Do you make mix tapes? Talk about your techniques or the psychological process and effects.

-- Anonymous, September 30, 2000

Answers

Ahhh...mix tapes. The reason I have a tape deck, and not a CD player, in my car (well, and I can't afford a CD player either).

They are definitely tailored to suit my varied moods. Some are pure 80's (which for me means Midnight Star, Rick James & Teena Marie, Gap Band, Cameo...with some Culture Club & Human League thrown in too). Others are just slow jams, or maybe one side labeled "dancin" and the other side labeled "romancin", that kinda thang. I've got reggae mix tapes, classical mix tapes, blues mix tapes, jazz, hip hop, Seattle rock, and kids mix tapes. I buy a lot of compilation CD's and make many of my tapes from those. I have themes sometimes, like for when I break up with a guy or when I'm just meeting a guy, or for chillin' or for cleaning the house. Or whatever...

Technique? Hah. Pause & record buttons...I've got a boombox in the house and a Delco factory system in the car. One day I'll have a stereo...

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000

I mix all the time. I have full on heavy metal/rockumsockumrockanroll for driving all night on road trips and smooth Narada/Windhamhill new age music for just cruisin cool. Right now I am playing a mix of spanish-morracan-middle eastern flamenco music at work. I have vinyl from old and cd's from now and mix moods more than anything else. I've even got music to soothe the savage beast in my wife and make her melt. Oy! James

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000

I make running tapes that are a particular kind of beat or something I can sing to (I sing when I run..out loud and badly...which is why I run early in the morning,so no one can hear me). I usually go ahead and do the whole 45 minutes of tape, but when I'm running, I just listen to the same 5 songs over and over (rewind each day) until I wear through that little bit of tape.

When I make tapes I always do a "Fast" side (very perky, upbeat stuff) and a "Slow" side (songs I can fall asleep to). I don't like mixing fast and slow songs.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000

I first go through and pick out all the songs I'm in the mood to hear. Then I try to put them in an order that flows. I'll mix fast and slow, but I like the change to be gradual, not jarring.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000

I always make mix tapes. My favorite is a collection I call "Misc.", which I've been making and re-making since I was 14. It's mostly introspective music that I like to listen to when I'm writing or driving around at night. It's consistently had Duran's "Save a Prayer" and "The Chauffuer" and a-ha's "Hunting High and Low" and "Driftwood" since the beginning. Other long-running songs include Icehouse's "Angel Street" and "The Flame," Duran's "Palomino" and "Land," a-ha's "Out Of Blue Comes Green" and Depeche Mode's "Waiting for the Night." Recent editions are John Taylor's "Tell Me All You Know" and, from the new a-ha album, "The Sun Never Shown That Day." This "Misc." tape (and now CD) is seriously the soundtrack to my life, corny as that sounds.

Once we got the CD burner, though, my compilation habit got out of control. I put the "Misc." stuff on CD. I made a 4-volume Synth Pop series called "Dancing in Heaven With Tears Run Rings," a 3-volume series of 80s music called "When All I Did Was Watch MTV," and a couple more 80s era CDs titled "When I Discovered 91X [the local alternative radio station]."

I'm planning out "I'm Not Ashamed! A Teen Pop Oddysey" even as we speak....

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2000

Oh yeah. It's like housecleaning. Or rather it's what I do when I don't really want to clean the house but I need to. I start to make a tape. That way I get to drag out all the tapes and CDS, make a gigantic mess on the floor and maybe in between picking the next couple of songs I'll manage to pick up *around* the mix tape debris, or wash a dish or something. It's supposed to work as a distraction technique, but I think it just slows me down. The best part is when I'm done making the tape and I've pick up all the tapes and CDs and whatever I've used to make the swanky cover for this particular mix the house looks so..

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2000

Most of the mixing I've done has been for trading with friends or my brother, usually to enlighten one another to all the cool music we'd discovered since the last tape. I've seen my mix tapes completely take my friends in whole new directions musically, which is extremely gratifying - not so much that I changed them but that I was aware enough to pick something they'd never heard yet knew they would like and to see that actually come true.

Once a friend asked for some sax-based jazz from the 40s through the 60s, knowing my other brother is a jazz saxophonist. So I mixed up a "Sax Jazz Fast" side and a "Sax Jazz Slow" side, which he loved. Personally, I don't like the "all one speed" philosophy of mix tapes because either pace can become boring or monotonous. So I do the gradual change technique that Gwen mentioned, and I seem to have great luck with that.

A friend gave me a mix CD once and that really got me thinking, so now that I have my own CD burner I've got all kinds of ideas for new mixes. A mix tape I made for myself has got all kinds of positive and upbeat tunes on it, but some of them are from vinyl, so it will be hard to turn that into a CD. Maybe I'll just make an updated version...

-- Anonymous, October 02, 2000

I'm making Gwen a mix tape to give to her next weekend. I will cry if she hates it (or even if she doesn't love it more than life itself)!

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2000

Shriek! I can't wait, Jackie! And I'm sure I'll love it.

Okay, this is gonna sound so phony now, but I was thinking of making YOU a CD. But then I was like, "No...she won't like it. She already knows so much about all these bands that I've never heard of, and what if my taste is completely opposite hers..."

But now I'm gonna make you one, too!

Crap. I need to mail off the two CDs I already made.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2000

Gwen, I totally didn't make your tape. I got really scared that you would think it was crappy, and by the time I decided it wasn't the end of the world if you thought that, it was too late. So I'll make you one when I get home.

Soz!

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2000

I love making mix tapes. When I get a CD burner, I think I'll be unstoppable. *laugh* If I'm really inspired, I play around with graphics programs and make custom color cassette j-cards. I don't have much spare time, that's the only deterrent. When I do get around to making them, I put some effort into it and try to come up with some kind of theme or play off of in-jokes between me and the recipient-to-be. I get positive reviews and that gets me all inspired to make more. One person said "this was the nicest gift anyone has ever made me" because I'd found some songs that were hard to track down and put them on his tapes. It's fun and sometimes it's an easy way to make someone feel appreciated (IMHO).

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2000

Y'all, Jackie's in North America now and she can't hear us. So let's vote -- should I make her a CD anyway or WHIP HER WITH A FLYSWATTER? Or both?

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

Gwen, make her a CD, but only give it to her AFTER you swat her!

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

Oh, good plan! I hope she made it into the hemisphere okay.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

In high school, I made a tape every year for Christmas that I gave to all my friends as their Christmas present. It was always really well received, and I still have most of them. But I had no idea anyone else really dug them that much, until I got email from a guy who I hadn't heard from in years (and who isn't one to ever write or call anyone for any reason- the only reason we stay in touch is harassment on the part of the rest of us) saying he'd lost one of the tapes and wanted to know if I could make a new copy. I felt pretty cool.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2000

That must have been so gratifying.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2000