garote | Entries tagged with mixes

The first Halloween mix was born from my effort to learn Ableton Live. Suddenly, beat matching was trivially easy! I had so much fun throwing samples on samples and trying weird things that it spawned a whole series of mixes, and with each new one I always promised myself I would get back to the Halloween theme. Well, it took eight years, but I finally got around to it. This mix has been waiting as unfinished pieces for about half that time, and the creative mojo to put it all together just hit me during this especially rainy spring season.

Back in 2009 I didn't understand Ableton's BPM settings very well, so I locked everything to 166BPM and rolled with it. This mix has more range. I got to throw in some old film scores, some classic industrial music, and even some hardcore punk! And of course there's the usual enormous pile of movie and TV and video game samples. If you only have half as much fun listening to it as I did making it, you'll still have a lot of fun.

Here's an Apple Lossless (ALAC) version, in 24-bit, for all you audiophile types like me. (357mb)
Here's an AAC version, suitable for playing in iPods and almost all other modern music players. (138mb)
Here's an MP3 version, suitable for digital players new, old, and ancient. (114mb)

You can click here for the tracklist ... or just skip this link and listen to it without knowing what's in store for you. I recommend that. :)

Happy sort-of-Halloween!

This is mix 3 of a musical triptych about starting over - searching for lost identity. (Mix one is here, and mix two is here.)

The idea for the particular sound came to me when I was bicycling through the high desert of eastern Oregon in 2009.

I was out by myself in a vast hot space, filled with clean air and shimmering light, with the epic scale of nature and geology laid bare around me. It was brutally inhospitable and deeply comforting and intimate at the same time, and an environment well-suited for self-assessment. It was also scattered with the detritus of older stories, of pioneering settlers and farmers, who engaged directly with this raw landscape to establish a new life and independence for themselves. Those stories wove into my personal thoughts as I traveled, making my little bike trip feel like its own epic expedition into the western frontier.

A few years later I wanted to return to that feeling, and began searching for a way to encapsulate it in music. It was very difficult to find things that were differentiated enough to have character, while still fitting within the mental space I had staked out. Eventually I ended up with a patchwork of heroic - and somewhat corny - Western movie soundtracks, hallucinatory ambient sounds, local background noise from wind and animals, and languid, seductive steel guitar. I wanted something long: A soundscape with different parts telling a loose story, each brief enough to have structure but also long enough to get lost in - to let the mind wander - and use it to meditate on a theme.

That theme is, succinctly: Starting over with nothing.

Parts 9-12 are combined into a one-hour mix:

Part 9: Canyons
Part 10: Settlement
Part 11: Third Oasis
Part 12: Epilogue

Here's an Apple Lossless (ALAC) version, in 24-bit, for all you audiophile types like me. (735mb)
Here's an AAC version, suitable for playing in iPods and almost all other modern music players. (171mb)
Here's an MP3 version, suitable for digital players new, old, and ancient. (131mb)

The cover photo was taken by my father during a trip down the Baja peninsula 38 years ago.

All three of these mixes were hard to make, but this last one was especially difficult. I tried to compress it into an hour, but even at 70 minutes it just barely had enough space to breathe while still going all the places I wanted it to. This should have probably been four mixes, not three, but I'm not going to unravel them and start over. I did what I set out to do, and I'm happy with the result.

You can click here for the tracklist ... or just skip this link and listen to it without knowing what's in store for you. :)

I was invited to post this on the Ambient Nights website as a guest mixer, but with the site under construction for the last two years and other work stacking up behind it, it's time to get this out on the internet.

This is mix 2 of a musical triptych about starting over - searching for lost identity. (Mix one is here.)

The idea for the particular sound came to me when I was bicycling through the high desert of eastern Oregon in 2009.

I was out by myself in a vast hot space, filled with clean air and shimmering light, with the epic scale of nature and geology laid bare around me. It was brutally inhospitable and deeply comforting and intimate at the same time, and an environment well-suited for self-assessment. It was also scattered with the detritus of older stories, of pioneering settlers and farmers, who engaged directly with this raw landscape to establish a new life and independence for themselves. Those stories wove into my personal thoughts as I traveled, making my little bike trip feel like its own epic expedition into the western frontier.

A few years later I wanted to return to that feeling, and began searching for a way to encapsulate it in music. It was very difficult to find things that were differentiated enough to have character, while still fitting within the mental space I had staked out. Eventually I ended up with a patchwork of heroic - and somewhat corny - Western movie soundtracks, hallucinatory ambient sounds, local background noise from wind and animals, and languid, seductive steel guitar. I wanted something long: A soundscape with different parts telling a loose story, each brief enough to have structure but also long enough to get lost in - to let the mind wander - and use it to meditate on a theme.

