So the 40 minute mix concept series comes to an end, meaning it is time to dip back through the archives.
'my friends electric' was a full length mix series where I took the opportunity to step outside of my usual house music trappings. This, the seventh entry, was perhaps the peak entry in terms of selection and composition. If you take a look over the tracklisting, you'll note that there is a lot of quality on show, moving from downtempo to uptempo while retaining atmosphere. With that said, let's focus on the execution of the mix for a second.
This mix was sequenced back in the earlier days of Ableton Live, before they introduced their Complex Pro warping method. Warping, essentially, is a way of introducing markers throughout a soundwave to indicate where the beats are, allowing you to timestretch to fit the master tempo of an arrangement you are working on. There are a selection of algorithms to use when doing this.
Beat
Beat is traditional timestretching. CPU light and you'll recognise it throughout many classic nineties jungle tracks where vocals were elongated into a slow robotic drawl. In terms of a DJ mix, you use this setting if you want your session to sound terrible. Yeah. Avoid.
Repitch
This is classic vinyl repitching. The soundwave is played faster or slower depending on the master tempo it is looking to match. In terms of sound quality, there is little impact bar the usual effects of vinyl which would increase or decrease the pitch that the song plays at. In terms of mixing in key, this makes sequencing much more challenging.
Complex
Complex is based on the early version of the Elastique timestretching algorithm. It had a load of benefits. It doesn't sound like absolute arse, like the Beat mode. It locks in key and even allows you to alter it, offering advantages over the bog standard Repitch mode. It does have failings. A well trained ear can hear the swooshes and swirls of timestretching compression in mixes. Think back to badly compressed mp3s and you know the sort of sound. It isn't prevalent, but it is very much there. I've picked this up in a number of commercially available DJ mixes through the mid 00's, so it was a lesser evil that people ran with.
Complex Pro
Based on a newer version of Elastique, all the benefits of Complex and none of the artefacts. The downside being that this was introduced fairly late in the Ableton Live product revisions. I didn't have it for this mix. There are some funky advanced parameters with this method but that isn't too relevant for this write up!
With that little history in effect, you should understand the challenges I faced when compiling this mix. I wanted the ability to transition across tempos without losing pitch, but I also wanted to retain as pristine a sound quality on the finished product as possible. What I came up with was a mix and match.
On the whole, you are hearing tracks set to Repitch. When it comes to the blends at points where I either need to increase tempo but not lose pitch, I would chop out the parts which were in the blend and set those to Complex. There was a meticulous tuning aspect to this to ensure that moving between algorithms didn't trigger an almighty jump in tone.
In the end, everything went together about as well as you could hope. My ear can detect one part of the mix where you hear a bit of repitching happening, and that is because I know precisely where to look. Anyway, enjoy that little technical ramble and get stuck in. Personal validation of this mix was to have Roger Van Lunteren stop by many years later to tell me that he really liked the way I slipped Rainy Autumn Sunrise in there.
Tracklisting
Swayzak - Ease My Mind //
DJ Food - Spiral (Dub) //
Static - Sometimes I'm Sad For A Few Seconds //
Orbital - Adnan's //
Popnoname - Touch (Tennishero Remix) //
Various Production - Puff Rider //
Black Devil Disco Club - For Hoped //
The Mole - I've Got My A //
Portable - Dense City //
Kalabrese - Auf Dem Hof //
DJ Egadz - The Last Song I Wrote For Her //
Nine Inch Nails - Even Deeper (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix) //
Pole - Heim (Four Tet Remix) //
Roger Van Lunteren - Rainy Autumn Sunrise //
Thom Yorke - Eraser (Sasha Coma Remix) //
Rudolf - Roger The Alien //
Justus Köhncke - 2 After 909 //
Shed - Another Wedged Chicken //
Ander Ilar - Downhill //
Swayzak & Roger 23 - Distant Dreams //
Meat Beat Manifesto - Spanish Vocoder //
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Rotary //
Nathan Fake - Fell
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