melodic mixing? house & breaks & etc.

[holden]

Hey folks,

I've been practicing my mixing lately to concentrate more on making melodic transitions and experimenting with pitch shifting. Those of you who DJ know that beatmatching isn't everything...you've also got to pick the right songs and make sure their melodies flow.

So this is a bit of an experiment in training my ears and hands to get similar or not so similar sounding tracks to be friends! It starts with some groovy house and then gets into more harsh breaks. Please forgive the unsmooth transitions, try to enjoy the smooth ones!

Supersaturation mix by AViD:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/y3q5a9
(78 MB; 68 minutes, 160 kbs)

1. Underworld: "Faxed invitation"
2. Groove Armada: "Fogma"
3. Rinocerose: "Le Triangle"
4. Sander Kleinenberg: "My Lexicon"
5. Groove Armada: "Love Box"
6. Ian Brown - "F.e.a.r"
7. UNKLE: "Reign" (False Prophet Remix)
8. Crystal Method: "High Roller" (Myagi remix)
9. Chemical Brothers: "Hey Boy Hey Girl" (Soulwax remix)
10. Prodigy: "Spitfire" (Future Funk Squad remix)
11. Sander Kleinenberg: "This is not Miami"
12. Royksopp: "What Else is there?" (Trentmoller remix)
13. Chemical Brothers: "Electronic Battle Weapon 10" (Midnight Madness)

[matt]

you should visit this site (http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/) as it's got loads of good info on harmonic mixing and the very useful camelot wheel which tells you which musical keys are compatabile...

[viddy]

Love the mix so far. All good tunes.

edit: This is really good. The mixing is very seamless and the track selection is perfect. I'm going to pass this out to a few friends. :)

[negative1]

actually,
i think all your mixes are great...and well done..
you do have a lot of skill..

i still have a long way to go..

very good set..

later
-1

[holden]

Thanks for checking it out, guys! I still have work to do. But glad you appreciate the tunes. It's a weird mix of current and nostalgic tracks.
:o

[pafufta816]

the way i mix melodically is by ear. i usually figure out the key a track is in with my guitar, or find a good tonal centre of the piece. next i find another track in a complimentary key.

the great thing about mixing based on tonal similarities between songs is the possibilities.

i.e. if a song is in E, and you want to mix something in that is tonally similar you could choose something in E, A or B and most likely avoid dissonance or tone clusters. also F#, C#m, G#m might work, especially if non-diatonic pitches work.

if a song had a monotonal bassline in D, you could mix in another song in E. the unresolved mix of tones might incidentally have an interesting effect (if the song in E had a G# note in it, the collision with the D bassline might give a nice tension).