The Art Of Mixtapes by Jimmy Green
Mixtapes have been around for decades. Putting all your newest tunes onto a tape and listening to it on a walkman is hardly new. But then since the sudden upsurge of Technics 1200s/1210s being sold, more and more people have been trying to blend tunes together for mates, or potential audiences, or customers.
Apparently, 70% of DJs can now beatmix competently (although where this figure came from I DON’T know, as whoever spouted it obviously never went out to any garage or house nights in Ipswich – no offence meant, guys, but PRACTICE). The boom came in about 1986, but still people are making them to pass around. Sort of like a calling card in hip hop circles. There’s nothing better than recording a decent mixtape and passing it onto someone, then hearing back about how good it was. It’s like Djing out and getting a round of applause at the end of the night, or a particularly fierce reaction to a routine that you have been practising for MONTHS. Grandmaster Flash used to record them and sell them per minute, rather than a fixed price. Vocal groups released tapes that featured them rapping over a varied assortment of beats, most obviously The ColdCrush Brothers, with Charlie Chase mixing in the background (an example of this can be found as the track “The Old School” on the Ultramagnetic MCs LP “Funk Your Head Up”). Run DMC make no bones about being directly influenced by the ColdCrush tape.
However, now the art of mixtaping has been taken to another level by artists such as Kid Koala (“Scratchcratchratchatch”), Coldcut (“70 Minutes of Madness”), Tony Touch (“Five Fingers Of Death”) and so on. There are no hard and fast rules on how to make a mixtape (much as there are no hard and fast rules on how to write a book), but the widely held ideas behind making mixtapes are pretty standard. Some people think they should be stuffed with exclusives, others think that there should be turntablist tricks galore, while others think that there should be an effective mixture of styles to live up to the name of a “mix tape”.
The ideal mixtape, in my opinion, should incorporate all of these aspects and more. I’ve been doing them for 5 years, but don’t claim to be an expert, just a fan. Here’s a bit of guidance gleaned over the years from my own experiences of recording and selling, feedback from others, asking other DJs, and checking out articles and interviews with the great mixtape creators. No matter what you try to do, there are some pretty solid ground rules to look through before you attempt to pass off other people’s sounds (as manipulated by you) as your innovations.
First things first. If you wish to make a mixtape to sell or pass on to others, you have to answer a deceptively simple question. What do you class as a mixtape? Tape, CD, Minidisc, MP3? Tape is surely the purists’ option, with more people owning tape players or Walkmans than CD players or minidisc players, or MP3s. Tapes seem like safe bets, although more and more people are putting out mixes on CDs. This costs a lot more than cassettes, though, and takes longer to do. I personally go for the approach of high speed dubbing on cassettes, although this doesn’t always sound as good as the original master. But, then however you duplicate the original recording, it won’t sound as good as the original master. It works, though, and means it doesn’t take too long. Whatever, man. Duplicate how you want.
Second up. There’s one major rule that I will stress for mixtapes, especially with something that doesn’t rely on 4 to the floor beats (house, techno, garage and to some extent drum + bass). PLAN AHEAD CAREFULLY WHAT YOU RE GOING TO DO. If this means taking a carefully selected pile of vinyls and practising over and over again the scratches you will do for each intro into the second verse of the tune before it; timing it to within 30 seconds of the length of one side of your tape (or whatever your chosen format is); doing it through once to see if it actually fits onto the format that you have chosen to record it onto; listening to it on a walkman to see which of the mixes work and which don’t; recording it again with the volumes perfectly positioned, and then screaming with frustration when you get to the end and the last record skips as you fade it in, then so be it. At least when it’s finished it will sound FUCKING CLASS. Don’t just grab a bunch of records and sling them together. Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m going to spend money on something that I’m going to listen to more than once, probably on a Walkman where I can rewind and listen to the same section over and over again, then I want what I buy to sound TIGHT. You KNOW that if you buy an LP you don’t want any shitty tracks on there, or any pissy offbeat samples interrupting what you’re listening to. Think of what YOU would want to hear – someone fading up and down might be good for certain types of music, but if it’s a mixtape then it’s better off being mixed, and mixed WELL.
Thirdly, you should have an effective and arresting opening, that’s a definite. I’ve heard tapes with the Honeydripper’s “Impeach The President” underneath “Sittin On the Dock Of A Bay” by Otis Redding, I’ve heard funk versions of “Also Sprake Zarathustra” (from 2001) with kung fu samples scratched up over the top, I’ve heard name drops from celebrities and juggles of rare jazz records and trumpets and all sorts. They all sound good, which is the thing. Do something that is going to make people want to listen to the rest of your tape. In shops (if you sell them in shops) someone may be sufficiently interested by your cover, your tracklisting (if you include one) or your word of mouth rep to ask the worker behind the counter for a quick listen. If the first 2/3 minutes of your tape is stylish as hell, then they will be more likely to want to risk their hard earned cash on it. If it’s you and a microphone saying “Hello, welcome to Dave’s Disco classics, 90 minutes of…disco classics mixed by me, Dave” followed by a belt driven Soundlab slowly cranking up to the intro of “Le Freak”, then you are less likely to grab a potential customer.
Fourth – after you’ve worked out what’s going on it, think about how you are going to record it. You have several options:
If you’ve only got two decks, a mixer and a tape recorder, then obviously you make do with what you’ve got. Hone your skills so they’re airtight, and no-one will be disappointed when they hear you live out and about. Your mixtape is your calling card, right? Advertise it as being “Completely LIVE, no loops or edits”, and see how well people respond when they hear it’s seamless.