That theme is, succinctly: Starting over with nothing.

Parts 5-8 are combined into a one-hour mix:

Part 5: Karma
Part 6: Heat Visions
Part 7: Second Oasis
Part 8: Moving On

Here's an Apple Lossless (ALAC) version, in 24-bit, for all you audiophile types like me. (614mb)
Here's an AAC version, suitable for playing in iPods and almost all other modern music players. (133mb)
Here's an MP3 version, suitable for digital players new, old, and ancient. (111mb)

The cover photo was taken by my father during a trip down the Baja peninsula 40 years ago.

You can click here for the tracklist ... or just skip this link and listen to it without knowing what's in store for you. :)

Surprise! It's another mix!

Problems With Reality Mix 2 (Lossless version)
Problems With Reality Mix 2 (AAC version)
Problems With Reality Mix 2 (MP3 version)

My day job has taken an interesting turn for the last few weeks, requiring me to be up at 7:30am or earlier, and put in 13+ hour days conducting interviews and making presentations. Very social, very extroverted. When the weekends came I felt a huge desire for private time. So I closed myself up in my house with the lights off and watched silly horror movies*.

A couple of movies into that, I felt an even bigger desire to mix loud clangy music together, extending the mental space I explored in the first "Problems With Reality" mix four years ago. It's like I was tired of being sane and normal with such intensity and needed to swing the pendulum hard the other way to "re-balance" myself. I don't know what that implies about my own psychology when I need to swing back away from something I've labeled sane and normal, but that's what it feels like. Maybe I'm just reacting to my culture's tendency to label extroversion as normal and introversion as a sign of disorder and weakness.

Way back in pre-history, perhaps extroverted people did rule the world. Then it all started to go sideways, when the first real introvert showed up, watched the extrovert talking and crashing through the jungle on their regular routine, thought quietly for a while, and then installed a tripwire across the beaten path.

Heh heh heh.

Anyway, here it is. I really enjoyed making this mix, and I hope you enjoy hearing it.

( Tracklist behind the cut, for those of you who want to keep it a surprise. )

*Incidentally, the original movie version of The Dead Zone, with Christopher Walken, directed by David Cronenberg, is fantastic. It has a "tragic romance" aspect that I never appreciated when I saw it as a kid.

I was invited to post this on the Ambient Nights website as a guest mixer, but with the site under construction for the last 8 months and other work stacking up behind it, it's time to get this out on the internet.

This is mix 1 of a musical triptych about starting over - searching for lost identity.

The idea for the particular sound came to me when I was bicycling through the high desert of eastern Oregon in 2009.

I was out by myself in a vast hot space, filled with clean air and shimmering light, with the epic scale of nature and geology laid bare around me. It was brutally inhospitable and deeply comforting and intimate at the same time, and an environment well-suited for self-assessment. It was also scattered with the detritus of older stories, of pioneering settlers and farmers, who engaged directly with this raw landscape to establish a new life and independence for themselves. Those stories wove into my personal thoughts as I traveled, making my little bike trip feel like its own epic expedition into the western frontier.

A few years later I wanted to return to that feeling, and began searching for a way to encapsulate it in music. It was very difficult to find things that were differentiated enough to have character, while still fitting within the mental space I had staked out. Eventually I ended up with a patchwork of heroic - and somewhat corny - Western movie soundtracks, hallucinatory ambient sounds, local background noise from wind and animals, and languid, seductive steel guitar. I wanted something long: A soundscape with different parts telling a loose story, each brief enough to have structure but also long enough to get lost in - to let the mind wander - and use it to meditate on a theme.

That theme is, succinctly: Starting over with nothing.

Parts 1-4 are combined into a one-hour mix:

Part 1: Setting Out
Part 2: Frontier
Part 3: Oasis
Part 4: Lightning Storm

Here's an Apple Lossless (ALAC) version, for all you audiophile types like me. (322mb)
Here's an AAC version, suitable for playing in iPods and almost all other modern music players. (127mb)
Here's an MP3 version, suitable for digital players new, old, and ancient. (138mb)

The cover photo was taken by my father during a trip down the Baja peninsula 40 years ago.

You can click here for the tracklist ... or just skip this link and listen to it without knowing what's in store for you. :)

The first Hindi Mix was so much fun to assemble, it was inevitable that I would make another one!

