RECESSION VI

Recession VI – This time it's the last one!!

Knowing me, there's a good chance this has gone offline. Do not fret though dear reader, I'm re-encoding all my mixes as we speak into MP3 versions, and they'll be uploaded in the next couple of weeks (it's currently mid July 2004 as I type.)

Click the red title above to start the mix in a Real Player. Or, click HERE to download the mix (in Real format) to your hardrive. Goes without saying that you'll need Real Player to play it. If you don't have the G2 Player, go to the Real Web Site to get one.

You'll notice that the first three tunes are the same as the Recession IV. Why? Well, I wanted to get the CD version done, and I also wanted to get a kinda best of thing for the Recessions. as I love the mix between these three so much - it ll kinda fell into place. So, if you've heard R4, then you'll have to listen to the first three tunes again in this one. As I said, it's mostly becasue it's set up for the full 72 minute mix, rather than a little taster.

Here's the tracklisting, below is the breakdown of the mix.

1) Vangelis - BladeRunner
2) Art Of trance - Kaliedoscope
3) Stage One - Space Manouevors
4) Paul Van Dyk - Words
5) Paul Van Dyk - Alive
6) Amanda Ghost - Filthy Mind
7) Skip Raiders - Another Day
8) Amoeba Assassin - Speedway Revisited
9) Gergio Moroder - The Chase
10) Coma Aroma - In Aura
11) Underworld - Cowgirl
12) BT - Believer

Hello. Right, I'll get into it – no waffling like normal. Here's how I mixed Recession VI.

1) Vangelis BladeRunner

Pressed 'Start'

2) Vangelis to Art of Trance

Now this one was cool. If you listen to this carefully, you'll hear when Art Of Trance comes in to play. Mostly, you'll be able to tell because of the pops and cracks on the vinyl, but the key of the bass hum in the Bladerunner sample and the key in Kaleidoscope are just that little bit different. You can still hear the difference, but I got over it by killing the bass on K/Scope when I started bringing it in, then as it got more dominant, brought the bass in on it while taking out the bass EQ on the Bladerunner thing. As to the timing of it – tell you the truth, it was sheer luck that as Ford says "Give me a hard copy right there" there was that little cymbal hit. Not a pro thing to say – but it's the truth, I've done that mix many times, and though I hit that point 75% of the time, I just do it by using the force. (Nice Ford relationship there.

3) Art of Trance - Stage One

To tell you the truth, this has to be one of my favourite ever mixes. There's a couple I've done in my Dj'ing life that I think are on a par with this, but this just makes my back shiver sometimes. And I'm the one doing it!! If ever there was a reason to be a Dj. (Eek, tangent alert).

Anyway, so – AOTrance goes into it's long breakdown, then comes back into the tune, then goes into a little 8 bar refrain short after – at which point the little widdly hook just goes to the point I want it to go every time. It's at this point that I started Sage One from the very beginning. The bass Eq is right down at the lowest point that would still allow me to hear the bass-beat for beat-matching purposes, but really not audible enough to hear.

On this one – I used both the channel fader and the cross fader. So – I've got the channel fader at 0, and the cross-fader in the middle – with the bass on Stage One killed to an inch of its life. In a pretty slapdash way, I raised the fader on Stage one to the point that I could barely hear a slight kick of the bass drum. At this point, you can hear some of the vocal samples going through Stage One. "In Deep Space……Abandoned" – all that kind of stuff.

After 16 bars (I think) of having it running just slightly in the background, I raised the fader of Stage One so it was at max at the end of the 16 bars, then knocked the cross-fader VERY slightly off centre as to favour it. Then, I put in just a little turn of the bass – so you can now hear the "bow bow's" of the bass off-beats.

After another 16 – AOTrance does a little drum roll to signify the end of it's pattern, and goes into a nice refrain to end. This is the point where at the end of it, you take out the bass of AOTrance to about ¼ it's original, knock the cross-fader off just a little more, and bring the bass in full on Stage One.

