How do you guy choose what tracks to put in a mix, and how to order them?

Im trying to put together a tracklist for a mix tape (CD), but I want to put lot of different tracks from different genres on to it.

Do you just follow the further the mix goes the harder the tracks become rule, or do you think about it alot more than that?

Hi, I think if U wanna do I CD or Tape compilation, is not bad Idea to build a tracklist first, but if u know very well all your Records, and wich mixes could sounds good and wich wont, u will have morE alternatives at time to play your records, and u can go with the People Flow, havind a tracklist for all your live sets, could be very boring.

practise
mix 2 songs and listen if they match together
good luck

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vylix.be

i'm not talking about live sets, I meant how do you guys make the mix progress, and feel together.

If you do mix genres have certain tracks between genres that have some of the same elements. For example:
Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar (Marco V mix)
Marco V - ReVolt
Vanguard - Flash
...Tech Trance to Techno

IMO, I think this is one of the key concepts of being a good dj. Personally, I will only use tracks that I think that are increadible. I listen to thousands of tracks, and I think it is my job as a dj to sort out the crap that I have to wade through to get to the good stuff, so that the people I spin for don't have to listen to it either!

Track selection is key! I make a play list before, and since I record all of the tracks that I have into MP3s, I can quickly and efficiently jump between tracks to see if the two mix together well. Being able to do this makes it very easy for me to listen to the key parts of the track without slowly fastforwarding through the beats until you forget what you were comparing it to.

It is also much easier to throw all of the potential tracks into winamp, find your first track and your last track and go from there. I will order them in the playlist box and after I find a first and last track, I ususally work from the end of my set to the begining. This is until I find the order of all the tracks, make sure that they all fit together, then eliminate those that do not and add more that do until you get a full length cd.

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When you dance, the DJ takes you on a journey, but he or she is usually not the focus of your experience at a club or festival or wherever you hear the music. Dancing is. Music is.

I hate picking out tracks before hand, I seem to do better when i just get in a groove and start playin what feels right at the time. But we all know which records go good together. When making a cd i always use a intro song and do a hardcore pvd style mix out of it..



Tip for new djs using vinyl, a small but quality record collection is the key. I see people buy tons of records... wrong!! Get 10 learn them in and out and be able to mix each of them together. Get 10 more and repeat..

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Lookin for rare old school trance vinyls! PM Me..

Heres a link to my slow car that i spend my record money on.My ProjecTT

that is a touchy subject...
I actually do it as if im writing an essay.. brainstorm. I come up with the idea of what feel i want the demo cd to have.. like, a harder feel, or soft, fast pace or whatever...
then on to the tracks.
I may do one of two things or both. Like bobbo mentioned, i sometimes too like to start mixing based on what im feeling, but then again, you got to stick with the original plan "what feel is it going to have"... it has to have a consistancy and structure.. a little bit different than a live set, cause sometimes a live set may change totally depending on mood, crowd demands, etc.
So then what i may do is write down all the tracks that have a potential chance of being in the demo.. the best tracks that I have that fit the theme of the cd.
You may end up with only 15 or even 30. From there, you can seperate them in genres.. hard trance, progressive, etc.
I then like to pick my opening track, but follow the structure "im i going to want to make the cd start off bangin'?". There is really no right way to start off a cd demo, its up to you and what you want to present.
Instead of just numbering the tracks, remember, i still have not chosen the exact sequence. I then put the list of the 20-30 songs besides my tts... start doing a quick mix.. begin with the opening.. skip most half the song,,, and quickly pick a second song from the list to mix with that track. Sometimes it takes me a couple of tries to get the song i really want to get. From there, I will do the same for song two, just i did for song one. Suddenly i ended up with a 14 songs for a cd.
Then comes in the more technical side and detailed aspect of it. Start judging the whole sequence of the cd.. how well does it give a story... is it too redundant? is there a flat point? From there, its just work, work work. I will then record a rough copy and listen to it for a couple of days.. then come back and edit the thing (take replace certain tracks with others, or resequence certain tracks with others)

Honestly, you may end up doing it a completely different way. I dont think there is really a right or wrong way to do it. I got this far from making many, many demos from when i first started mixing and practicing.

I really think that if a DJ is skilled enough, and if the parameters outside the DJs control(i.e natural BPM, pitch limit) are favorable, then it's possible for any song to go with each other. It just takes a ear to listen to what sounds to cut and which frequencies to eliminate/bring in.
I think what you people are talking about is how 'well' the mix goes, not if the mix is possible...going from banging trance to smooth prog is possible, it's just that the tweaking and transitioning won't sound as smooth.
The best thing to do is just experiment. You'll never know what you can do with your vinyls until you've done it.

thanks, that's more of the type of replies i was expecting. Seems everyones go their own way (just like everything else in mixing), but I really wanted to see how much people think about the track list, and how important it is compared to how good/new the tracks are.


I'm thinking about sequencing the mix something like this, having a few tracks per style.


Vocal Prog + Vocal Breaks

Proggy Trance

Proggy Breaks

Vocal Trance

Hard Trance + Bassline Breaks


Leave a post if you want a listen once it's finished

quote:

I'm thinking about sequencing the mix something like this, having a few tracks per style.

Good variety...I like your style already(lol). But remember that if your planning on fitting this mix onto a CD, then you need to account for size as well...and with size comes restraint on track numbers. You can figure out on paper how to sequence a mix all you want, but if you don't try it and get the feel for how many tracks you'll be able to fit with your desired agenda, you'll only end up messing the whole thing up.
Point is, try running 1 hour sets daily...imagine as if you are recording for an hour session on a CD, and spin the set. If you feel that it's not going anywhere, mix it up with more variety, or speed the tempo up as the mix progresses... you'll find yourself slapping down harder and harder tracks as the tempo increases(which is kinda obvious...hehehehe)
Another thing to watch out for is fluidity and smoothness of the mix. Sure, it may look good sequenced, but how well can you mix the variety of styles you mentioned in an hour? Going from prog trance to harder, banging trance isn't as easy as it sounds...the hardest thing about it is time: how much time is alloted to ease the transition. The more time you have, the longer the stretch is going to be to flow into track after track...
Just remember...given an hour, the more styles you plan on incorporating, the most likely your mix is going to be awkward and unpleasant to listen to, with obvious pitch raising, and inevitable bad transitioning. Of course, we would all spin super star DJ sets if we had more than 70minutes to record onto a CD, but we gotta work with what we have. Programming a set to record is probably the hardest thing to do when recording a demo CD, especially without the aid of professional mastering and editing. All these mix CDs that multi variety 'real' dance music DJs like DJ Irene and Richard Humpty Vission put out are computer engineered. Your mix can only sound so smooth on turntables...
Good luck. I would like a demo of your CD when you are done with it!

Thanks for the ideas djohn, lots of stuff I hadn't thought of there.

I've been recently learning the difference between, mixing "freestyle", and mixing a pre-set tracklist. You can't just go with the flow, cos you have time limits, a specific path, etc. etc.

Yeah I'll try and post it here once it's finished, but I'm a final year student so I don't have mush free time and it could be a while before it's up.