However, I feel that this set suffers severely from a consistency problem. The first hour was a rollercoaster of mood swings. You would be playing a beautiful, lush ambient track, and 10 minutes later, you were playing darker prog. It's hard to take the birds seriously, and the theme of feeling like you're flying, when you are ripping me from out of the air and throwing me into a dark and dingy club listening to a scary and distorted voice talking about whatever. The second half was much more consistent with the theme, but I still feel like you picked and chose your spots.
Thirdly, the birds. They totally made sense in some places, and totally didn't make sense in other places. At the 21 minute mark, I'm loving the ambient pads and melodies mixed with the birds. It's complete bliss. But around the 30 minute/35 minute mark, it sounds completely out of place. The last thing on my mind when I'm listening to dark prog are birds, so that totally felt off. There were times when I felt you probably could have gotten away with this sort of flow if you had just gotten rid of the bird track entirely. As a matter of fact they got downright annoying at times. I do appreciate the idea to have a field recording of unique bird sounds throughout the entire mix, but I don't think you pulled it off successfully.
So while I did enjoy the music, and thought your mixing was perfect, you had serious flow problems and I didn't think this was your best mix ever by a long shot. I hope Part 2 turns out a little better.
Reminder: you're a really good friend, we've traded gifts in the past, and I don't want you to feel like I'm tearing your mix to shreds here. Just my own musings while listening. I hope you find some useful constructive criticism in my review.
Thanks, Nick.
You referred a few times to a "dark prog" track, I assume you're referring to the Steve Summers track. I mean, it's just one track, I don't understand why it would be such a focal point in your review. With regards to the roller coaster comment - fair point, but it was sort of my intention to go though different moods and sound aesthetics and personally felt I pulled it off pretty well. To each his own but I do know that when you make mixes you typically aim to achieve this sort of consistency - I was by no means trying to achieve that. The variety was an objective of mine. And I also don't think at any point there are shifts in mood or energy that don't make any sense. I spent a long time making sure all the tracks blend perfectly.
I will agree that I went a little off with my claim, was probably too excited there. I am really proud of this mix though, and my claiming it's my best mix ever simply comes from the fact that as far as I can recall, I don't think I have made a mix to date which I've been as inclined to go back and listen to over and over as much as this one. The birds I think are a bit of a hard lesson for me though - I should have been more mindful of the fact that not everyone would feel the same way about them as I do, and I'll admit that I could have done a better job of controlling the volume levels on those tracks (they are too loud at certain points).
Of course, your comments are greatly appreciated and I will keep them in mind when doing this in the future.
Erm Nick... the stuff playing at 30-35 minutes is definitely dub techno. Nowhere near dark prog. I haven't listened yet so can't comment any further, but from the tracklist I'd be very surprised if there's any progressive in this mix at all.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Adam420 You referred a few times to a "dark prog" track, I assume you're referring to the Steve Summers track. I mean, it's just one track, I don't understand why it would be such a focal point in your review. |
| quote: |
| With regards to the roller coaster comment - fair point, but it was sort of my intention to go though different moods and sound aesthetics and personally felt I pulled it off pretty well. To each his own but I do know that when you make mixes you typically aim to achieve this sort of consistency - I was by no means trying to achieve that. The variety was an objective of mine. And I also don't think at any point there are shifts in mood or energy that don't make any sense. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Erm Nick... the stuff playing at 30-35 minutes is definitely dub techno. Nowhere near dark prog. I haven't listened yet so can't comment any further, but from the tracklist I'd be very surprised if there's any progressive in this mix at all. |
I saw this through the facebook but I will post here as well~
I loved this. I have to echo Nick's words though, I thought you over-did it with the birds (and that's coming from me, as a bird nutter :P ). Those sounds just didn't fit, in some places.
The flow was great, I thought. I like mixes that go up and down. Gives it some "personality" for use of a better word. It's like an album, a bit, but mixed. And the tunes themselves work well together.
I'll be listening a bunch more, it's on my phone now for wanderings.
PS: Not relevant to the music at all, but I have a lot of tame birds that hang out on my deck. While playing this, on this lovely afternoon, I had a Noisy Miner (that's a kind of bird here) fly right up to my speakers on the deck here, looking for the "bird" that was making the sounds. I LOL'd.
I'll check this out if you check mine out.
Fair deal.
