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Adam Solomon - Monochromatic [Ambient, IDM, Dub Techno, Berghain etc...] (pg. 3)
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| Domesticated |
| Have you had the balls to post this for the elitists on RA? :p |
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| Adam420 |
Thanks man, no I haven't. I had done that before with a set I made about a year ago that I thought would go down well with that crowd but alas it was quickly ignored and forgotten about like most sets that happen to get posted there.
You review echoes what others have said about this mix which I must admit overall is a surprise to me. I thought I as building a nice set that really went from nothing to full-on. id I succeed in doing that? Yes, it seems. But was it necessarily a good idea? In 2 hours? Probably not, I guess.
I mean I thought most would enjoy the transition to club-oriented tracks (that's all they are really) but I guess I created certain expectations with the first half that were not followed up on in the latter half.
It's funny though, because at no point did I ever imagine the first 45 minutes to be the highlight. In fact, quite the contrary. I simply meant for the first 45 minutes to serve as a sort of extended intro for the rest. Maybe I am really well suited to being an opening DJ haha.
Nothing much else for me to say. I'm guessing the track you're after is the James Kumo or perhaps one of the Dettmann remixes.
Appreciate you taking the time man, as much as I always do. Your comments are very much valued and I can only hope that you would continue to be as kind in checking out my mixes and giving me a certain degree of feedback. I's unfortunate the the more club-oriented tracks were not as enjoyed by some as the were by others, but hey I'll take that as a lesson. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Adam420
Still, I'm surprised that you took a listen but I appreciate the fact that you did. Obviously I'm not as experienced as you when it comes to this and might not be able to live up to your personal standards. I never really made this kind of mix before, it was an idea I've been toying with with a long time now and it finally came together in the form of this. I'm pretty happy with the result but obviously I can always do better. Also, I probably covered more ground in 2 hours than a set of this sort really should. |
Hey, it's just different perspectives. People on this forum always say stuff about 'my experience' - it's not really about experience as some kind of benchmark IMO, just perspective and taste. I'm not even really that 'experienced'. I'm young, I party a lot, and I have a voracious appetite for many musical styles, that's it. So don't ever worry about living up to anyone's standards. Obviously you are talented at mixing and have a lot of passion for it. But I think it's worth offering another perspective. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
Essentially though, I feel like you're trying to pack too many tunes into your sets, going for quantity over quality. |
Yeah, I'd back this. Get that impression from a few of your sets, Adam. A few of the prog ones would have been interesting to me if they were 80 minutes long, but your 2-4 hour sets feel like you're playing everything you've bought the past month. This set was great for the first hour, and then it flatlined hard. The first hour had genuine direction, but the second hour had that "emptying my Hold Bin" feel about it.
I don't know if you play out much, and maybe you construct these longer sets because you're used to having 2-4 hour slots, where a set can move a lot more slowly. Mixing for home listening is quite different though. I think this quote from Digweed sums it up:
| quote: | | All the tracks I use on my mix albums are tracks I play out in the clubs, but obviously in a club I'll be playing for five or six hours. So it's about breaking it down to the best tracks, there's certain tracks which sound great in a club, and there's certain tracks that sound great in a club but also sound great at home or in the car, in those different listening environments. I want something that every time they hear it, they hear different things coming in because it's put together in a way which is very crafted. When you're in a club environment you'll use certain records as bridges, you'll have peaks and then you'll hold them off for a little while, you can't have them just going mad the whole time because they'll wear themselves out over five hours. But obviously with a CD, it's not about going mad, but you want the real quality ones, not the bridges. |
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct...k.asp?print=yes |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
digweed quote |
ick, no love for filler here
it's important to change up the pace/vibe/groove IMO, but filler explains why the two times i saw digweed i literally fell asleep. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| I'm not saying "play filler", quite the opposite if anything. |
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| Domesticated |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm not saying "play filler", quite the opposite if anything. |
He didn't say you said that. He was criticising Digweed's track selection. |
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| Adam420 |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Yyour 2-4 hour sets feel like you're playing everything you've bought the past month. |
Haha yea, I'm not gonna deny this. Obviously this hasn't ALWAYS been the case but has happened a few times. I've honestly been telling myself recently that I need to be more stringent when it comes to selecting music.