I already had a heap of good tracks to weave together, but what I didn't have was a good angle. Eventually I found one by accident. Messing around in Ableton Live, I noticed that a jazzy version of "Chura Liya" - the leading track from the first mix - overlaid nicely with "Dhoom Again", my favorite goofy track from my favorite goofy Hindi movie. (I already stole loops from "Dhoom Again" for a Braindead Monkeys track back in 2008.) That was all it took for inspiration to strike. What better way to start a sequel than with a song about being in a sequel?

Aside from the intro, my favorite thing about this second mix is the commercial breaks I got to graft in, from India's Doordarshan TV network. That Complan commercial - fortified powdered milk being sold as a "complete nutrition" drink, to aspirational lower-middle-class moms - is hilarious, catchy, and offensive, all at the same time. "Your skirt, can't you see, so high above the knee??"

Download MP3 version (149 megabytes)
Download AAC version (98 megabytes)
Download fancy lossless version (370 megabytes) (For all you crazy audiophiles like me.)

Enjoy!

Tracklist:

(00:00) S.P. Balasubrahmanyam & V. Sarma - China Daani Chirunavvulu (From "Doob Doob O' Rama 2")
(00:25) Charanjit Singh - Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne (From "Bollywood Steel Guitar")
(00:25) Vishal Dadlani & Dominique Cerejo - Dhoom Again (From "Dhoom: 2 Back in Action" ST)
(03:08) Howard Shore - You Can Find The Feeling (Radio Edit) (From "The Cell" ST)
(04:39) Cheb i Sabbah - Kese Kese (Transglobal Underground Where's The Sarangi Mix) (From "Bollywood Fusions")
(05:59) Commercial break music (From "Full Tension", a variety show by Jaspal Bhatti)
(06:01) Achanak - Panjab Bhangra (From "Bombay Bellywood: Bellydance Superstars")
(07:07) Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy - Shankar Mahadevan (From "Dil Chahta Hai" ST)
(09:37) Asha Bhosle & Shailendra Singh - Jaane Do Naa (From "Saagar" ST)
(10:32) Bally Sagoo - Aaj Phir Jeene Ki (Guide) [Stolen Loop] (From "Bollywood Flashback 2")
(12:39) Daler Mehndi - Gilli Kand Par (From "Ho Jayegi Balle Balle")
(14:33) David Starfire - Cobra (From "Bombay Bellywood: Bellydance Superstars")
(16:25) Complan advertisement (Recorded from Doordarshan)
(17:03) Najma - Miskatonic (From "Bombay Bellywood: Bellydance Superstars")
(19:54) Jolly Mukherjee & Sridevi - Chandni O Meri Chandni (From "The Rough Guide To Bollywood Gold")
(22:45) Filastine feat. Jesika Skeletalia Kenney - Autology (From "Bombay Bellywood: Bellydance Superstars")
(22:55) Station ID sequence (From Doordarshan)
(25:57) Ajanta musical clocks commercial (Recorded from Doordarshan)
(26:26) Rahul Dev Burman - Kya Gazab Karte Ho Jee (From "Beginner's Guide to Bollywood: Vintage Bollywood")
(27:06) Club K3G - Suraj Hua Madham (Oriental Twilight Mix) [Stolen Loop] (From "Lounge Bollywood")
(28:36) Surf Stain Eaters advertisement (Recorded from Doordarshan)
(29:00) Rapoon - Circling Globes (From "The Fires Of The Borderlands")
(29:06) A. R. Rahman - Rukkumani Rukkumani (From "Roja" ST)
(33:48) A. R. Rahman & Ismail Darbar - Woh Kisna Hai (From "Kisna" ST)
(37:40) Kishore Kumar - Ina Mina Dika (From "Doob Doob O' Rama 2")
(38:57) Pritam - Yeh Ishq Hai (Film version extracted from "Jab We Met" blu-ray)
(41:48) Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy - Jhoom Jam (From "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" ST)
(44:23) Asha Bhosle - O Mera Sona (Teesri Manzil) (From "The Best of Asha Bhosle: The Golden Voice of Bollywood")
(47:55) Solace - Saptak [The Samaya Mix] (From "Bollywood Fusions")
(51:35) Ranjeet Baal Party - Aey Jawanon (From "Gangs Of Wasseypur" ST)
(52:59) Asha Bhosle - Aao Huzoor Tum Ko (Caravan) (From "The Best of Asha Bhosle: The Golden Voice of Bollywood")
(55:24) Coca-Cola advertisement (Recorded from Doordarshan)
(56:13) Sameeruddin - Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer (Destiny mix) (From "The Streets of Bollywood and Beyond")
(57:56) DJ Fixed - Altered "Loader Fight" loop (From "Battery Sentinel")
(58:00) Basil Poledouris - Atlantean Sword (From "Conan The Barbarian" ST)
(58:30) Maachis - Pani Pani Re (From "Lata Mangeshkar")