Then, it's just a case of moving the cross-fader just enough over towards Stage One that it is now completely dominant, yet you can still hear the drums in AOTrance, and after 16 bars, as the vocal in Stage One goes "any crew……Negative" you close off the cross fader and are into the second part of Stage One on the first beat. It's a bit sudden when you read it like that, but I think it's the best place to end the mix.

4) Stage One - Words

To tell you the truth, I worked pretty hard on trying to get this one into the mix nicely. I'd just got it through that morning, and absolutely loved this mix of it – and was thinking about doing a new mix anyway, and knew I wanted to put it in there somewhere. So – I did.

I'll say now, the one thing I like about R6 is that it isn't as pushy when it comes to me trying to make all my mixes as seamless as possible. I knew that these two would go together in terms of structure – I knew the intro to Words would play nice over Stage One, even with that one bloody off-beat which makes it sound like I've cocked up (honest – it IS the tune). And I also knew that after the first three tunes being very well suited to each other – and sounding pretty similar and smooth – having a bit of a change like I did into words was either going to make people move, or just leave……if you're still playing the CD/MP3 then you know what one you went for.

Again, structure wise, pretty simple. Stage One goes into its last breakdown, then 16 bars after it comes out, I started Words right from the beginning. Again, the bass was killed (completely this time, the hi-hat pattern is more than strong enough to make sure your beats are matched)

I think it's 16 bars it runs for through the mix, it might be 32 though – have a listen and you'll be able to work it out – if Words hasn't started after 16 bars, then it's 32.

Anyway, so – in the last 8 bars of the mix, I used the mixer to it's potential. By taking up Words in volume, making the cross fader dominant on it, raising the bass EQ on it, and cutting out the Hi-hats at the same time – I needed a third hand. But I got there. The important part though was to have Words dominant in all senses bar the Hi-Hat pattern. Why? Coz I used the big yellow button on my DJM-600 –set to flanger. So – for the last 8 bars of the mix, I assigned the flanger only to Stage One, put it on its longest setting (16 bars+) and flanged down the hi-hats while bringing in the hi-hats on words slightly. What this did one Stage One was to take it out of the mix nicely leaving it only slightly for the next 8 bars – while also bringing in a stronger hi-hat rhythm that was Words. Then – at the end of the 8 bar flange, Words comes in – I could have probably done with making the bass a bit more powerful when it came into the mix, but I think the effect I was looking for worked alright enough – at least for what I was trying to do. On tape it might not sound as good as it can, but I've done it live since, and it DOES work there!!!

5) Words to Alive

This is an interesting one. Since doing the mix, I've kinda grown pretty sick of Alive, but its in there anyway. I think when I was doing the mix, I was going off it anyway, but I wanted something different from the Progressive stuff I'd played for the past 20 mins, and wanted to signify a small change in the tunage. So – I used Alive.

Actually, to tell you the truth, it's not the tune I'm not keen on, it's her "Aliiiiiiii….iiiiiive" thing that was annoying me in the end.

This is all shown by the fact that by using two copies of the same tune, I've but an 8 minute tune down to 2mins 20seconds. But I'll get to the hacking of it when it comes to its turn (next).

The mix though was pretty complicated. Again, it's pretty fortunate I bought myself the DJM600 with the sampler. But, the mix, the mix…..keep losing track here.

I can't remember the exact amount of bars I offset the mix, so all I can say is that I timed it so that Alive would go into the main chunk of its tune just as Words was going into the last little refrain (or mini-breakdown – whatever you want to call it.) I think it was about 32 bars, but I could be wrong.

So, I started Alive well before I actually did anything with the faders. Why? Well, I needed to be sure it was bang in time so that my playing with the sampler and stuff wouldn't be a problem. Normally, I'd just start it a bar before I wanted it to come in – use that one bar to get start it, make sure there were no problems, and because it was a straight cut off mix (ie, the x-fader went across its path in one beat) but, as I was doing the sampler thing, I didn't have enough brain power or hands to do it all at the same time.

So, that's how I did the bare mix of the tune – I lined up the tune so Alive started as Words hit the breakdown – with the x-fader fully on words through the intro of Alive, and as the last beat of Words occurred before the breakdown thing, I moved the cross fader all the way over to Alive, so the next beat was the first of the new tune. Hope you understood that.

