schofield

my number one vote goes to 'Shaman's Dream - Four elements'!
he blends psy, chilli-out and nature in such a magnificent way, it's music that makes you melt into blissfulness!

My first post here, but I thought it worth mentioning.
 
My listening this morning to start my work day is centred around the earthly elements, both albums released overnight...
 
https://merkabamusic1.bandcamp.com/album/elements
https://shamansdream1.bandcamp.com/album/the-four-elements
 
Loving both!

I agree.  There's some great psy breaks music in that style and tempo.

I have enjoyed streaming 4bstr4ck3r's EP over the last week.  Pretty funky stuff.  Not too glitch-hoppy for me - still remains pleasant to the ears.
 
I bought the Desert Dwellers album last Friday but haven't had a proper chance to listen actively yet.  My passive listens have been enjoyable but I was distracted by goings-on around me.
 
My vote was for Drrtywulvz Animal EP - I like it a lot.  I'll have to do a bulk purchase of Merkaba music soon - the label has been releasing somewhat prolifically over the last months, I can't keep up!

The Living Light remix album is my pick for this week.  Been looking forward to it for a while now.

I use MIK.  I have found it works really well.
 
My workflow would be:
Use MediaMonkey to ensure correct tags and file-naming conventions (e.g. Artist/Album/Track_number - Artist - Track_name). Drag into Mixed In Key to find the key and the bpm.  In truth, Ableton is just as good at finding the bpm. Drag into Ableton to warp the tracks and update the clip names (one track per clip) to BPM - Key - Artist - Track_name.   The clips appear in my Ableton library sorted into genre folders and then sorted by BPM and then Key and then the artist and track names.
 
Works for me.
 
I can find tracks I want to play in my Ableton library or I sometimes use the MIK search function to find tracks that I may not have warped in Ableton.  I actually - maybe stupidly - let MIK scan my whole music collection when I got it, which took days!  And I wish I didn't do it and the search and sort functions are pretty basic and I would like to remove thousands of the tracks from it but it would be a very tedious process.  But it has it's advantages and sometimes searching by key and bpm I find some random tracks that will fit well into a set. 
 
 
As a sidenote, I have found that since I started mixing harmonically, I probably now do it too much!  In that I try to always go for harmonic harmony in the mixes, meaning I exclude many tracks because 'on-paper' they are harmonically unmatched.  However in reality they might still work.  But I am working on that and trying to retrain my brain to not worry so much about what the key is what other tracks are in related keys and just select/mix what sounds good at the time.  Harmonic changes in a set also have their place, especially in downtempo mix sets.
 
*edit in bold.

I love the Mindex EP.
 
And thanks Snowdrop for mentioning Man Of No Ego - Web of Life.  I may have otherwise glossed over it, but I listened to it yesterday after I saw your post and liked what I heard.  Some promising tunes on there.

I use MIK.  I have found it works really well.
 
My workflow would be:
Use MediaMonkey to ensure correct tags and file-naming conventions (e.g. Artist/Album/Track_number - Artist - Track_name). Drag into Mixed In Key to find the key and the bpm.  In truth, Ableton is just as good at finding the bpm. Drag into Ableton to warp the tracks and update the clip names (one track per clip) to BPM - Key - Artist - Track_name.   The clips appear in my Ableton library sorted into genre folders and then sorted by BPM and then Key and then the artist and track names.
 
Works for me.
 
I can find tracks I want to play in my Ableton library or I sometimes use the MIK search function to find tracks that I may not have warped in Ableton.  I actually - maybe stupidly - let MIK scan my whole music collection when I got it, which took days!  And I wish I didn't do it and the search and sort functions are pretty basic and I would like to remove thousands of the tracks from it but it would be a very tedious process.  But it has it's advantages and sometimes searching by key and bpm I find some random tracks that will fit well into a set. 
 
 
As a sidenote, I have found that since I started mixing harmonically, I probably now do it too much!  In that I try to always go for harmonic harmony in the mixes, meaning I exclude many tracks because 'on-paper' they are harmonically unmatched.  However in reality they might still work.  But I am working on that and trying to retrain my brain to not worry so much about what the key is what other tracks are in related keys and just select/mix what sounds good at the time.  Harmonic changes in a set also have their place, especially in downtempo mix sets.
 
*edit in bold.

Sounds ideal.
 
I would recommend having a keyboard early on if you think that you may not stick with it.
 
You can get very cheap controller keyboards and I think a keyboard just makes it so much more enjoyable in the first place. It's a bit of a phaff constantly adding notes with the midi editor and a keyboard gets your body more involved.

Great post.  I generally don't do the zip folder with the cover art, cue file and text file.  However I do embed the cover art into the mp3 (320) and enter the tracklist into the lyrics.  The cue file however I do think is a good idea for the reasons you stated above.
 
I use Media Monkey to add the tags in much the same way that you have above.
 
I also agree that the tracklist should aways be presented.  So many times I've wanted to purchase music I've heard in a dj mix and haven't been able to identify the track or artis.  It's annoying!

Maybe it is not the pro way to do it, but in this way i do feel that i am creating something that is listener friendly. I've seen some other people around me doing and created my own approach. Being probably the biggest consumer of my mixes, i like them to look "nice" on my audio players.
 
I am sharing the technical aspect of creating DJ mix, the "legally" proper way is to contact each of the artist/labels and ask them for permission to use a track in dj mix. Well i guess 99% of dj's in internet don't do it and i am one of those. Actually most of the time if you provide proper credits (information about track-list) most of the artist will thank you for promoting what their music. 
 
Creating of mix and archive file
Recording a mix (following an idea or experimenting, track pre-selection or improvisation) Checking the mix (i do not like to re-record mixes, but sometimes is necessary) Intro / Outro - fade in / fade out (to make it smooth)  (optional) mastering. ( i am not doing it, but i know some people do it). Here is discussion on this subject. Giving the name to the mix Track-list (i think this is a mandatory for all the mixes that are released to public, dj's must give credits to all the artist tracks they use) Basic mix info to the text file Cover art creation (i usually use a creative commons licensed images and i edit them in photoshop) (optional) i create a .cue file.This file is useful when you record a mix to CD, as it give the information to cd recording program about the track length. This way when mix is recorded to CD you can skip tracks. This .cue file will allow to skip tracks when you use some of the software audio players on your computers. put everything to a folder (audio file + text file + cover art file + cue) Preparing mp3 file to online / offline sharing
As I record my mixes to the wave format, i keep the lossless version of file for archive (i convert them to Apple lossless format, but FLAC, AIFF can do the job as good).
Then I convert it to mp3 (320 kbps). This file will be uploaded. using Itunes i add all tags: artist, name, year, style etc (see screenshot) a add cover art i add track-list to lyrics field  (see screenshot) i name the mp3 file properly (something like this Gagarin_Project_-_32_-_Cosmic_Awakening_-_10_-_Earth.mp3).Adding number to the mix allow me to keep them sorted if they are stored in one folder) adding "underlines" instead of spaces can be useful when you upload files. (this allow to view all this information on some audio players, for instance the track-list can be easily visible by ipod/iphone). It also help for people to identify the author of the mix. 
 
if i want to make mix publicly available i will upload it to online streaming services (soundcoud and mixcloud) and will share share it to groups on soundcloud and facebook.
 
you can look here the example of a folder with all files => http://www.gagarinproject.org/download-our-mixes/
 
Last but not least, i think dj's shall support/buy the music they mix, listeners shall support/buy original artists. 
 
Let me know if it was interesting / useful for you to read
 
p.s.
This workflow might sounds complex, well i do it like this.
 
p.p.s.