All tracks have been edited and/or processed, with additional loops or sound effects thrown in to spice things up. I basically had to run "Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer (Destiny mix)" through a paper shredder, and reconstitute it, to isolate that funky beat progression from a whole bunch of other ill-advised hip-hop shenanigans. My pain is your gain!

Enjoy!

A mashup of 8-bit nostalgia, chiptunes, and crazed industrial music, with a few surprises thrown in. The inspiration for ToorCamp's first ever mosh pit!

Part 0x0
Featuring tracks from RushJet1, Dave Harris, Crash84, 8-bit Jin, 8BitDanooct1 and more. Pew pew pew!!

Part 0x1
Featuring tracks from Current Value, YZYX, Dean Rodell, coda, Whourkr and more. I PUT ON MY ROBE AND WIZARD HAT.

I was planning to revisit the terrain of the Halloween DnB mix I did a few years ago, and gathered a bunch of samples and tracks for it, but then I got totally diverted into the teeming jungle of Hindi and Bollywood music.

There's a lot of it out there - a whole lot of it - and I'm enchanted by the kitsch and the boisterousness and the dancing, and the freaky psychedelic period, and the crazy self-referential remixes and reconstructions of dusty movie tunes into bumpy modern techno. This particular mix runs all over the place, and I had great fun putting it together.

Download MP3 version (140 megabytes)
Download AAC version (88 megabytes)
Download fancy lossless version (363 megabytes) (For all you crazy audiophiles like me.)

Enjoy!

Tracklist:

(0:00) Doordarshan Network - Ek Anek Ekta (1974 Animated Film)
(1:15) Bally Sagoo - Chura Liya (Woofer Destruction Mix)
(4:43) Bally Sagoo - Nach Malanga
(8:25) Karmix - Sabhyata?
(10:33) A R Rahman - Sapnay (Chitra Shankar), from Ek Bagiya Mein (1997)
(12:51) Maachis - Aey Hawa
(17:05) Mo' Horizons - Remember Tomorrow
(19:05) Shem - Only Human
(21:07) Ijaazat - Mera Kuch Saaman
(24:31) Raavan - Ranja Ranja
(28:41) Asha Bhosle - Mera Naam Hai Shabnam
(31:21) Pt. Birju Maharaj, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Madhuri Dixit - Kaahe Chhed
(33:55) Rahul Dev Burman - Dum Maro Dum (1971)
(36:30) Amitabh Bachchan Abhishek Bachchan - Bol Bachchan
(39:57) Indy Sagu with Manak-E - Lakh Hilda
(41:54) Bally Sagoo - Ban Mein Aati Thi
(43:10) S. Janaki, Brahmanandan - Ezhupaalam Kadamnu
(45:40) Deepak Ram - A Night In Lenasia
(48:43) O. P. Nayyar - Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu
(50:57) Khundu Kay Lioye - Allah Hoo
(54:51) Doordarshan Network - Ek Anek Ekta (1974 Animated Film)

Almost all tracks have been edited or processed in some way, with a few additional loops or sound effects thrown in to spice things up. I also cut a really alarming section from Bol Bachchan that had autotune all over it. Ugh.

Well, this one got a little out-of-hand.

It's over an hour; and that's after cutting about 25 minutes of stuff. I honestly can't remember how long I worked on Side A, but it feels like Side B took an eternity, and as before, I'm declaring it done partly out of a sense of exhaustion.

Tron Mix Side B (Lossless version)
Tron Mix Side B (AAC version)
Tron Mix Side B (MP3 version)

This is a diverse mix of electronic music, old and new, including pieces of soundtrack and dialogue from Tron, Tron Legacy, and Tron 1.5 (the unreleased early "sequel"). Actually the music here is so heavily edited that it falls somewhere between a mix and a reconstruction.

As with Side A, this isn't meant to be background music, like many other electronic music mixes. The tone and pace varies too much for it to settle into the background. Instead, the idea is to guide your imagination as you explore "the grid". Think of it as a music video without the video.