Enjoyed this a lot for the most part, Adam, it lived up to the picture painted by the tracklist. Lots of dreamy dubby techno and some truly gorgeous moments in there, and for the most part technically very good. I didn't mind the undulating flow either, because this clearly isn't a dancefloor mix and for home listening a more dynamic flow is generally a good thing. I have to applaud the ambition of the tracklist, and there's a few tracks in here I need to single out and get hold of.
That said, I do agree with Nick that there are a few moments that felt very out of place. Most of the mix was very dreamy and airy and yet there were a few darker moments that really didn't make sense to me. We're only talking about 10-15 minutes of music in the whole thing at most, but in a way the briefness of these darker moments made them seem more jarring.
And on a technical note, I have to note there were a few key clashes in there which I found very distracting. Key clashes by their nature sound chaotic, which can be just fine in certain contexts, but here you built a very blissful and relaxed mood, and so the occasional sour passages stood out to me a lot.
Hey thanks for the feedback Jack. Would you mind pointing out where you felt those key clashes occurred? Just so I know for future reference, to avoid making those mistakes again. To be honest I knew that the Steve Moore and Instra:mental tracks didn't necessarily fit with the theme, but I liked how they sat in the mix so I decided to go with them. Sometimes I make compromises and perhaps in the future it's best to avoid doing that.
The mix into L'Esperanza stood out for me, especially as things had been so smooth until then. I felt you held them together for way too long, when a quick fade would have minimised the damage. And the transition around 92 minutes in was really distracting to me. I find that if you're going to mix harmonically incompatible tracks together, keep pads out of the transition at all costs as they sound really sour.
Also, although it wasn't terrible, the mix into Petar Dundov wasn't in key, and I think such a clever set-piece like that would have sounded better if the tracks melted into each other.
Thanks for pointing those out Jack. Sometimes one can be blinded by pride in their own work so I ultimately appreciate people like you bringing me back down to earth. Still very happy with this one all in all and I'm extremely glad that you enjoyed it for the most part.
Finally got around to listening to this. I apologize for the long wait Adam 
I am just going to quote Stu because he pretty much hit it on the nail of the head for me.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Sushipunk I loved this. I have to echo Nick's words though, I thought you over-did it with the birds (and that's coming from me, as a bird nutter :P ). Those sounds just didn't fit, in some places. The flow was great, I thought. I like mixes that go up and down. Gives it some "personality" for use of a better word. It's like an album, a bit, but mixed. And the tunes themselves work well together. |
Thanks Chris, didn't see your comment there.
And thanks to all those that took the time to listen.
Part 2 should be ready in early-mid January.
Cheers!
I'm still waiting for Part 2 of your melodic techno mix.
Wanted to reply to this for a while but I couldn't find the topic any more for some reason, even with google. It's bound to happen sometimes on an overcrowded subforum like this I guess, but I must surely have been on crack or something because I managed to find it straight away just now. Consequently though I'm not as fresh on it now as I have been but I've listened to it extensively over the new year period and still have a decent idea of how it went.
First off this is easily my favourite mix of yours that I've heard. I like the way it's set up and the bird recordings did a good job in pulling it all together. I do echo the sentiment that at some parts they felt out of place, although due to what I've said before I can't pinpoint exactly were these are any more. At times they were either clashing with the percussion or just needed to be pushed back a bit more, like with reverb or something to that effect. Having said that though, non of it was really jarring enough to take me out of it, and in general you did a good job with them when looking at the mix in it's entirety.
As far as flow is concerned, the part that ziptnf mentioned was actually one of my favourite parts. The only time I was really taken out of the mix was around the 40 minute mark. Panther Moderns was the main culprit for me, Feelarama fitted the overall theme but did not succeed in pulling me back to were I felt we should have been, a consequence of it's positioning and the fact it didn't sound as vibrant and organic as some of the stuff that came before as the birds were absent for much of it's length. It quickly recovers after that and I have no more major complaints from there on out.
Music wise it was outstanding, as you competently pulled off the concept of journeying through various musical soundscapes with the birds as an ever present reminder of were we came from, as well as accompanying us to wherever we're going next. And making otherwise cold and bleak techno works sound amazingly crisp and alive. It's a fine example of mixing elevating the actual tracks to new heights which in my book is definitely something to be proud of.
Wow dude, thanks so much for the review, I sincerely appreciate it!
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