I even put a little thought towards which records I should bring for this weeks set – but I think the first hour got off to a bit of a shakey start. I’m not sure, because I haven’t given it my usual Monday morning second listen yet, but I’m pretty sure the second hour was mixed a little better than the first hour. Some nights the mixes really pull together and other nights I just can’t hold the mix right to the bitter end – and believe me, more often than not I push the mix as long as it can go. Not always in my best interest, but short mix DJs never really earned my respect the same way a long mix does. 

I’m working on building a solid base of records to work with right now, so you’ll probably hear some of these tracks again. I’m trying to work in a couple Platipus Records and a Couple Eve Records – which often have such distinctive sounds that it’s hard to mix them seamlessly with tracks from other record labels. 

Sure enough – I’ve only listened to part of the first hour but I’m not very thrilled about it. Right from the get-go I started with a bad mix and that just set the tone for the first hour. It’s too bad because the first mix was going quite well for 3-4 minutes. But all it takes for a great 4 minute mix to go bad is the last 15 seconds. Growing up as a kid I used to hear ‘Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades’ and sure enough – it’s easy to get close. 

I’m also not very happy with the phrasing of the first set. I’ll maybe post something more in-depth another time – but basically (and I’m not even sure if phrasing is the right term) after you get good at matching beats and have it figured out that you have to line up the down-beats – you extend that whole concept to ‘phrases’ of a song. It’s like lining up the first beat of a 32 or 64 note segment on both records. If you can do that then magic can happen!

Here’s an example of what proper phrasing sounds like. Download this week’s podcast and listen to the mix between 1:35:23 and 1:37:35. Once you can phrase your mixes like this it’s practice, practice, practice until you can do it every time. (Easier said than done!)