Special thanks to Erika, who provided candidate tracks and valuable feedback.

All tracks has been heavily edited.

00:00 - Wendy Carlos - Creation Of Tron (Blu-Ray 5.1 Rip / Tron OST Version)
00:49 - Daft Punk - End of Line (Remixed by Photek) (Tron Legacy Reconfigured)
02:09 - Asura - Butterfly FX
02:10 - Steve Roach - Perfect Dream
02:24 - Ennio Morricone - Robodog (L'umanoide OST)
02:25 - Front Line Assembly - Amorpheus
02:46 - Daft Punk - End of Line (Remixed by Boys Noize) (Tron Legacy Reconfigured)
02:53 - Pete Namlook - End of Line
04:28 - Daft Punk - Armory (Tron Legacy OST)
04:50 - Kraftwelt - Deranged (Überzone Remix)
06:14 - Front Line Assembly - Unconcious
08:15 - Ambre - Reflux
08:45 - Ladytron - Runaway (ADULT. Remix)
10:09 - Ladytron - Runaway (James Zabiela Red Eye Remix)
10:33 - Moby - Mercy
12:04 - Omni Trio - Renegade Snares
12:35 - SebastiAn - Motor
13:52 - Daft Punk - The Son of Flynn (Tron Legacy OST)
14:13 - Solcofn - Askew (Tron 1.5 OST)
14:20 - Ramadanman - Don't Change for Me
14:31 - Atom Heart - HD Endless
15:41 - Meat Beat Manifesto - 010130
17:10 - Daft Punk - Reflections (Tron Legacy OST)
17:44 - Monolake - CERN
20:23 - Com Truise - Hyperlips
22:32 - Com Truise - Cyanide Sisters
23:40 - Com Truise - Flightwave
26:15 - Carl Walters - Theme From Tron 1.5 (Tron 1.5 OST)
26:33 - Aphex Twin - PWSteal.Ldpinch.D
28:36 - The Flashbulb - Elevator Fibbonachi
31:03 - Sasha - Magnetic North
33:57 - Normally Invisible - Psychotronics
34:55 - Biosphere - Hypnophone
35:03 - Soultek - Elektricity
35:40 - Sasha - Higher Ground (The Oz Dub)
36:33 - Sasha - Xpander (Funkagenda Remix)
38:41 - Solar Fields - Perception
41:00 - Rhythm & Noise - A Filament In Strata
45:02 - Fever Ray - Coconut
46:25 - Anthony Rother - Geomatrix Part 9
47:33 - Anthony Rother - Model SM
49:09 - Mind Over MIDI - Elektrical Aktivity
51:27 - Pete Namlook & Lorenzo Montana - Labyrinth Path XVI
56:17 - Daft Punk - Recognizer (Blu-Ray 5.1 Rip / Tron Legacy OST Version)
59:08 - Daft Punk - Solar Sailer (Tron Legacy OST)

I put these together just as I was going nuts for Bjork and Meat Beat Manifesto, back in 1997. I ripped the tracks from CDs, made various edits and squished them together in CoolEdit Pro 2.1, and then burned them back onto CDs for heavy rotation in the 5-disc carousel as I hacked and slashed away. No iPods back then of course. MP3s were just barely gaining traction.

Three of the tracks in these mixes are early compositions by my friend Zach, when he was a music major at UC Davis. 15 years later they still feel fresh to my ear, like I'd encounter them as backing to some YouTube cartoon show. Well done Zach!

One track is a live recording done at Jack's house in Santa Cruz, when he threw a dinner party and decided to amuse us with his mandolin skills and deadpan profanity.

One track is also Zach and Jack collaborating with a drum machine to cover the song "Barbie And The Rockers". An instant classic ... if you define "classic" like, say, The Cartoon Network defines it.

Looking back, I find that the mixes as a whole suffer from a poor sense of pacing, due to the Meat Beat Manifesto tracks, which are all way too long but which I was obsessed with at the time. The transitions in tone are all pretty good though.