But I will be honest and admit that sometimes I get a little disappointed when I read some of these comments just because I thought I really had something great going but you guys come along and burst my bubble:haha:
But yea I'll probably start to seriously re-evaluate why and how I do future mixes. Golden Hawk 2 is still coming but I want it to be extra special:) |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Domesticated
He didn't say you said that. He was criticising Digweed's track selection. |
Yeah, but I just want to make it clear I don't endorse the idea of playing filler because you've got a long set in a club. The reason I posted the Diggers quote was to emphasise that a home-listening set is much shorter and so every track needs to be more efficient. In a 4-6 hour club set you might spend an entire hour or more just laying down an introductory section, and that's fine because people have come to dance for 6, 8, 10 hours. You might space out your big moments much more, because you want to keep the energy levels right and not do trance-clown anthem-anthem-anthem programming. But speaking personally a 2 hour set is my absolute limit for home listening, and one that doesn't develop constantly in that time will probably tune me out after a while.
I personally think 60-80 minutes is the ideal length for home listening (perhaps that's because I grew up in the era of CD albums) and it's totally different programming dance music for that length of time compared to playing in a club.
| quote: | Originally posted by Adam420
But I will be honest and admit that sometimes I get a little disappointed when I read some of these comments just because I thought I really had something great going but you guys come along and burst my bubble:haha: |
I totally understand the urge to fire all your guns in a set, especially when you've collected lots of great tracks. With my last set I commented that it could have been twice as long if I'd used everything I'd dug up, and someone said I should have made that set. But if I'd used twice as many tracks for each part of the mix it wouldn't have flowed nearly as well. It's a simple and important lesson that less is more, and a set isn't automatically better if you just keep extending the idea and using more tracks. There's an old writer's maxim called "Kill your babies" for the literary equivalent - you write loads of pretty little sentences that you're proud of, and you don't want to cut them. You've got to repeat the maxim and be ruthless. |
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| yonny |
| quote: | Originally posted by Adam420
But I will be honest and admit that sometimes I get a little disappointed when I read some of these comments just because I thought I really had something great going but you guys come along and burst my bubble:haha:
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LOL, relax adam, its a great mix, i cant see anyone saying they didnt like it, just that they expected it to take a different turn some way along. Ive listened to it a lot lately, its great. Keep the motivation up!
ps. its even been nominated to the mix of the month a couple of times! |
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| Sykonee |
So I took a listen...
There was a lot of good music in this set. Damned if I can remember much of it tho'.
"Which was your favorite?"
"The one that sounded like Basic Channel."
"Yeah, that was my favorite too."
"No, that other one."
"That one was cool too, I guess."
"No, that other other one."
"You mean with the bit of melody?"
"There was melody!?"
"For a moment, somewhere in there, I think."
"Oh yeah, I remember that. No, that wasn't the one."
"Well, which one then? Who did it?"
"Uh... heck if I know. They all sound so alike."
With so much dub techno for long stretches, it all just blends together. Hey, nothing wrong with that in a club environment - either I'd be locked into a groove for a good long while, or I can leave the dancefloor for a bit knowing I won't miss anything substantial.
It's no surprise the part everyone likes the most is when the ambient ends and the beats come in; it's where the set's most prominent contrast occurs. The rest of this set needed more of that - significant musical juxtapositions - to make more of an impression. |
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| Zyklon_Jay |
so i finally got around to listening to the rest. It was all good music man, but i'll echo some thoughts previous posters had without actually echoing them.:p
When we met, i drunkenly talked about mix length and having sex with tonearms. You are having sex with tonearms, but it is too long making my vag hurt. In a club i might dig this style of thing if i went at the hour that this stuff was played.
Domesticated was right, you are a better DJ than me because you care and put a lot more into a mix/tracklist than i ever would. At the same time, learn to use that taste to pear down and use primo in promos. You have some skill mixing (your compooter i mean:p ) and i'm serious about that. Record less mixes and filter a tad more and you will be the next Shlomi Aber:) :p
decipher this as you will, but take the technical and bring the physical because it takes the physical to make the physical.:p |
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