But, the sampler etc. Well, what I did was load in a little bit of Words, 2 bars to be precise. And had it running under the tune – you might be able to hear it – but I can't!! Then, as the mix was one bar away, I increased the level the sampler was playing at, and reduced the level that the real Words vinyl was playing at. Then, and the point when I did the cross-fader in one beat move, I did a single beat backspin on Words. As I said, I could have just moved the fader across with that one beat thing, but it didn't quite sound right, and I wanted to do both the backspin on Words, and still have the Words hook running for one bar after the mix. Which is pretty hard to do….well, virtually impossible when you've just backspinned. So, when you're listening to it, watch out for the single reverse bass drum as Alive kicks in, and the one bar of Words that fades out.

6) Alive to Amanda Ghost

As I said in the last explanation, I was getting pretty pissed off with the sound of Alive by the time it came to do this mix, but I wanted to use it because it's a great tune to slip in half way to lessen the power of the set before I got into the next section of it – which lasts for a long time. To tell you the truth, it's only the outro 32 bars of the tune I really like of the tune (coz she ain't warbling away) so I got two copies and chopped it right down.

I think it's only the first chop that's pretty obvious, as she starts to sing one thing, then you can hear me fading up the next part. This all explains why the break-down in the tune happens so soon. Coz I hacked out the intro to pieces.

Did the same with the breakdown. I was actually pretty surprised at how bang on I got the chops through the breakdown. Well, I find it hard to remember what parts I took out when I listen to it now – so that must count for something!!

Anyway. Alive comes out of the breakdown, then 16 bars after it, I started Amanda Ghost. I killed the bass to the point where there's just enough bass in to keep the vocals rich – but not enough for the bass to over-ride the bass of Alive already playing- so it wouldn't be problematic having it at a level where you could hear her voice clear enough.

I had it running under Alive so after the 8 bars of just drum intro, you can hear Amanda going "Come Inside……come inside" through it. Then after the16 bar intro, Amada Ghost goes into its full tunage. At this point I took out the bass on Alive, and brought the bass in full on Amanda Ghost. At the same time, I moved the cross fader to it's about 2/3rds of the way over – so it's really favouring Amanda Ghost, but you can still hear the drums from Alive. After 8 bars, a small refrain happens, at which time, close off the cross-fader so that it's only Amanda Ghost as the first beat of her singing the main tune starts.

7) Amanda Ghost to Skip Raiders

A really simple mix, which sounds SOOO much better because of the filter effect on the DJM600.

Amanda gets to the end of the tune, she's warbling away, but the end of the tune coming up is signified by the singing stopping – she just gives it "I'm drowning…." And that's it – just instruments from then on. This is where I started Skip-Raiders – right from the beginning.

After 16 bars Skip goes into a 1 bar refrain on its beat – after which it comes back in full power. This is the key point in the mix.

But, the actual mix takes place 8 bars before this. As I said, I brought Skip Raiders in at the beginning of the tune, it had the bass pretty much killed right out of it, but I had the cross-fader in the middle, and after 4 bars, the channel fader was up at about 75% of full power. After 7 bars, there's another kinda refrain thing – just something to let you know that something's about to happen. At this point, I swapped the positions of the channel faders (Skip now at 100% and Amanda now at 75%) and did the same with the bass EQ's – although, I tried to keep a bit more bass in Amanda –as to still give the little hook line some depth.

Then, after the 7 bars of Skip Raiders being dominant over Amanda, this little refrain happens. In case you care, I set the time on the filter to 2/1 pressed it at the beginning of the last bar, and took it out at the end (so it only went through half a cycle). As all this filter stuff happened, just closed the cross-fader over. Ok, it's pretty noticeable that something's changed, but I like the way it goes all hollow for a second.

8) Skip Raiders to Amoeba Assassin

Oooh, how much do I love this mix. And, it's THE most simple mix I've done in a long time.

Skip Raiders goes through the whole of the tune, with a couple of extra filter effects added by me. It goes through two huge breakdowns, then an 8 bar one near the end.