- Mix number 1, in lossless format -

Tracklist for Mix 1:

Talula (Excerpts From Two Mixes) - Tori Amos
Set Your Receivers - Meat Beat Manifesto
Seibolds Theme - Zach Archer
Mad Bomber/The Woods - Meat Beat Manifesto
Nuclear Bomb - Meat Beat Manifesto
Asbestos Lead Asbestos - Meat Beat Manifesto
The Cheese Level - Zach Archer
The Utterer - Meat Beat Manifesto
Duende - Delerium
Sub Unit One - Haujobb
We Have Explosive (Remix) - The Future Sound of London
One of Us - Niko
Peace on Earth - Niko
Hyperballad (Towa Tei Mix) - Bjork
Dick In My Butt - Jack
Love - Niko
The Elephant - Niko
Barbie and the Rockers - Zach and Jack

- Mix number 2, in lossless format -

Tracklist for Mix 2:

Possibly Maybe (LFO Mix) - Bjork
Stereophrenic - Meat Beat Manifesto
You In My Life (x2) - Zach Archer
Enjoy (Outcast Remix) - Bjork
Simulacra - Meat Beat Manifesto
Silence - Delerium
Solitudes (Heavily filtered and edited) - Dan Gibson
Clipper - Autechre
Ghost Town - Might and Magic VII OST
Domino - Pizzicato Five
The Cage Complex (Excerpt) - Haujobb
Rotorblade - Juno Reactor
Barrow Grounds - Might and Magic VII OST
Zoolok 2 (Excerpt) - Jean Michel Jarre
Trigger 2 (Anatomy of a Shot) - Front 242

Share and enjoy!

I'm finally declaring this "done" and kicking it online to share and enjoy.

Tron Mix Side A (Lossless version)
Tron Mix Side A (AAC version)
Tron Mix Side A (MP3 version)

This is a fast-moving mix of electronic music, old and new, including pieces of soundtrack and dialogue from Tron, Tron Legacy, and Tron 1.5 (the unreleased early "sequel").

This isn't really meant to be background music, like many other electronic music mixes. The tone and pace varies too much for it to settle into the background. Instead, the idea is to guide your imagination as you explore "the grid". Think of it as a music video without the music.

( Tracklist behind the cut, for those of you who want to keep it a surprise. )

Over the last month, in pieces, I've been working on a new mix ... not Drum'n'Bass this time, but a more general Electronica one.

I extracted the 5.1 audio from both Tron films, into a collection of dialogue pieces, sound effects, and eerie background noises. Then, because I wanted even more booping and beeping, I extracted sfx from the "Transformers 2" film in the same way. I loves me some boops and beeps. (If you're interested in the toolchain I used for this, I can post a summary.)

Then I spent a reaaaally long time auditioning tracks that sounded like they were from the Tron universe. It's been difficult, there are fewer than I thought. Primarily I've been looking for a "big keyboard" sound that isn't too "ravey", doesn't have some fugly "new age" feel to it, and evokes electronics more than it invokes heavy machinery, sci-fi, or horror (which rules out almost all Industrial music, most IDM, most Drum'n'Bass, and a lot of Goa and Trance.) And, most important of all, the music has to NOT SUCK.

Man, there is so much music out there that just sucks... Oh the horror... THE HORROR......

Anyway, this weekend I sat down for twelve straight hours and put together a first draft of the first half hour. It's not yet suitable for auditioning to the wider world, but it's certainly looking good. I listened to it on the shuttle to work today and made the following notes that I need to follow up with later in the week:

0:45 - treble is too harsh, it overbears the bass
1:40 - ending of intro dies down too much before Pulse starts up
2:50 - drone overlay is wrong - too airy, dominant
3:15 - the glitch transition may actually be good here. Put it back?
5:30 - if there's any other way to arrange this, go for it - the track is good but the suture is bad. Maybe 6:25 start instead?
7:57 - this is just too DDR. Use earlier section? Toss it? Put at end?
9:10 - cut keyboard typing in half
12:40 - repeat horns theme on overlay with Jega
13:55 - and again? - this whole section could be a segment longer, to avoid overbraking.
15:15 - "survive" - stretch 2x or reverb
17:50 - Adjust compressor to scrub remaining bass. Before bass kicks in, add a dialogue sample
19:35 - Extend this segue - add a second compressor track to cut the bass of the destination track out
23:30 - Mirror OST may be too loud

I call this the "Problems With Reality" Mix. It's another fast-and-furious DnB mix along the lines of the Halloween mix I did a few years ago. The tone is very dark, and flavored with samples from films like Dark City, Scanners, Burnt Offerings, Pandorum, and Silent Running.

All tracks are edited, some of them heavily. I'm especially proud of this mix because I managed to combine Photek's "Knitevision" with Suzanne Vega's "Night Vision".

Enjoy!

