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Jack Moss - A Different World [Downtempo Beats]
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| SYSTEM-J |
Apologies for saturating the market with mixes, but I haven't done a downtempo one for a while, and I've had plenty of time on my hands recently to put together more of a carefully crafted studio mix with some post-production thrown in. This is mostly a selection of oldies and cuts from some of my favourite electronic albums down the years. There are plenty of beats, but of the slowest possible kind.
01. Kaya Project - Walking Through (Ambient Mix)* [Tribal Shift]
02. Solid Sessions - Janeiro (Chiller Twist Blue Line Remix) [Combined Forces]
03. Aural Float - Dreamer's Dream [Elektrolux]
04. Aphex Twin - We Are The Music Makers [Apollo]
05. Aural Imbalance - Aura [Within]
06. The Auranaut - Divine Ordinance [Power Circle]
07. AstroPilot - Yoga Mantra (Ambient Mix) [Astrosphere]
08. Norman Feller - Horizontal Departure / Frameless Structure [Elektrolux]
09. The Auranaut - Highway At Night [Power Circle]
10. L.S.G. - El Tiburon / Tiburon Citrino [Superstition]
11. Koala - Infinite Dream [Ultimae]
12. Mariano Mellino & Interaxxis - Andromeda [Balance]
13. H.U.V.A. Network - Distances (Live Version)* [Ultimae]
*Contains excerpts from Frank Klepacki - Act On Instinct [Westwood Studios] |
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| Lews |
| No need to fear saturating the market - always happy to hear something new from you, my friend. On the download! |
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| Lews |
I fell asleep listening to this, so boring/peaceful/relaxing/well-mixed/etc. :o
Good stuff, sir. A very nice mix of classics. My only gripe is that I don't like how Richard James pitched up that Willy Wonka sample, but thankfully that's a very, very short part of your mix. Good stuff mate :) |
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| Paradox Lost |
Now this mix, I really enjoyed. Seriously. I fired it up during my workout, expecting just dip in for a few minutes before changing it up for variety's sake, and wound up listening to it all the way through. Reminds me of all those early 2000's downtempo mixes I used to enjoy, and this convincingly sits with the best of them. Fantastic work.
Lemme pick your brain for a minute, as I'm trying to cobble some downtempo mixes of my own, and anyone this proficient with them could be a big help.
What specific post production edits did you make? Odds are I won't be doing them for my own mixes, as I don't fancy myself the producer type who knows (or is really interested) in tinkering for hours over a piece of audio, but it will at least give me a better idea of what I can accomplish through mixing alone.
Also, was the tempo mostly the same throughout? I think I spotted some deceleration, but I can't say for sure. I ask because I want to get a sense of what kind of range you can mix in without compromising the consistency of the mix, especially one that only spans an hour so. I've improvised a few unrecorded downtempo mixes in the past, and operating in a larger tempo band certainly seems doable, as there are so many places in which to hide the tempo changes. |
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| Midlothian |
Keep them coming, I'd say.
I'm very much enjoying listening to this on a Saturday morning, while doing jobs in the house. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
Thanks for the kind words, fellas. Downtempo mixes are always a hard sell (especially as workout soundtracks!), so I appreciate the plays.
| quote: | Originally posted by Paradox Lost
What specific post production edits did you make? Odds are I won't be doing them for my own mixes, as I don't fancy myself the producer type who knows (or is really interested) in tinkering for hours over a piece of audio, but it will at least give me a better idea of what I can accomplish through mixing alone.
Also, was the tempo mostly the same throughout? I think I spotted some deceleration, but I can't say for sure. I ask because I want to get a sense of what kind of range you can mix in without compromising the consistency of the mix, especially one that only spans an hour so. I've improvised a few unrecorded downtempo mixes in the past, and operating in a larger tempo band certainly seems doable, as there are so many places in which to hide the tempo changes. |
It was nothing particularly technically difficult, because I'm no more of a producer than you.
Your second question goes straight to the crux of the issue. I originally wanted to do this as a continuous beatmatched mix with a rhythmic thread going right through it, but I quickly realised it was going to be impossible. There's just too much variation in tempo in this kind of music, and the tunes are so slow that the pitch changes end up being massive. Even with pitch lock activated, tunes quickly end up sounding ridiculous.
What I did in the end was mix it in three separate segments at different tempos and then stitch them together in a DAW using ambient interludes. So it starts at something like 103bpm, goes down in the middle and then back up for the closing section. Otherwise there's a variation of something like 29bpm across the course of the set, which would be taxing enough to bridge in any 80 minute mix.
Another problem was that some of these tunes come from albums where they segue without pause into the next track which is at a completely different tempo, so I had to re-pitch the second track, mix it separately and then join them back together in the DAW. It's stuff like that's just not worth trying to do live. Finally, the vocal samples were chopped out of the original tune and spruced up with some reverb in Audacity, then layered in the DAW where I thought they sounded best. |
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| Paradox Lost |
Do you feel you had to do blend the ambient interludes in the DAW, at least optimally? Because that's something I routinely do live, and is among the spaces in which you can hide more significant tempo changes that I was referring to. A lot of the stuff I throw into my downtempo mixes is more leftfield of the material in yours, with lots having some pretty indiscernible tempos, and the majority of which you would need to have already heard for them to sound wonky playing out at much different tempos. Still, there are always those tracks that, even to the initiated ear, sound completely off when pitched hard in either direction, and simply won't work no matter how hard I try.
By the way, nice touch with Andromeda toward the end, which I'm guessing you also picked up off Cattaneo's most recent Balance spinoff? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| I didn't have to, but the mix was going to have to be done in chunks anyway so there didn't seem much point making each "take" longer than it needed to be. |
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| OrangestO |
I'm on a downtempo buying binge at the moment, and I've added a few of these to the list. Love the Janeiro record (never heard the original before - what a tune).
Really enjoyed the overall mix. I love how downtempo reminds me of hip hop, ambient, dance music all in one sound. I've developed a soft spot for it.
How would someone using vinyl approach a mix like this?
I played a downtempo mix this weekend. I quickly realized beatmatching it would be impossible. It became a matter of focusing on records that transition well in vibe rather than tempo while keeping the BPM within a reasonable range.
Does that make sense? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I've DJ'd this kind of stuff in a couple of bars and in an art gallery before, playing on CDJs, and I've generally forgone beatmatching entirely except for a few transitions that I knew in advance would work. As I said above, the tempo variation is just far too great between tracks, and since this isn't dance music the emphasis on continuous rhythm is far less important anyway.
For this mix, however, I wanted something that was very seamless and tightly constructed, so I made more of an effort. Even then, I couldn't beat mix the whole thing. |
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| flynno |
Hi Mosster Jack - A Different World is different class.
Thank you.
Cheers.
Flynno |
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