In the comment section of last week’s White Label Wednesday column on ABC, Ted lamented that I didn’t beat mix the songs together. Today, he gets his wish.

I made roughly 15 to 20 beat mixes during my time as a DJ in college (1987-1991). I didn’t own any gear, so I either made the mixes after hours at the clubs where I worked or I used the gear of a fellow DJ friend, who was brave enough to have his gear in his dorm room. Since the mixes were all recorded on cassette, very few have made the jump to the digital realm. Easy CD Creator had an add-on earlier in the decade that enabled people to input analog sources into their computer, and it would record the tracks and break them down. The program was clearly designed for vinyl, thinking that it would create a new file whenever a song ended or faded out. With beat mixes, this was a little more complicated, since the idea is for there to never be a break. I’d end up with one 12-minute file, and then 15 ten-second files. I would then take this .wav file editor and put the songs back together. Wheee.

The worst thing about uploading the tapes was that the digital recording was really quiet, so I would have to amplify the tracks exponentially, which of course amplified the tape hiss as well. You don’t really hear it when things are jumping, but when a song got quiet…whoooooosh! I should just break down and get one of those USB turntables that can convert vinyl and cassettes, but there is just one problem: I have no money, and with two kids, no time. So most of my tapes are still tapes. (more…)