Download the AAC version for easy download and transport
Download the lossless version if you're an audiophile dork (like me)

Playlist (skip reading this if you like to be surprised):

00:00 - Dark City (Dialogue)
00:00 - Hans Zimmer - He's Killed The Dog Again (Sherlock Holmes 2009 OST)
00:41 - Download - sorcear
02:27 - Victor Sol + Niko Heyduck - Another Green Airport
03:17 - Jigsaw - Singlesound
03:59 - Scanners (Dialogue)
05:33 - Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts III #24
06:37 - Mick Harris + Neil Harvey - Whistler (Mix)
08:12 - Tipper - Sine
11:15 - Robert Henke - Layer 009
11:15 - Trick 'r' Treat (Ambiance)
11:44 - Mark Strand - Keeping Things Whole
12:07 - Tipper - Noise Cannon
15:19 - Burnt Offerings (Ambiance)
16:00 - Samurai Jack (Ambiance / Dialogue)
16:33 - J.G. Thirlwell - Assclamp! (Venture Bros OST)
18:09 - J.G. Thirlwell - Gawker (Venture Bros OST)
18:41 - J.G. Thirlwell - Descension (Venture Bros OST)
19:13 - Nitzer Ebb - Backlash (William Orbit Remix)
20:46 - DJ Zinc - 174 Trek
21:29 - Method One - Pressure Waves
23:15 - Aphex Twin - Green Calx
23:24 - Dr S. Gachet - remember the roller
24:07 - Silent Running (Dialogue)
24:49 - Technical Itch - The Virus
25:33 - Pandorum (Ambiance)
27:08 - Photek - Knitevision
27:41 - Silent Running (Ambiance)
28:07 - Pandorum (Dialogue)
28:37 - Suzanne Vega - Night Vision
29:46 - Frank Bretschneider - A Soft Throbbing Of Time
31:31 - Dr Who - The Satan Pit (Dialogue)
32:18 - Ben Charest - Cabaret Hoover (The Triplets of Belleville OST)
33:44 - Cujo - Northstar
34:20 - Pete Namlook - Power Supply Part III
33:55 - Warner Bros. Looney Tunes (Dialogue)
38:59 - Charles Simic - I Was Stolen By The Gypsies
39:28 - Repo Man (Ambiance)

http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/mixes/Tori_Mix-Rebuild-Side_B.m4a

Side B took longer to rebuild because I was missing lossless versions of two of the tracks. Glad to see it done, though. This has been on my list for a couple of years.

The embedded artwork is a photo I took in 2010, but everything else is vintage 1996. :)

Tori Amos - The Waitress (Altered Opening)
Moby - Heaven (Edited)
Tori Amos - Caught a Lite Sneeze
Download - Papa Papa Mula Cwm
Tori Amos - Talula (Tornado Mix)
Church of Extacy - Devil Beats - Og Naga Yu Mix (Edited)
Tori Amos - Professional Widow
Nine Inch Nails - Burn (Edited)
Tori Amos - Blood Roses (Edited)
Download - Cannaya (Edited)
Tori Amos - Upside Down
Trent Reznor - Quake Soundtrack - Hall Of Mirrors (Edited)
Tori Amos - Icicle
Tori Amos - Little Amsterdam

Your bonus picture today is of a lizzzzzzard from Cal Academy of Science:

http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/mixes/Tori_Mix-Rebuild-Side_A.m4a

Around 1997 I put this together on a cassette. It degraded over the years, with multiple plays. I then sampled the cassette into a file on my iPod. Now, I'm reconstructing it entirely in the digital realm, one side at a time, with slightly better edits, and an altered opening.

At the time, my philosophy for this mix was to provide adequate break time between the songs so that I could recover emotionally from the exhausting experience of singing along to them.

I've played this in the car many times alone, and, sometimes, with lovely people nearby. It's special to me.

Glenn Gould, J. S. Bach - Goldberg Variation #25. a 2 Clav. (Edited)
Tori Amos - Girl
Moby - Slight Return (From The Moby EP) (Edited)
Tori Amos - Precious Things
Front Line Assembly - There Going to Kill Us (Edited)
Tori Amos - Silent All These Years
Rhythm & Noise - A Filament in Strata
Tori Amos - Tear In Your Hand
Tori Amos - Doughnut Song
Tori Amos - Pretty Good Year
Trent Reznor - Quake Soundtrack - Waiting To Be Born (Edited)
Tori Amos - Muhammad My Friend

Also, here's a picture of Matt throwing lightning at me.

