Guide to making kickass mixes

As of late, I have made some pretty kickass mixes. I thought it would be a good idea to share my process here. Hopefully you benefit in some way from this. There are so many crap mixes floating around out there... Please note the purposeful analogy of the outside influence of an ass getting kicked vs. crap passively coming out of said ass.

With that, we move forward.

1. Make a list of artists that would possibly fit the type of mix that you are making.

The way that I do this is, in using MusicMatch Jukebox version 9 for my MP3 collection (which spans around 40GB) it is nice to scroll down through the list of artists, expand each artist to the list of albums and tracks for those artists, and at a later time, start the program again and the same artists are expanded.

This step requires the least amount of commitment to the mix process. You can do this, leave it, come back later, and have your progress saved.

I usually try to have at least 12-15 different artists chosen at this point. Hopefully, in the next step, you will be able to get a couple of "possibilities" from each of these artists.

2. Listen to all of the tracks from each of the artists that you have earmarked as suitable for the mix at hand.

The secret to a good mix is that it is made of songs you don't need to grow to love. Songs in a good mix need to grab you right away. Remember, as you are listening to the songs, if they don't grab you in the first few seconds, that the intended audience of your mix would probably skip past them to move on to the songs that they remember from the previous listens. If the song isn't instantly good and memorable, then it doesn't have any place in a kickass mix. Let your listeners discover that song from that artist when they search out more on their own based on the "right" song from the artist that you chose to include in the mix.

This is definitely the most time-consuming step of the process, wading through all the crap, album-filler, and just crap to get to the mix tape gems. Don't give each song too much of a listen. If it doesn't grab you in ten seconds, skip to the next one.

In the same sense, don't be too terribly picky at this point. You want lots of good stuff to choose from in the later steps. If you have any question about whether a song will work or not, leave it in the mix and move on!

At the end of this artists' repertoire, you will only have the potential keepers in the playlist. At this point, I copy the music file into a "new mix" folder that I keep on the Desktop until the process is done. Placing the folder on the Desktop helps keep the new mix in your face and helps keep it from losing priority. All that time spent stumbling could be spent making a kickass mix!

3. Whittle down the list of "possibilities".

Load ALL of the songs that piled up in the "new mix" folder in step 2 into a playlist. Randomize it. Shuffle it. Give it the same 10 second listen from one song to the next. Eliminate songs at will! The mix is still completely rough at this point. In this step, I will often end up with somewhere around 60 songs to work with... That's a good place to be. That's about three separate CDs worth of music. We are trying to get down to one CD worth.

If, in listening to the first 10 seconds, you feel like skipping it, delete it from the list and move on. If you have multiple songs from that artist, go ahead and delete it from the 'new mix' folder. If you have any question about that song's place in the mix, leave it in the folder, but remove it from the playlist.

At this step, depending on how confident I am in the mixability of the pile of songs, and how many I have to work with, I will delete stuff based on the length of the song. If it's over 4 minutes, I will delete it. That's a good way to keep the mix alive and thin the list out some.

If a song is great once you get thirty seconds in, but has a really, really, distractingly stupid opening line, delete it. You know this song already and can tolerate it, but someone listening to it for the first time is most likely going to judge the song by the opening line and skip past it if it ends up on your mix. Be the hero, delete that shit.

This step should be performed several times, until you have just over a CD length of music.

Some rules of thumb to help you along, if it comes down to a decision between keeping a weaker song vs. a stronger song by a band that has already appeared more than twice on this mix, keep the weaker song. Nothing screams "I JUST FOUND THIS NEW BAND! YOU SHOULD LOVE THEM!" like including half of their new album on a single mix. Save the good stuff and capitalize on them in a later mix. If the first two good songs from an album don't catch your intended audience, the next two on the next mix will have them asking you for the complete discography list in no time.

RULE: No more than two songs by a single artist on the whole mix.

