Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Mix

Recommendations for DJ samples/songs ala Fatboy Slim?

heatherfl — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:30:56 -0800

My husband mixes dance music using Fruity Loops. I want to get him some CDs for Christmas for samples -- particularly stuff that sounds like Fatboy Slim. Help? I can buy loops already sampled or I can buy songs for that he can sample himself, it doesn't matter.

This song is a good overview of what FBS sounds like and what I'm looking for:
Mad Flava

There's a lot of retro sounding piano and brass, some funky bass/guitar, syncopated percussion, a bit of synth/electronica, and non-rap but rhythmically interesting vocals. If you're familiar with Fatboy Slim, you know what I mean!

FYI, I already got him "The Ultimate DJ Sample Box" which has actual Fatboy Slim samples. Just looking for supplemental goodies now.

So what should I get for him, music experts?

Thanks so much!

wintry mix

samsarah — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:55:07 -0800

Looking for music that feels like winter. I'm making a winter mix and need recommendations. I've read the old threads, which yielded some results, but I still need more. I'm specifically looking for songs that sound like winter. To me that sounds like sparse instruments and reverb on the vocals. I'm not so much looking for songs that are lyrically about wintertime - just songs that sound and feel like a winter day.

What I'm not looking for:
-christmas songs
-songs with the words "Winter" or "December" in the title.

Examples of what I am looking for:
-Anything by Fleet Foxes, Marissa Nadler, and Bon Iver
-Andrew Bird - The Giant of Illinois
-Phosphorescent - Wolves

Thanks!

White Meets Black Music Mashups

i_am_a_fiesta — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:58:16 -0800

I really like mashups that juxtapose hip-hop/R&B/reggae with classic rock/radio pop. Some good examples are Girl Talk's music, this Biggie Smalls/Miley Cyrus mashup, and this Beatles/Black Eyed Peas/Ludacris/ etc mashup. What are the best executed and most fun ones you've heard?

usb mix copying help

anya32 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:54:35 -0800

how do i save a mix of songs on a usb stick in order? i'm trying to give someone a mix on a usb stick and when i copy over the songs, they are not in the order i want them to be.

thanks so much!

Leave The Mask On

The Whelk — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:56:52 -0800

Help me find music about sexin' up Superheroes! I'm running an event based on Yoe's "Secret Identity" and I need background music that references a bunch of things and/.or sounds like something The Silk Specter would enjoy. Ideally these songs should be about any or all of these things:

Superheroes/Masked Avengers

Secret Identity/Double Lives

Sex/Kink/Lust/Etc

Music from the 40s-50s greatly preferred but not necessary. I want to mood to bend more toward "wink wink nudge nudge" kinky rather than darker or more aggro sounds.

Help me make the best arabic dance party mix ever.

Freen — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:36:35 -0800

I wanna throw the best arabic dance party in the history of the universe, but I haven't a clue about the music. Can you help? My girlfriend loves arabic dance music, and I haven't the foggiest clue. I want to throw a surprise dance party for her with the best arabic dance music. In particular, I'm looking for music similar to Nancy Ajram. If you could point me in the direction of similar music, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've already scoured this previous thread, but keep in mind I'm not really looking for rap music. Purely dance music. Thanks!

Help me make a music mix

bluelight — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:15:09 -0800

Help me create a mixed music folder for my friend who recently broke up with her boyfriend. She really likes Belle & Sebastian and... ...I like B&S too but I don't listen to music a lot. I'm not music-fluent at all so I'll just list the kinds of music she likes (also, I'm aiming for happy, upbeat yay-ish music):

- She really liked the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack
- She likes Ratatat
- Also, John Frusciante but I think he's a little...depressing for the music folder
- Indie folk stuff

Her birthday is also coming up. I wanted to make this to cheer her up so I was going to download a bunch of albums or songs from these different artists and slap them onto a jumpdrive. Then I was going to put the jumpdrive in a cute little box and give it to her. Is there any other way you would do it?

Thanks!!

Free Mixes for the Masses?

jammy — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:41:08 -0800

MixFilter: I'm looking for free online music mixes to help get me & my collective crew through the most strenuous & stressful part of the year. Tell me about your favorite mix blog &/or website. Mix style? I mostly enjoy stuff along the funky hiphop worldbeat side of the spectrum and my cohorts seem to enjoy it too (gets them dancing at least). The mixes at Cherryfunk and Captain's Crate are good examples. I've found good stuff at Monotape as well.