I think it's something like 24 bars after the little breakdown at the end that Skip Raiders just goes into beats. This is the key point.

Amoeba Assassin has an 8 bar drum intro – then the bass-line comes in. This is the key mix in point for Amoeba.

So, you wait for 16 bars after the 8 bar final breakdown on Skip Raiders, and then start Amoeba – so you've still got 8 bars to go before the end of Skip Raiders. Therefore, as the end of Skip Raiders happens, the bass line comes in on Amoeba.

It's a pretty simple case of Eq'ing the hi-hats out while closing the cross fader off for the next 8 bars – just do move and decrease in time with the hi-hats to make it a little less noticeable.

And, the funny thing is, as much as I said I loved this mix, it's the only one on this mix that I think I really cocked up. I mistimed the fade out at the end a bit, didn't do it quickly enough – so the mix just ends pretty abruptly. Do it in a club, it won't matter. Do it on a tape/Cd and you'll notice it if you're looking for it (which you are now as I just told you about it….)

9) Amoeba Assassin to The Chase

Again, another one that has an eight bar intro before it goes into the main part of the tune – well, the bass line gets introduced anyway. So – it's just the same idea as with Skip Raiders. Amoeba hits a refrain towards the end of the tune, which is where I want The Chase to go into its bass-line – so I just work out where in Amoeba the refrain begins, remember where it is, look at the grooves etc if it helps me get the timing right, work it out from the bars, all that kind of thing, then just start The Chase 8 bars before Amoeba hits the refrain.

Which is what I did, I started it 8 bars before, put the cross-fader in the middle, but the channel fader at 0 – all Eq's on the chase were at their optimum position. Then, as the refrain happened, and the bass-line started on The Chase, I brought the channel fader up to it's max point, killed the bass out on Amoeba mostly, and moved the cross fader over the slightly favour The Chase.

Took another 8 bars to complete the mix. Mostly just Eq'ing out the hi-end of Amoeba, lowering the channel fade, and moving the cross-fader over. The Chase does a little widdly thing on the last of its 8 bars in the mix, which is useful as the point when to close the cross fader off on it. Sorted.

10) The Chase to Coma Aroma

I've written in my site somewhere something about some tunes just don't like to mix with each other – and that it's pretty redundant to try to crowbar them together just so it'll sound alright. Well, I went totally against myself here. With the last three tunes, I was trying to make a kind of similar, repetitive thing happen, get into a groove of sorts. The tunes were really powerful yes, but not in a kind of "Here's my hook, love it, dance to it, respect it" that a lot of tunes are – these previous three were powerful in their musicality rather than their hooks. The fact that it took about 5 minutes for The Chase to get into it's main tune, that Skip Raiders was really repetitive, I loved the way the three of them went together, and this is why they make up the majority of the time in the mix. But…. I wanted to get out of it – one more tune and it would have gotten really stagnant, and no-one would want to listen on.

So, I stuck in an old, really powerful, really tuneful, well produced classic. I knew I wanted it to be Coma Aroma, but I was having issues with the mix as the keys of the two tunes are pretty much different, and the normal mix just sounded like shit. It had something to do with the simplicity of the end of The Chase, and the bass line to the intro of Coma Aroma, I knew that if I could bolster the end of the Chase slightly, I'd take the edge off the out of key problem. Ok, it's still there, but it's now something that sounds quite good in my opinion, using the fact that the two tunes are out of key to signify a change in the mix after the past 20 minutes of seamless driving power. Of course, you're probably thinking I'm just saying that to cover a bad mix, but think of it this way – why would I post it up if I didn't like it? I've already got five other mixes up here, there's no point sticking one up with a massive cock up I didn't like in it, now it there?

So, how did I get around the problem? Well, it all centres around the massive breakdown in the middle of the tune. And, again, the mixer. As The Chase hits this massive breakdown, I recorded it into the sampler – and then at the end – during the mix, played it back, to beef up the ending – which I think worked out incredibly well if I do say so myself.

But, as to the mix.