4. Establish some order.

Once you are down to a little more than one CD worth of songs (usually somewhere from 18-25 songs will fit on a CD, depending on if you used the 4 minute rule or not), you need to find a good opening song. I have a habit of "naming" the mix after the first song. This makes step 4, which is a mean bitch, more fun. You have to then find a song that is both a good opening song and has a good title. Out of 30 songs, it shouldn't be hard. Some of my recent mixes have been called "Over The Falls", "Future Foe Scenarios", "In The Sun", "In The Morning", and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town", all named after the opening songs.

The trick to a good sounding mix is that one song flows nicely into the next. This makes two parts of the song important. The beginning few seconds and the ending few seconds. Take your awesomely-titled opening song, and listen to the ending a few times. Drag songs around into the second slot until you find something that flows nicely. Don't think about it in terms of "that was a slow song, now I need a fast song" or whatever.

If you are musically inclined, pick something that starts with a complimentary note to the ending of the previous song. If you don't know what the hell that means, pick something that sounds good in transition from the last song. If you don't know what THAT means, try multiple things and eventually something will jump out in contrast to the rest of them that you have tried. Be sure to back up and listen to the end of the first song and let it bleed into the next.

If you have more than one song from an artist, make sure to squeeze at least 4 or 5 songs in between from other artists. I'm sure that there are exceptions to be made to this one, but it's just good form...

Keep working your way forward through the mix this way. End of one song to the beginning of the next song. Remember, you have extra songs in the playlist right now for a reason. You may also have some things left in the "new mix" folder that are no longer in the playlist, so if you get in a pinch and get rid of a few from the playlist, pull one back out of the 'new mix' folder and give it a whirl.

Nearing the end of the mix, you will probably end up with 3 or 4 things that you're not sure what to do with. Pick one to be the last song of the mix. Be sure to pick a good one for the end of the mix. It is important to leave the listener with something strong at the end of the mix, either a long ponderous silence after the last song, or a FUCK YEAH!!!!!!! reaction that makes them play it again in a loop. Just be sure the ending is strong. It is as important as the first song. Also make sure the last song blends well back to back with the first song, so the 'playing in a loop' factor is equally rewarding.

Now that you have the last song in place, go back and find a place to fit the rest of you leftovers into the mix.

5. Listen, Listen, Listen, LISTEN.

Just listen to it. A few times. You can't possibly know if your finished product is truly finished until you have driven it around the block a few times, kicked the tires. Car cliches. Sports cliches. Whatever it is you need to figure it out.

Adjust as needed. Don't give up at this point. You've come so far!

If something stands out from the rest, or doesn't blend in, replace it with something else. A good mix lasts forever. The fine folks on the receiving end will thank you for the effort. It doesn't matter if you have personally heard the songs a million times, if you have done your job and made a kickass mix, you will enjoy hearing the songs again and again.

6. Naming, tagging, and formatting.

Don't be a noob mix maker. Make sure all of the songs are in the same format. Mac users, this means YOU. Learn to use a computer like a real computer user. Just because ITunes does all the nitty gritty detail work for you and will play WMA, MP3, M4A, and OGG files back to back doesn't mean everyone's music player will.

Also, if you are using any music player software at all (c'mon cassette tape guys, get your act together, it's like 1998 or something already) there is a volume-leveling feature in it. They all have it. You should use it on your final mix. This makes a world of difference in blending one song to the next.

Once you have all of the tracks in your chosen file format and volume-leveled, just two more steps will make you look like a pro. First, rename each of the tracks in the following format: track number - artist name - song name [01-primus-over the falls.mp3]. This will ensure that even if the listener does not play your mix from their music library, they will be played in proper order. Why would you spend so much time in step 4 if it wasn't important?!

Next, tag each of the songs with the "album" and "artist" name, being the name of your mix. Lastly, tag the song title as the format listed in the last paragraph. That is: track number-artist-song name [01-primus-over the falls.mp3] for those of you with goldfish attention spans.

All of these last steps may go completely unnoticed by your listeners, but not doing them will be totally annoying and I promise you, the listener will notice your lack of effort. Sometimes, you need to spend the appropriate energy for it to go unnoticed. It will pay off in the end, I promise.

Good luck and I wish you a future full of kickass mixes!