Making Mixtapes Again

Of the many creative endeavours I occasionally partake in, one is making dance music mixtapes.

Years ago I used to DJ as a hobby – decks, vinyl the whole shebang. Back then not many people used CD mixers, mp3s didn't even exist and pretty much all beat matching and mixing was done by ear. I owned 2 sets of deck, mixers and stacks of vinyl but had to eventually give it up due to the sheer expensive of having to continually purchase new vinyl just to stay up to the minute.

The internet too was not too prolific then either, and so the only way I could hear new music was to stay up to record late night radio shows or listen to a selection of vinyl in a record shop. All in all, it proved too much of a drain in finances and when I ended up going abroad for my second year at uni, my career as a DJ was put on hold indefinitely.

As time went by I dabbled more widely in my musical tastes including hiphop, soul, electronica, rock and metal. I listened to pretty much everything – but the progressive house music that I mainly DJed gradually faded away for me.

In the past couple of years, however, with the growth of iTunes previews, youtube and sites such as Soundcloud, exploring different artists and their music has become easier than ever and most recently I’ve been getting back into Electro music. With that my desire to create mixtapes came back again.

As I also became more proficient in using certain sound editing software, I realised I could create mixes like I used to back then, but this time using mp3s and being more precise and creative with my mixing.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have made four of these mixtapes since December 2010, three of which you can currently listen to now on Mixcloud.

At the risk of sounding like an old man… kids today really don't know how much the internet has changed our lives even in the past decade… grumble grumble…

26 July 2011