Thanks!

p.s. There's often parents & their young'uns about so I'd prefer mixes that sport little in the way of gratuitous swearing (e.g.).

p.p.s. I imagine someone may suggest online radio sites like Pandora or SomaFM, which are great, but I'm looking for stuff that doesn't rely on streaming.

Minor but annoying Firefox problem

N2O1138 — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:08:49 -0800

I'm using Firefox 3.5 (on Leopard). Whenever I re-open FF, it remembers my tabs as it should, but there's a catch. All of them will "load" forever without actually doing anything unless I go to the location bar of each and hit enter. Hitting "Reload all tabs" doesn't work, instead it makes them all go blank. Also, until I switch to another tab and back, the URL of the first tab doesn't even appear. At first I thought the Fast Dial extension was causing this, but I disabled it and still have the problem. However, the problem seems to go away when I disable TMP and enable Tab Kit (so it seems it's TMP-related). I would simply use Tab Kit, but there are a few things in TMP that "I just can't live without."

I also just switched from TMP's session restore to the Session Restore extension to fix another minor problem (which it did), but that didn't help this one.

Space-Age Bachleor Pa-aaaah Oh God No!

The Whelk — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:50:46 -0800

Music Mix Filter: Long story short, next week the model at my event is coming dressed as the Alien Queen from the ALIEN movies. I have no idea what kind of music to play for the background. The film scores seem obvious but who wants to listen to clanking and increasing strings for 3 hours? I can either go scary-horror-sci-fi or campy-alien-novelty songs. Ideally I could do both. What kind of weird space music recommendations do you have? Gotta have songs about alien invaders?

Vocal mix of Primal Scream's "Come Together"?

pompomtom — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:15:48 -0800

Where could I find the vocal mix of Primal Scream's "Come Together"? There is a mix of Primal Scream's Come Together, which includes (I believe) Bobby Gillespie singing a breathy vocal line which starts out "Kiss me, won't you won't you kiss me?". I believe this was released on the original 12", back in the day.

Can anybody tell me the name of the mix, and whether it was reissued on any compilations anywhere?

Songs describing major life events?

virtualcourtney — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:13:51 -0800

I hope someone will help me out. I'm working n a semi-biographical music mix for a friend of mine, but I'm having trouble coming up with a few songs for some big life events. For instance, what song best describes...
-Study abroad
-Your parents having marital problems
-Spending a year somewhere you don't like (after college)
-Heading off to grad school

I just can't seem to find the right songs!

How does one abstractly describe a mix?

jeffburdges — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:41:25 -0800

Is there a standard file format for abstractly describing audio or video mixes so that listeners have both the original audio files and the resulting remix and ideally can edit the remix directly? I'm interesting in moving large numbers of remixes over the internet between people who already have the underlying music. I'm also interested in automatic transformations of the mixes. So encoding & transferring each mix separately is not interesting.

I am most interested in open standards, but it's good to know if some closed standard rules currently.

Pixie Pop 'Plosion.

The Whelk — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:01:51 -0800

Manic Pixie Dream Music: Once again I must step outside my beloved genres to find music for an event that's all about Sparkles! Glitter! and Pixies! Need suggestions for happy, twinkly, fairy music. The more tooth-achingly pop-y the better. "The Magic Position" by Patric Wolf would be a good example. I'm pretty well versed in Glam Rock, but am a complete noob in the indie/current/pop/rock/whatever scene. Consider me 60 years behind the times.

Automatically generate mix from folder of mp3s

jcruelty — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:01:23 -0800

Is there a program/script that will automatically create a beatmatched mix a from a folder filled with techno mp3s? I have a bunch of techno tracks on my computer that I haven't listened to, and I was thinking it would be great to have some script or program that creates a 'preview mix' so I don't have to sit there fast-forwarding past the intro parts for each song.

There's this program 'musicmatch jukebox' that automatically beatmatches tunes into a mix, but you have to manually select each track, drop it in at the right place, configure the transitions, etc. Ditto with Reason. Anybody know how this could be done more automagically (i.e. computer picks the tracks and track order, either based on bpm or randomly or using some rule)

Music To Murder Mr. Bateman To

The Whelk — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:34:44 -0800

MusicFixFilter: In need of very specific punk and anti-punk songs from today or yesteryear. In particular need of "overthrow the system!" and "Cut your damn hair, hippie!" themes. Oh so much more inside. Ideally, I'm looking for punk or otherwise high-energy songs that implore people to "fight the power", overthrow systems, and such. I'd like to get past anything used in a car commercial (not out of snobbishness, but c'mon, do we really need to hear them again?) and songs a casual fan of the genre may not be familiar with."Suspect Device" by the Stuff Little Fingers would be a good example.

