I wouldn't quite say ours take months to plan, but it can span across a full week and sometimes into the next before our mixes are ready and there usually is a lot to think about. Everyone's different though. With our Dub Cutz mixes, we try and plan it as a journey now and progressively change it as it goes starting with synthy liquid stuff, slowly getting heavier and usually darker before lifting the mix into a more smooth deeper liquid feel. I sometimes like to finish on a specific track that differs from the rest of the mix too, like in our current mix, we finish off with a relaxed dubstep track, but because of the speed the last DnB track begins to slow down until it becomes mixable and it actually manages to work well.
As we do these regularly, we're always trying to look for new music and plan them out splitting them in different bands of styles so we know roughly where abouts in the mix they are going to get played. Once we have a set of tracks, we'll just play around with them aiming to practice the mix to see which ones work best with one another and then will note down mixes that work particularly well with one another. I'll try and write out an order as I go along then eventually we'll have the list written out fully. So from here it's a case of then aiming to record the set live in a single take. I have it all record into a portable soundcard into a laptop I have and run it through to the end, then once it's done we'll export that as a full quality wav and bring it into the main studio computer where I'll start to even out a few bits volume wise to tighten it up a little.
Next we tend to work on dropping voice overs that run throughout the mix and sometimes bring someone to the studio just to get them recorded, always trying to get fresh new things to drop over and keep it more personalised as an OP mix. The intro's have a standard radio style soundclip, but before it starts, we always try and find a new voice that we can fit in there to make it unique and keep people wondering what we're gonna use next. Sometimes we'll end on something as well.
Once the whole mix is balanced and voices have all been applied, we'll drop on a light limiter but try not to go overboard. In Cubase you can also watch the waveform change shape as you manipulate the volume, and so we can get an idea when it's even. Of course this is better off being made as tight as possible from the mixing itself, but we tend to fall foul of increasing the output when really getting into the mix.
After this, it's all about getting the artwork updated and we use a formulaic piece of artwork which can quickly and easily be changed just by altering the number and colour of the layout. It also keep the series uniform. A program can be used to attach artwork directly to the mix so that people see it when they grab and play them, especially looks cool on a phone. My cousin had a phone which would automatically change the colour of the whole player layout to match the most common colour in the artwork displayed.
Finally it gets uploaded and then all the tracks are written out properly along with a short writeup which then ends up on Soundcloud and promoted. This whole process from start to finish has taken around 2 weeks at the most, but I try and get it done in a week. If you include getting music though to the point where it has already been promoted, it can easily take more than a week. This is all dependent on how much time we have to spend though obviously. I usually try and drop the mixes on SC on a Friday evening, as the weekend is a good time to drop a mix and gain activity.
Oh and we tend to stick to about 74 mins on average as that's around the time limit for a typical CD, it will also tend to contain around 21 or 22 tracks.