A few months ago I got into Drum'n'Bass in a big way. Then I found some long-form mixes by an online DJ named "Strepsil", and liked those very much. Then I saw the movie "Trick'r'Treat", and it all collided in my head and I decided to do a long-form Halloween-themed Drum'n'Bass mix. It's 70 minutes long.

Well, Halloween is more of a motif here really ... There is almost no halloween "themed" dnb. But I did my best. :)

AAC version, weighing in around 130MB: Halloween_DnB_Mix-AAC.m4a
Lossless version for you purists, at about 450MB: Halloween_DnB_Mix.m4a (dnb does not compress well)

The full tracklist is embedded in the "lyrics" tag of the file. It's also posted below.

Sometimes people like to listen to mixes without knowing what's coming up next, so they can be surprised. I dig that. I've posted the tracklist at the following link, so you don't see it accidentally.

Tracklist!

Technical notes:

I like my dnb rather fast and noisy, so the whole set is at 166 bpm.
All the songs involved in the mix are edited, some quite heavily.
Some of the intermission bits and sfx are from vinyl and mp3 sources, but all the music is from lossless digital sources.
This marks my first use of Ableton Live. My first impressions: It has excellent rhythm management and too few keyboard shortcuts.
Post-production was done over in Audition 3 on Vista.

Share and enjoy!

This is my musical accompaniment / reconstruction of T.S. Eliot's "Murder In The Cathedral".

The performance that I used as a foundation for this work is by the Theatre Recording Society, starring Paul Scofield. It was originally released on two vinyl LPs in the grand old year of 1968.

Murder In The Cathedral was penned by T.S. Eliot in 1935. The wikipedia article gives a good synopsis of the play. I actually suggest you drop into this knowing only the bare bones of the plot: The Archbishop Thomas Beckett has returned home after a long absence, during which he fell out of favor with the king. He takes up residence and is soon visited - as he expected - by three very different people who propose illegal and/or blasphemous alliances.

Best listened to during a quiet walk in the woods at dusk. :)

I have cut several sections, the biggest cut being the entire second scene, where Archbishop Thomas arrives and his friends excitedly discuss just how far out of favor he has fallen with the king. Only a few snippets of it remain. There's nothing wrong with this scene and the other sections, they just don't contribute to the atmosphere enough. The whole reason I did this was because of the unique atmosphere of the play and this performance.

I have also taken great liberties with the audio mix... Hiss reduction, stereo imagery rearrangement, dynamics changes for some of the voices, and some pretty hefty EQ alterations. I also added some really screwy voice processing during the opening scene for added creepiness -- I could probably talk about that for a few pages, but I'll restrain myself.

AAC version: Murder In The Cathedral First Half
Lossless version (Apple codec): Murder In The Cathedral First Half
(right-click and save-As to download)

If there's any interest I'll post a list of all the music I used.

(P.S.: Elsewhere on the internet you may encounter a 2006 BBC radio production of this same play. If you decide to listen to it, check out how crappy the acting and the direction is compared to this version from 40 years ago.)

THE TOASTYNESS

A guy rapping to a man he names as "DJ Pyayebips" (As far as I can tell), yelling, "Somebody say HO!", then spitting coarse rhymes in Japanese. Holy monkeyeye. GET TOAST OR DIE TRYING.

Current Mood: giddy

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Halloween DnB Mix 2
Western Desert, parts 9-12
Western Desert, parts 5-8
Problems With Reality Mix 2
Western Desert, parts 1-4
Hindi Mix 2
Toorcamp 2014 DJ Set: Too Many Moths + DJ Fixed
Hindi Mix
Tron Mix Side B
Techie Mixes 1 and 2, from 1997
Tron Mix Side A
Tron mix - Rough draft
Problems With Reality Mix
Tori Mix Rebuild - Side B
Tori Mix Rebuild - Side A
Halloween DnB Mix
Murder In The Cathedral, First Half
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Peeks, Pokes, and Pointers!

Entries tagged with mixes

Halloween DnB Mix 2

Western Desert, parts 9-12

Western Desert, parts 5-8

Problems With Reality Mix 2

Western Desert, parts 1-4

Hindi Mix 2

Toorcamp 2014 DJ Set: Too Many Moths + DJ Fixed

Hindi Mix

Tron Mix Side B

Techie Mixes 1 and 2, from 1997

Tron Mix Side A

Tron mix - Rough draft

Problems With Reality Mix

Tori Mix Rebuild - Side B

Tori Mix Rebuild - Side A

Halloween DnB Mix

Murder In The Cathedral, First Half

(no subject)

THE TOASTYNESS

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