You could splash out on a sampler (now pretty cheap), loop a beat and make some nice patterns over the top with one turntable, another tune already cued up on the other so you can switch straight over. This can add an air of “How did they do that?” to the start of your tape, and is pretty easy to set up, as long as you work out exactly what you do beforehand. Again, this has got the seal of approval if you write on it “Completely live, no edits”, as you COULD pull this shit off live if you had to. That’s what it’s all about – showing off your skills.
You could invest in a 4 track machine, meaning you can stop and start as much as you want, but there are different problems with something like that. There are obviously advantages, but let’s look at the downside first. First of all, it promotes laziness. You can stop halfway through and think of something else, and re-record parts of it. It works as far as getting a perfect mixtape goes, but it also means that you’re not practising as much as you could be - because you don’t have to. Secondly, if you choose the easy way and you keep rewinding, you’ll find that the different bands of tape you use create different sounding tracks – it doesn’t sound live anymore. If you mix live, then you can blend from one to another, but on a 4 track, you have to be very careful as because the sounds are clearer the mixing sounds tinny or hollow. This can negate any techniques you use, as they sound more pronounced. Also, you get the whole 3rd generation thing, where you record onto a 4 track and then onto your master tape, THEN onto another source. This can manifest itself with a slight wobbling effect, or an annoying tape hiss, or just general muffledness. The advantages are that – like Kid Koala (in your DREAMS) – you can come up with something so mindblowingly innovative, so layered and chopped and fucked over, that it begins to take shape as a personal composition using the barest minimum of someone else’s sound. If that’s what you want, then think of something good to call it or market it as. But don’t end up with an aural equivalent of wanking – if it’s not musical or rhythmic, then it’ll be hard to listen to. You can also use 4 track machines to plan something very carefully out to the nearest minute for rough version purposes. This can save an awful lot of time, although you might be better off recording the final version live (see above). Although I never actually gave out any tapes with this technique on (I spotted the pitfalls before I got that far), you can also cheat, and develop routines that make it sound like you’ve got double copies of incredibly rare records. (The most obvious pitfall of this method is that if they are fantastically rare, and what you’ve done with them is technically superb, then your mates or any casual listeners are likely to want to see you do your routines in the flesh. Which is likely to be very embarassing when you have to lie your way out of your vinyl grave. You fucker.)
Computer editing. If you choose this option, then you are likely (although not definitely) to be someone who finds it difficult to mix live. This is all well and good, but you will need practise. I’ve always felt cheated when I’ve known there have been fucking great edits in a mix I’ve been listening to: anyone could do that. Give a monkey a tape player with a pause button and he could do it. I would always advise DJs to be REAL to their abilities. A good 4 track introduction, when you multi-scratch or sample would be fine, for example. Tony Touch, Premier, Q-Bert, Coldcut etc have all used this technique. It’s an advert for your skills in the ‘studio’. But after a decent intro, move onto live shit. Don’t play the audience – they want to hear something skilful, not a fucked over product of 3 hours behind a pause button. You could advertise your tape (if you DO edit it) as a “studio mix” – under no circumstances use the term “LIVE”. You will be lying otherwise. But see how many people buy it if it’s a studio tape.
Fifth (and this is mainly a personal point) – don’t let songs drag on for too long. Mix reasonably quickly, unless you have a particular reason not to. Some tunes have fantastic endings that you might not want to cut off (for instance, “DJ Premier In Deep Concentration”, or “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel”). But a lot of tunes get a bit samey. Look at Blackalicious – a lot of their tunes could do with having the last verses cut off anyway, never mind the mixtape scenario. Keep a pace going – don’t let the tape degenerate into fading intros into outros. Unless that is your intention all the way through, in which case it might as well be a tape you’ve made to listen to in the car. Remember that this ISN’T a compilation tape for your mate who gets all trainspottery about the outro of an old Kool and The Gang b-side and the synth chords therein - this is a MIX tape. A MIX TAPE. The very title implies some kind of mixing. My normal rule of thumb is – (unless there is some kind of sophisticated juggle to add to the structure of the song) with Hip Hop, you use the intro, the first verse, the chorus, the second verse, and then mix in the next record’s intro to the second chorus of the first record. It’s not just me, there are nuff people who do this. Most records are geared towards this type of mixing anyway. Most intros last for 8 bars, most second choruses (or instrumental breaks after second choruses) last for 8 bars. Do the maths. All it is, is setting the pitch correctly (if you’re going to beat mix) and scratching in the intro of the next tune. If you’re chopping and changing, then your job is going to be much easier – scratch over the last part of the first record and then flick over the crossfader. Easy.
Six - will you fade down your last tune on side A to carry it on at the start of side B? Then you need to plan ahead, man. Don’t get to the end of side one and think “shit, what do I do now? I’ve got a minute of tape and two and a half minutes of song left.” This all comes under the heading of planning, fool. Read point two again. Don’t collect £200, either. If you start fresh on side B, then you might want to try a different style than the start of side A. Use your imagination. You might want a completely new style of music – I’ve done completely new school hip hop sides and then old school hip hop and funk sides. It’s entirely up to you. Unless you are doing a full spectrum of sound (like Coldcut, with their fantastic LIVE CD 70 Minutes of Madness), you might not want to make the music on each side too far apart stylistically. Remember that people who buy your tapes may not want to hear garage on one side and Johnny Cash on the other.
That’s it. The rest is up to you – you’ve got many options. You might want to get an MC, if that’s your thing, but then work out exactly what is going to be said beforehand. Don’t get put off in the middle of a blend by an ill-timed “Oi Oi!”
You might want to get a freestyle from a friendly local MC who’s known for skills, and put that at the start of your tape, or fade it in at an opportune moment. You might try and drop in an old school classic – they always sound fr-fr-fresh. Remember – plan ahead, keep it moving, make it seamless.
Keep practising, compadres. Send me the results.