I *also* need songs that counter the first. Yelling down the uppity kids, swearing everything is just fine, and um ..the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends. "Hip To Be A Square" is, of course, the ideal example.

Thanks in advance.

unconventional a capella?

vaguelyweird — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:21:38 -0800

I'm looking for "a capella" but not the college barbershop type. Examples would be Bjork's Medulla and Camille's Le Fil. Doesn't necessarily have to be vocal-only, for example, Philip Glass' "Etoile Polaire" or even CocoRosie's "West Side" since the instrumental part is relatively minimal, and the vocal harmonies are the main focus.

Can be altered voice, such as Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek".

Preferably not too many western-classical/christian pieces unless they are just too awesome to exclude or they were not originally written for voice. Good examples here being Bobby McFerrin, or a vocal arrangement of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier.

Multi-cultural suggestions are welcome (solo carnatic etc.)

Feel free to push the boundaries of these requests if unbelievable vocal harmonies are involved.

Thanks!

Recipe for truly succulent, traditional Jewish brisket?

roxie110 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:01:41 -0800

How do you make truly tender, succulent Jewish-style brisket? I've had a craving for brisket-like-my-grandmother-used-to-make for about a year now. I finally got the meat and my mother's recipe and cooked it today. The taste is great and the thin end of the meat turned out close to what I was hoping for; the thick end is cooked through but not moist and falling apart like brisket in my world should be, and when I stick a fork in it gives a lot of resistance. I don't know if I over- or undercooked it. I should mention that my "dutch oven" (really a stockpot) was too narrow so I used a Calphalon deep covered 13" nonstick skillet instead--maybe a big mistake? I am such a brisket novice.

Below is a quick recap of how I cooked it. I've looked up a ton of recipes but each one is slightly different, and life's too short to try every one. My question is this: who has a foolproof (mostly) recipe for truly tender, traditional Jewish brisket!? And just as important, how do you know how long to cook it and when it's done? (Can you overcook a brisket, as long as there's still liquid in the pan?)

Recipe I used for half a first-cut brisket, about 3 pounds, fat trimmed:
Preheat oven to 350. Place thickly sliced onions, carrots, and a couple chopped garlic cloves in bottom of Dutch oven. Rub ketchup, ground pepper, paprika, and one envelope onion soup mix on all surfaces of brisket. Add liquid to 3/4 inches deep (I used 1.5 cans low-sodium beef broth; most of liquid was absorbed by the end of cooking). Place chunks of potato around meat. Cover tightly and roast for 2.5 hours. Baste two or three times during cooking. Remove from heat, cool meat, and slice across the grain.

Help! And thank you!

One tequila, two tequila...

rinosaur — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:46:46 -0800

I'm looking for your favorite tequila cocktails! I love tequila but I'm pretty sick of margaritas and tequila sunrises. Are there other simple, not so sweet alternatives? Ideally they'd be simple cocktails I can make at home OR order out. I'm thinking the tequila equivalent of a drink like a Seven and Seven would be perfect, but I have yet to come across anything like that.

Thank you Mefi!

So you're listening to what?

heavenstobetsy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:50:17 -0800

Mixtape Mission: What's your favourite song right now? I've been tasked with the job of putting together a mixtape consisting of "favourite songs". Which is to say that each song should be SOMEONE'S favourite. It does not matter whose favourite it is, so here I am. After polling my available friends, I have 10 songs. I need 10 more. Genre is unimportant and the mix will most likely be played in the background at a meet-up of 20-30 somethings. But may also end up residing in my car cd player. Help?

Thanks in advance, MeFi.

Maninara Mix Alternative

mattoxic — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:38:20 -0800

We have marinara mix that needs to be cooked now, but we don't want pasta. Any suggestions?

How do I become a DJ?

geoff. — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:38:58 -0800

How do I mix live music like Justice (or Diplo, or Ronson)? What equipment do I need to get started? How does one get into this? I have an extension collection and knowledge of music, along with a somewhat cursory understanding of how to DJ live sets. I have no professional aspirations, but I would like to take it as a serious hobby. I'm sort of stuck on how to get going. It is my understanding that DJs like Gillis / Girl Talk will take songs, cut them up in a program like Adobe Audition and then use a program like Ableton to control the tempo and pacing of the songs, but that most of the work is done beforehand creating the actual mash-up.

