quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Right Nick, I have set aside tomorrow afternoon with the specific intention of listening to your set in full. I've got a list of jobs to do that need a soundtrack of Get Up And Go tuneage.

Looking forward to your thoughts. Thanks for setting aside time to listen!

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Set Archive | TA DJ Challenge

Nick, Jan, Jack - I haven't listened to 100% of your sets yet but what I've heard has been fantastic!

EDIT: Well I just finished part 2 of Nick's psybreaks set. I'm really digging this, while I've a passing familiarity with psytrance, the breaks portion is pretty new to my ears. Some of these melodies are great, and I like how it starts out almost kinda muted before building and building. Really nice progression that keeps things fresh all throughout. GREAT for motivating me to get off my ass and clean the house!

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9-9-99 Never Forget

Quarantine Music Festival 2020

All My Mixes!

Last edited by Mr Game+Watch on Dec-16-2018 at 17:39

As you might have guessed Nick, I didn't ultimately get chance to listen to your set on the fateful afternoon of December 14th. But I have finally had chance to listen to it this afternoon!

I have to admit, I struggled with Part 1 of this set. The greater majority of the music you played just didn't do it for me. It's ironic, as I've often castigated psy trance parties for their complete lack of concession to the idea of "warming up", but I finally found a psy set dedicated to warming the night up properly and I wasn't grabbed by the "psychedelic warm-up" stuff you played in the first hour here. I think my main issue is that I found the music very dry. Listening in the headphones didn't help, as I could hear there was a lot of throbbing bass in there that will surely sound infinitely stronger through a massive stack of speakers. However, without that stack of speakers, I found myself thirsting for a melody, or even some funky drums. When the psy stuff did arrive, there were some tracks I really liked (I love the tune at 1 hour 50, for example) but I just wanted more big melodies at this point. Towards the end my ears were getting quite fatigued, and this is definitely the point of the night I would have gone for a smoke or a sit down for 30 minutes.

What's interesting is that this set really feels like two totally different DJs, almost as though a breaks DJ gets on the decks after the psy guy has finished. And the second half delivered everything I thought the first half lacked. The early sections were atmospheric and melodic, almost more beefed up prog breaks than psy breaks. A lot of these names - Retroid, Monojoke, Atrium Sun - were the names I was playing in my prog breaks sets ten years ago, but the tunes here had a lot more balls than the ones I used to play. It's no surprise this was probably my favourite part of the whole set. From here you built up into more tear-out peak time stuff again, but I felt the development worked a lot better in this half. Most probably I just like this style a lot more. When I look back at my time going to psy nights, with hindsight 90% of the time I was there for the breaks room. This second half delivers everything I enjoyed from that period of my clubbing life: big drums, big riffs, big drops -just a whole lot of fun without spilling into EDM silliness.

So yeah. I can't pretend I enjoyed the whole thing, but listening to it was almost exactly like my memories of real psy parties - a few hours of nodding my head half-heartedly waiting for the psy breaks, and then dancing my bollocks off for the rest of the night.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Thanks, Luke and Jack for the listens. This was a lot of fun to make, it was enjoyable setting out a block of time spinning til the wee hours of the morning. I don't really get to do that anymore so it was a blast.

As far as part 1 is concerned, I'd have to say that I agree with yours and Jan's perceptions that I was playing it a bit safe from a number of aspects and it's true. Despite my interest in creating a mix that flowed perfectly between multiple genres, I found that it is a task left to the professionals and I could never make a true attempt to be like Simon Posford. So what I was left with was two distinct mixes - a 3 hour prog-psy... setup to a psybreaks set? Maybe I missed the mark there. Perhaps if you and Jan coordinated you could switch rooms when the breaks Zip came on

I deliberately stepped back the energy so that I could make it the 3 hours without getting fatigued but I was anyway. I was totally relieved when part 1 was over. In fact I put on the first breaks track, went to refill my bourbon, and took a short breather outside. My favorite tracks were coming up.

I felt bad double dipping so much but the tracks fit perfectly where I was hoping. Definitely not a surprise that it's your favorite part Jack. Thanks again for the listen.

Btw, this challenge will extend until June or so when we start the next challenge. I've already had one official drop out, don't be another!

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Set Archive | TA DJ Challenge

So, I received a legit Christmas present this year from my partner, which is a pair of Bluetooth wireless earpieces. She got it on Black Friday for like 50% off, score. Anyways, point being, I can now finally listen to my own tunes at the gym and I have been frequently blasting out these mixes.

