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Adam Solomon - Music For Flying Part 1 (aka Morning Lights aka one of my best mixes ever)
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| Adam420 |
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 Väth - L'Esperanza
Octal Industries - Himinglæva #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!
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Tracklist looks absolutely fantastic. Will definitely be listening to this. |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Adam420
You will also notice the birds |
:gsmile:
In for sure. |
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| Guest |
| Baalin'. Can't wait to listen. |
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| ziptnf |
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. |
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| Adam420 |
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. |
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| 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. |
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| ziptnf |
| 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. |
It wasn't just one track. It was a string of tracks, from around the 30 minute mark to the 45 minute mark. It was a focal point of the review because I don't really feel like I'm flying when I'm listening to the deeper, darker music. I felt you went back to this same mood from 75-85 minutes. Changes in the mood like that really altered my perspective of what you were trying to accomplish with the mix.
| 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. |
Hey, that's fine if you disagree with me, I'm just pointing out that going from beautiful and lush to dark twice in a mix didn't make sense with the flying theme. In my opinion at least.
| 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. |
Right, I was more referring to the way it sounded as opposed to the genre. My mistake. Dark prog or dub techno, I felt like the shift in mood was a little off for my tastes, that's all! |
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| enydo |
| I saw this through the facebook but I will post here as well~ |
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| 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.
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. |
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| Juan Paulino |
I'll check this out if you check mine out.
Fair deal. |
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