Sundays are for Making Doomy Mixes

Five song mix, featuring Everly Pale, Seffi Starshine, and Laurie Spiegel.

A few months ago I didn’t really know that “dark ambient” was a thing, but I’m really enjoying this new season of discovery. This only started during the pandemic, but also because I deal with heavy metal everyday, and have since 2008 or so. I’m not quitting metal by any means, but it’s my day job, I need to give me ears a rest.

It’s been fun learning a new piece of software, too; Serato DJ Lite.

I didn’t really know how to make a mix – I tried just stacking the tracks in Abelton Live, then ScreenFlow, but neither was very fun, since they’re not really made for that. Not a huge fan of Serato aesthetically, but it does the job.

The process of making these mixes is fun, too. Finding the music on Bandcamp, keeping track of stuff I find, downloading, managing those tracks, arranging each song, then the fade in and out, while recording the mix in real time to Audio Hijack Pro.

I’ve been making these on and off since May, and they’re a great distraction to *everything* that is going on these days.

If you dig this, I have more mixes here on MixCloud.

Soundtrack for Admiring the Moon

I can close my eyes, count my breaths, and then I’m in a dark room filled with strangers and speakers stacked to the ceiling. The only light is from a few bulbs on stage, the air thick with reverb and feedback, a low rumbling hum wraps around my rib cage.

Since live shows aren’t a thing anytime soon, I like to go here when making these mixes. Count the minutes before the next track, stay present, feel the music in bones and my thighs like we used to.

If you like this, I have more here.

Goodnight, Metal Friend – Mix 4

My 4th Goodnight, Metal Friend mix, featuring Killanova, GubbiAnn, Oranssi Pazuzu, and more.

Not quite ambient, but a little darker, a little more spooky. The ambient stuff can be a little airy, I just want something with a little bit more weight.

This means lots of digging on Bandcamp to find tracks without drums, without screams, without too much high end. It’s some work, but I enjoy it.

Goodnight, Metal Friend Mix 1

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.