I love falling asleep to music, and for the past year or so I’ve been using the Headspace app for that very purpose.
When listening to radio (like NTS), I never know what might come on at 3am. And with playlists, songs stop and start, so there’s never a consistent volume.
And while I love the Headspace offerings, they’re very robotic. As someone who works in music, I really like to know who’s making the music. I feel like music needs some humanity to it.
My initial thoguth was to create my own music. I have Abelton Live, a bass, and a MIDI keyboard – how hard can it be? Well, it’s hard. And I want some music to fall asleep to sooner rather than later.
That meant finding music made by humans, and arranged as a “mix.” I’ve been watching a bunch of DJ sets on YouTube recently, and I’m sort of intrigued.
So, I knew I was going to need some DJ software for this project. The first program I downloaded is the one I’ve been using; Serato DJ Lite. It’s free, and does the big important thing I need: fade into and out of separate tracks in real time.
So then I hit Bandcamp for some suitable tracks. I searched by tags and mostly dug through ambient drone, sorted by recent arrivals. I found about 6-10 tracks, paid for and downloaded each one, and threw them into Serato.
Learning how and when to fade out of tracks, and into others – IN REAL TIME – is exciting. Even though the music is quiet and peaceful, the process keeps me on my toes. By the time I settled on my playlist, and practiced a few times, I had a 25-ish minute “set” ready to go.
To record my mix, I used Rouge Amoeba’s Audio Hijack, capturing the audio from Serato, and recording it as an MP3 file in real time.
Again, you have to pay attention during this entire process, because if you mess up the transition between songs five and six, you gotta scrap it and do it again.
I uploaded to Mixcloud, because they’re artist friendly; “We also make sure that the artists, songwriters and rightsholders played in the shows receive their fair royalties.” I have a three month trial, and after that’s up it’s $15/mo, which seems fair.
I did my final mix after a day of work. Being that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic right now, this was the mental break I needed on a Monday night.
It’s not perfect, but it’s done. Hopefully I make nine more of these, and the tenth will be better than my first. Hope you like it.
TRACKLIST:
‘As My Own Servants Devour My Corpse’ from Necrotic ‘Fear by Crawl’
https://crawl.bandcamp.com/track/as-my-own-servants-devour-my-corpse
‘-‘ from ‘I’ by Changeling
https://changelingmpls.bandcamp.com/track/–4
‘No Glory For Scum Like Us’ from ‘If...’ by Deaf Mountain
https://wastedstaterecords.bandcamp.com/track/no-glory-for-scum-like-us
‘Phantom Whines’ from ‘Sepulcher’ by Infant Island
https://infantisland.bandcamp.com/track/phantom-whines
‘Nether Eden’ from ‘Shadowgate’ by Lefthanded Sign
https://lefthandedsign.bandcamp.com/track/nether-eden
‘August 10’ from ‘PASTORAL’ by PASTORAL
https://transylvaniantapes.bandcamp.com/track/august-10
‘Sequence’ from ‘Come Diventare Un Partigiano’ by Nordra
https://nordra.bandcamp.com/track/sequence-2