I put together a mix as a celebration of the start of summer and beating my creative block 👍 haha! It’s a great feeling to be back in the sun rays and the cold air-conditioned buildings of the city. Biking around for the first time has been fun, too. It significantly expanded my range of travel without a car and it’s great cardio. The best part is summer is just getting started.
I wanted to share what I was feeling lately in the music I’ve been listening to; this mix is a representation of a bigger playlist of about 60 songs. I take my time exploring our SoundCloud and Audius feeds and add my favorite tunes to a playlist. From there, I listen to the playlist as I add songs to it and get a feel for the sounds in the songs.
Whether it’s the algorithm feeding me the vibes or my honest interpretation of all the music I hear, I know you’ll enjoy these sounds.
SoundCloud link:
https://soundcloud.com/embrandtsounds/summer-house-mix-2022
Audius link:
https://audius.co/EMBRANDTSounds/blunts-n-bass-house-mix-2022
(More on how I think about and how I make my mixes below.)
Tracklist: Artist - Song
I like to think of myself as a music curator and not a DJ.
A DJ is someone that can use a controller or mixer to play their music to move a crowd at a social gathering.
A music curator looks for hit music, new music, or underground music to play for an audience.
I’m generally not interested in DJing in front of people (…yet. I’m on the path to convincing myself to do it). Partly because I’m still kinda shy about it, but mostly because I like to play music I like for people.
It’s more of a performance. And documentation of my progress.
We all go to festivals or shows and we take in the music they play out. Granted, the music they play is stuff they make themselves and they're all usually bangers. What matters most, from my perspective, is the quality of the music they play and less about how they mix it.
In my quest to make a mix, I prioritize the diversity of sounds and bass over everything. I focus on finding some good sounds and let the rest come together. Songs nowadays are getting creative in their intros/outros/breakdowns; I use this idea to let me bypass getting too deep into effects and instead try to find good places to press play on the next song as clean as possible (though it may not always work out that way haha).
How do you find music? I follow a ton of people on SoundCloud so my feed is all over the place with different genres and tunes a day. I can press play and I trust I’ll hear a good song at least once every 2-4 songs.
What do you do when you find a song you like? There are three options: like, repost, or playlist. I repost the ones I find more creative (aka nasty) and I’ll playlist the ones I enjoyed best from those.
What kind of playlists do you have? We have our main house and dubstep playlists, a Halloween dubstep playlist, trippy bass sounds playlist. Depending on the song, I’ll add it to one of these playlists or I’ll only throw it into my mix playlist 😈 haha. Kind of evil when my spirit is to share all the music, but that’s why I want to make these posts and include the link to the huge playlist so you can see where my ears were at.
Drop the link to the playlist! Say less. Here’s the pool of music I worked with for the mix.
https://soundcloud.com/embrandtsounds/sets/more-haus
Why are some transitions bad (or too obvious) in your mixes? I record my mixes in one take to simulate playing in front of people. I get the most practice playing the mix when I put the songs in order; the later half of my mixes are usually more freeform in terms of how they’re put together, whereas the first half is the more practiced bit. I mix with what I’ve picked up in the last year and the goal is to learn more tricks on the mixer now that I’m happy with the way I’m putting songs together. It’s a process and I’m happy to be documenting the progress. If you’ve listened to one or all of the mixes I’ve made to date, know that you’re early and it’s only up from here with the quality.