Coma Aroma has a really long into – which finally hits beats after 16 bars I think – or it may be more – I don't count beats in the first place, but here I just wind on the tune until I hear bass drums.

The Chase is going full swing up until the end – where the main tune drops out of it, and all you're left with is the bass line and the drums (which is the end that I thought was pretty weak and wanted to bolster).

It's at this point, when it hits bass and drums that I started Coma Aroma. I let it run for 8 bars, at which point The Chase just hits drums, and I started the sampler. At the same time, Coma Aroma does a really cool kinda reverse to its bass line which signifies the last 8 bars of the intro. At that point, I brought Coma Aroma full into the mix – without any kills on either tune – as the bass drum intro on Coma Aroma is really weak – and as the main tune of Coma Aroma kicks in after a one bar refrain – I just faded the cross fader across through this one bar, while taking out the sampler through the same bar – and as Coma kicks in, I think the change in energy is fantastic.

11) Coma Aroma to Cowgirl

I love this tune for the varying degrees of energy it goes through. The intro is like a beefed up American House tune, the drums are really frantic, the extra nuances to it are filling up the tune, and you're not really to sure how tuneful it is. Then, it all drops out – for a really long time – before coming back out into this insane sounding thing – it's great, kinda like the entire mix I've done condensed into one tune.

The mix was pretty straight forward. Although, this description won't be. Coma plays through it's main tune – then hits a long refrain before going into a "WeeeoooweeeeeeeeOOOweeeee" part (the O's rhyme with 'who' if you're having a go at reading that musically to have an idea of what the hell I'm on about). Anyway, I started Underworld there, with the bass killed, and the hi-end reduced a lot too – as it's really dominant to the tune. I had the cross fader set so that you could hear the drums, but it was really background stuff, basically, I just wanted it to sound like drums in Coma Aroma, just floating in the background a bit – not a mix, just a meld.

Coma hits into it's main hook for the last time after 16 bars of this. 16 bars into this main hook, Underworld hits the bass line of the tune – which is where I bring in Underworld to about 75%, bring in its bass line, take coma to about 75% with it's bass line pretty much killed. Notice that I've got both tunes playing out at the same level here, though both aren't at their maximum positions on the channel faders – I wanted them both to be just as loud as the other, but if both were at 100% then it'd just sound like noise.

Coma hits a really repetitive refrain for like the next million bars (well, it goes on for a long time) so, after 8 bars, I took coma out a little, and brought Cowgirl to its max position. Then, because of the length of the refrain, I just kept the mix going, with ever decreasing levels up until the big long breakdown of Cowgirl.

12) Cowgirl to BT

I always knew this tune was BT, but as I had it on a white label, that was completely unmarked, I was never too sure. Then, the day it came to actually writing all this stuff down, I rented the movie "Go" – which BT did the musical score or something for – and what was playing through the "Rave" scenes in Go? Why….. this tune!! So, I got to find out that it was BT, and even better the title of the tune – fate or what??

Anyway.

The BT tune has a really odd intro – one which if you lose a bit of concentration, you can really cock it up – so, I stayed away from starting the tune right at the beginning. About 16 bars into the intro, there's still little rhythmic happenings, but a clap is brought in – which is the point where I started it. And, I started it when Cowgirl goes into the little refrain.

I kept the mix completely silent through the refrain, and brought the level of BT up for the next 8 bars after the refrain so it would come into power as Underworld just kinda weakens to nothing. Them I just mixed on for another 8 bars or something, and that was it.

Kinda – well, I wanted to really get into the BT tune – not just a fade, not an effect thing, so – I thought about backpinning, or reversing stuff – what I ended up doing – strangely for me, was to scratch!!! If you listen to BT just as it goes into the main tune, out from Underworld, you can hear a little baby scratch thing going on – my one and only piece of scratching that I think I'll ever do. Impressed? Nah, didn't think so.

So, that's my mix. Sorry the descriptive got a bit dull to the end, it's a Sunday morning, I've given up Smoking, and my Sega's bust. Had bugger all else to do – and I'm getting bored of looking at this screen……..

bye.







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