I gave Jack's a listen throughout several gym sessions and on the drive to and from Toronto. I love how in the mix, you can clearly hear you "judging the crowd", and knowing when to tone it down and allow for a breather before ramping the atmosphere back up again. My favourite bit was definitely the acid section. If I had to pick my favourite section, I would choose Part 1 actually, as it's got that slower, chugging feel to it that would instantly glue me to the dancefloor at the beginning of the night (with Part 2 coming in as a close second). The programming was solid and the transitions, for the most part, were great. Everything was obviously beatmatched but there were a few transitions I probably would have done a little differently... but isn't that how we all feel as DJs. Definitely a great entry and one that I will be listening to on the regular. Once I find more time I will give another, more detailed review, for a mix as long as 6 hours.

Nick, I'm on hour 1.5 on yours right now, so I'll be through yours very soon. Won't comment on it too much until I'm finished in its entirety. I'm very excited though, as my HIIT in the next couple of days will most likely fall on when you start ramping things up in the mix, which will be very welcome for my ears.

Wotyzoid, I still haven't had the ability to download your set yet. Would you mind re-uploading and sending me a PM with the link?

Similarly, @ Sand Leaper, I was wondering if you'd be able to upload your set so I could download it. Right now, the only chance I get to listen to music is at the gym (at my work) and unfortunately I can't stream Mixcloud there due to company policy. My free time at home in the evenings is usually spent preparing for this challenge, getting my next podcast episode released or just relaxing/reading/gaming. Apologies for being needy.

I don't have any webspace right now, but if you PM me your email address, I'll send you the mix via WeTransfer. It's not the best of gym soundtracks, though, I have to admit.

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"Wenn du dich zum Untergrund zählst, reicht es nicht, es nur zu sagen. Du musst auch viel graben, um es zu werden."

Cheers for listening Chris, glad you enjoyed it. I'm curious as to which transitions you would have done differently?

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Cheers for listening Chris, glad you enjoyed it. I'm curious as to which transitions you would have done differently?

Honestly, they are so far and few in between I was hesitant to even mention it. I noticed just a few upon second listen on my headphones. In very few instances I thought the basslines between a couple tracks were muddled, or in a couple instances the highs were introduced at an awkward moment. I doubt you would even notice on a big system but on the headphones I noticed the EQ variation.

For instance, in Part 2 minutes 42:00 to 43:00, I feel it might have made more sense to blend the highs earlier, or transition from Track 1's filtered phrase at 43:00 (wasn't sure if that was you or the track) straight into the mini-drop heard at 42:31. Another area was in Part 3 minute 19:00 onwards, where the low-ends were a bit muddled for my tastes when you were lowering the low-end EQ in Track 1 and bringing Track 2 in. However I do understand the difficulty in mixing into a very powerful rolling bassline as heard in Feel The Beat (Subconscious Tales Remix).

Nothing to detract from the overall flow from the mix at all, just a couple nitpicky observations I noticed from my end.

quote:

Originally posted by Sand Leaper I don't have any webspace right now, but if you PM me your email address, I'll send you the mix via WeTransfer. It's not the best of gym soundtracks, though, I have to admit.

Many thanks, I'll send you a PM now. Hopefully it'll be good for my light cardio days.

Frankly, I'm impressed you were paying such close attention to such a long mix to notice things like that. I've never really come up with a winning strategy for EQing transitions where the incoming track has a throbbing bassline right from the first beat. I'm interested in how other DJs bring that kind of track in without having a lot of muddiness/bass cancellation.

Also, Jan: I don't have your mix either. Surely you can put it up in Mixcloud or somewhere like that, in parts if necessary?

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Also, Jan: I don't have your mix either. Surely you can put it up in Mixcloud or somewhere like that, in parts if necessary?

I did. Try reading through the thread again.

___________________
"Wenn du dich zum Untergrund zählst, reicht es nicht, es nur zu sagen. Du musst auch viel graben, um es zu werden."

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I've never really come up with a winning strategy for EQing transitions where the incoming track has a throbbing bassline right from the first beat. I'm interested in how other DJs bring that kind of track in without having a lot of muddiness/bass cancellation.

I come across this often because I play so much psy. My solution is a bad one, because I've found that killing the lows and slowly bringing them in sounds awkward, so I fuck with the gain on the incoming track instead. When I cross the midway point between the two, I start increasing the gain from a really low value to its computed level. It's all based on feel but it also may contribute to that "short transition" feel that Jan pointed out earlier. It also doesn't really solve the problem entirely, just makes it a tad less noticeable.

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Set Archive | TA DJ Challenge

quote:

Originally posted by Sand Leaper I did. Try reading through the thread again.

Great God! I'll aim to get onto it this weekend. Any plans to listen to mine in the next million years?

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Last edited by SYSTEM-J on Jan-09-2019 at 23:24