That part doesn't interest me, but I'd like to be able to do what Justice does in their live shows. The A Cross the Universe set uses the same source songs as their album, but they somehow manipulate the songs in real time to respond to the crowd. How they do this is completely lost to me. I understand how someone say, playing a piano, can alter the tempo or change keys or otherwise improvise a set, that's obvious, but how do DJs accomplish this?

It looks like I would need several components to get going on this, and have played around with Serato and Ableton, but it is not intuitive. Most of my collection is high quality MP3 and I have it nicely organized on a network share. Ideally I'd like to be able to access this directly instead of using a CDJ. It looks like the idea behind Serato is that I use their control vinyl with time codes on a regular turntable to manipulate the music. Is this all I need? A couple of turntables and it'll come to me?

I realize that this comes across as sort of "I heard a piano piece, what is a piano and how do I play Beethoven?" but I'm sort of stuck as what to do next. The only equipment I have now are several computers, and a nice stereo system. I'm also looking to spend no more than $2k, so if this is out of my price range that would nip this in the bud right now.

I need a Cheer-up mix, bad

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:08:23 -0800

Having absolutely the worst month. I need a "times ain't so bad" slash "cheer me up" mix. For professional reasons, I wanted to keep this question anonymous... So I was just informed after five years in my office that I'm losing my position due to 'restructuring'. My father was forced into retirement last month, and is trying to reboot his career entirely post-60, and lives in the rust belt. My brother had to go into the hospital on Thanksgiving Day where he found out he has a heart problem that will never go away, AND his insurance is claiming that they didn't actually cover him until December, so he's on the hook for the whole cost. And of course, the girl I was sort of seeing wants to just be friends, and I was just in a wedding where I was the only single member of the wedding party. I am having a really, really bad couple of weeks here.

I got the idea for a 'Times Ain't So Bad' mix to help my mood, but I've totally stalled, and that has only frustrated me further. I have considered the following tracks:

The Good Life - Kanye West (feat. T-Pain)
Everything's Gonna Be All Right - Bob Marley
(maybe) Happy/Sad - Pizzicato Five
(maybe) The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson
(maybe) Right Now - Van Halen

Can you help me out hive mind? I know it's a stupid little thing, but I really think it's the kind of thing that would do me a lot of good over the next few weeks. My friends and family have been incredibly supportive, but it's a lot of weight for one set of shoulders. Thanks, as always. AskMe is always the best.

Soundtrack to Strut To

heavenstobetsy — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:50:48 -0800

Give me your slow-motion-strutting song suggestions! Hiya, MeFi!

I have sort of a specfic song request. This weekend I saw My Best Friend's Girl, there is a scene just after Dane Cook decides to let out his inner asshole (best part of the whole movie). Basically he's sort of strutting down the aisle in a church, smoking a cigarette, lookin' evil. I've seen similar scenes in a couple other movies. In any case, my BFF LiquidKarma and I were musing as to what song we would do something similar to. Hopefully that makes sense!

So far our ideas include:

- NIN - Just Like You Imagined
- Portishead - Sour Times
- The Roots - Here I Come

Suggestions? Let me know if I need to clarify, but we're basically looking for any and all ideas.

MixCD for an LDR

PhoBWanKenobi — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:37:38 -0800

What songs should I put on a long distance relationship themed mixed cd? I know, I know. Asking what to put on a mix is like asking what to write in a love letter. But I've been wanting to put together a long-distance relationship themed CD for my SO for a while, and (after searching and searching through my mp3 collection) have only come up with five tracks. They are:

The Beatles - Got to Get You Into My Life
The Hollies - Pay You Back With Interest
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
Built to Spill - The Weather
The Mountain Goats - Sax Rohmer #1

I've eliminated some options because I've used them on mixes before (Rilo Kiley's My Slumbering Heart, Songs: Ohia's Lioness, various other Beatles songs). It's been a few years and I guess I'm terribly rusty at this. The relationship is established and steady (6 years), which eliminates many "you live far away but we've just met and I think you're cute" songs. As you can see, my tastes run toward 60s rock and indie rock. The internet isn't offering up anything but that "Delilah" song by Plain White T's. So, mefites, any other (better) suggestions?