Comments on: Ok, it’s been a while. http://jprice.org/2006/12/11/ok-its-been-a-while/ The exploits of Sandra, Jason and Samantha, trying to find their way through the world. Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:22:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: gt0163c http://jprice.org/2006/12/11/ok-its-been-a-while/comment-page-1/#comment-8 gt0163c Wed, 13 Dec 2006 16:51:50 +0000 http://nampaz.com/blog/archives/27#comment-8 Okay, making a mix cd isn't that hard (and it's gotten easier what with MP3s and being able to put everything together before you actually put it onto it's final media). There's a lot of ways to do it that require a good idea of music and tempo and rhythm and all of that. But there's also a pretty easy way to cheat. Divide the music up into three categories based on tempo. Fast, medium and slow. The idea is to mix up the tempos, but never to jump from fast to slow or slow to fast without going through something in the middle first. Two or three fast songs, a middle song or two and then two or three slower songs back to a song or two in the middle and back to the fast songs. That gives you the general outline. Then, there's the issue of ordering the actual songs. Easiest way I've found to do this is to listen to the last few seconds of a song and the first first few seconds of another song. If they sound like they go together pretty well, you're good to go. If they don't, try something else. If you have a song that starts funny and you can't figure out what to put before it, use that song to start (and hope you don't have another one). Same way with a song that ends weird, put that one at the end. Songs that start or end abruptly can be hard. If they're upbeat songs, you can try pairing them together. Otherwise, just try to make the transition not terribly jarring. This can be accomplished by pairing a song that ends abruptly with one that starts of slowly or quietly. There's something about a couple of moments of silence that sorta clears out the ears and helps make the transitions smooth. A couple of other pointers, don't put two songs that sound really, really similar to each other right after one another. Avoid putting songs by the same artist or group back to back. And try not to have more than a couple of songs by the same artist or group in your mix (or it starts to sound like a "best of" mix. Unless that's what you're going for.) And, don't forget to have fun. Half the time people are just going to dump the songs onto their ipods and listen on shuffle anyway, so don't sweat it too much. Okay, making a mix cd isn’t that hard (and it’s gotten easier what with MP3s and being able to put everything together before you actually put it onto it’s final media).
There’s a lot of ways to do it that require a good idea of music and tempo and rhythm and all of that. But there’s also a pretty easy way to cheat.
Divide the music up into three categories based on tempo. Fast, medium and slow. The idea is to mix up the tempos, but never to jump from fast to slow or slow to fast without going through something in the middle first. Two or three fast songs, a middle song or two and then two or three slower songs back to a song or two in the middle and back to the fast songs. That gives you the general outline.
Then, there’s the issue of ordering the actual songs. Easiest way I’ve found to do this is to listen to the last few seconds of a song and the first first few seconds of another song. If they sound like they go together pretty well, you’re good to go. If they don’t, try something else.

If you have a song that starts funny and you can’t figure out what to put before it, use that song to start (and hope you don’t have another one). Same way with a song that ends weird, put that one at the end. Songs that start or end abruptly can be hard. If they’re upbeat songs, you can try pairing them together. Otherwise, just try to make the transition not terribly jarring. This can be accomplished by pairing a song that ends abruptly with one that starts of slowly or quietly. There’s something about a couple of moments of silence that sorta clears out the ears and helps make the transitions smooth.

A couple of other pointers, don’t put two songs that sound really, really similar to each other right after one another. Avoid putting songs by the same artist or group back to back. And try not to have more than a couple of songs by the same artist or group in your mix (or it starts to sound like a “best of” mix. Unless that’s what you’re going for.) And, don’t forget to have fun. Half the time people are just going to dump the songs onto their ipods and listen on shuffle anyway, so don’t sweat it too much.

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