Many people like to mix their own CD's using some of their favourtite songs, creating a similar feel to an actual set played in a club. DJ MuzikAL gives us some insite on how he mixed the Hip Hop Heros set.

"It has been well documented during the making of this album that HipHop is not my favourite genre of music. I've always been a lover of instrumental and only use tracks with words in my sets if they mean something. It's the way I like to tell a story with well meaning vocals along the way. Although I have a great passion for many forms of music, I have come to realise that passion comes in many guises, especially thru this kind of genre. HipHop expresses a lot. It's vocal content says a lot not often expressed elsewhere. Great stories are told, feelings are expressed, and if you can get past the sometimes hardened lyrics put down on this album, passions grow!

Overall this set took around 8 months to complete not just because I was still catching up on a backlog of personal chores (like getting some of my own sets cut to CD) emanating from the Fest, but because some of the music featured in this set was especially made for the album. Also because I had great difficulty finding the right ending to finish this set off in readiness for set 3, the house album."......Dj MuzikAL

Now people are always asking me how I mix this music and what do I do in preparation. Well firstly, I make sure I have two copies of everything. That's a must plus it saves on CD space. First I collate all the tunes I'm going to use, then I put them through Wave Lab where I trim them so they start at the push of a button (useful in cueing terms as it save times hunting for a start point). Then I normalise them so they are all the same sound level, after which I put 2 copies of each track onto CD. Now I'm ready to start putting them all together. As a precondition to all these albums and one main criteria I aimed to meet was getting practically every genre known to eJay down in one or more of these albums. In this album 4 genres are covered not just HipHop. There's Old School, R'n'B & Reggae as well and the first two tracks devote themselves to the latter category.

AYEF DEE'S "MY BABY HAS GONE" & BORIS'S "PRINCE BUSTER" sound exactly the same and I'm told it's because there's not much to offer in the way of Reggae samples. I was so convinced they were the same I almost accused one of the artists of copying another. However on careful and numerous listenings of each individual track, it was obvious that there were slight variations, the main one being that Boris's version was slightly more instrumental. Since I only had a handful of reggae submissions and none would fit together apart from these two, it seemed logical to use them. They did allow a longer mix also which was another reason.

Now bear in mind, like all these sets I am actually working around the snippets of the original Fest sets which I composed what seems now like ages ago now. So in point of fact, when it came to constructing this set, I actually began working with PARTNER IN RYME'S (now WHITE ROOTS) "IT'S ALL GOOD" followed by STEVE GILMORE'S "THE ONE" and so on.

So back then to the beginning and AYEF DEE'S "MY BABY HAS GONE" and BORIS'S "PRINCE BUSTER" Where possible I've tried to keep to the original tempo of most of the tracks and these two were no exception. "MY BABY HAS GONE" was slightly raised by about 2% (again my marker for the whole tempo of the set was governed by "IT'S ALL GOOD" until final adjustments when the set was completed), and the "PRINCE BUSTER" tempo was slightly dropped by around the same. Both as mentioned used very similar samples and typical Reggae rifts. Plus all four of the opening tracks feature male vocals that sounded very similar in pitch and tone. The actual fusion between the two starts about 10 secs from the end of this 6 min mix and is fairly subtle and very swift - almost what we call a Chop Mix (simply sliding the cross fader from one end to the other). "PRINCE BUSTER" is more of a dub with fewer vocals which is why I tagged this on. It also allows me to start changing from reggae to Old-School in the form of STEVE GILMORE'S "THE ONE" Here we can begin to see the hiphop element arrive and the male vocal continues. I've used almost all of this track totalling 5 ½ mins and it's slowed down slightly around 4% to 92bpm which gets raised to it's original 95bpm in the first few seconds. With the introduction of a good baseline this track was the perfect piece to mix in the aforementioned starting point when it came to putting this mix together. The first few bars are barley evident in the background as the actual mixing starts straight in with vocals which is the first chance of actual live rapping.

Made using HipHop eJay, ACID Pro 3.0, SoundForge 5.0, "IT'S ALL GOOD" was composed and sung by PAUL ENDERSON in less than a week. Described as Slo-mo HipHop Funk with laid-back vocals, the rapping here is excellent with the vocals coming from the man himself (with the help of one or two well chosen female samples). Set at 96bpm, this track is very melodic, utilising some neat piano rifts set to a good beat. Now as I've said, I'm not much of a hiphop fan, but after mixing these tunes together, I am converted. It's not your usual gangster rap! Paul sings (sorry, raps) about someone who wants to exude maximum energy whilst making it to the top and this is the definite message for this set and the other 2 that follow! JOOSMAN'S "SERIOUS ETHERIANISM" flows naturally from the previous track and was made mostly using eJay HipHop2 but with a few HH1 samples and a home-made sample of the man himself going "ahhhhh". Using Hendrix style guitar and scratch samples, JOOSMAN helps keep the hiphop vibe flowing and concocts a strange brew. Using again, both genres of vocal samples, this track helps between the gentle fusion of these two tracks.You do not hear that many guitars used in your average hiphop rock steady track, and JOOSMAN'S use of them here along with a good drum loop, shows what a grand job can be done. I reckon JOOSMAN'S good at keeping happy vibes together and this track proves it! As I said, both these tracks contain male and female vocals and so does the next, DJ JOE'S "WEST COAST BABY" described as a melodic rap tune but with plenty of bass, the scratching and piano themes provide continuity and these tracks prove that this genre does not have to rely on shock value in the lyrics to be good music. It's all nicely chilled and very clean. Using HH2 and taking 3 days to complete, and this was DJ JOE'S first attempt at HipHop.

One of the hardest jobs whilst developing these sets, was determining what genre the track fell into. While some were pretty obvious, others could have fallen into two or three different areas. My own track "SLOW 'N LOW" was one of these, as when I made it I couldn't decide where it belonged. It only contains one vocal sample at the beginning, 'sexy & tight' and it reminded me of my girlfriend at the time, which is who I made it for. (She was tight as well, I had to pay for everything!) This track is smoothed, grooved and chilled and was an easy mix to do, just a question of some beat matching during the last 16 bars of JOE's track before the main sample of my tune kicked in. "SLOW 'N' LOW" is a cross between chillout and hip-hop with some usage of deep bass, and blended with DJ JOES track and DREAMERS "FUNK THIS" is a nice track, very pleasant to the ears. This mix starts with the guitars returning along with a gentle breeze of funk. The backgound vibe is dark and moody, the deep bassline is still there, and the use of organ samples is very evident in the front. Gentle is still the watchword here and if you listen very carefully, at the 2min mark you can hear my gentle transfusion of speed change, most noticible within the bassline. What better people to have surround your sound! I've only used literally the first half of SLOW 'N' LOW as the second half kinda goes off on another theme and I wanted to continue in the nice laid back zone. If you wanna dance with your partner, now's the time to do it!

Halfway through this track comes the gentle implementation of 13yr old THE ANGEL PROJECT'S from Denmark "DON'T TURN BACK" Continuing the piano sample was an easy process before a very gentle guitar melody comes in that brings a bit of bounce to the proceedings. Again I've kept this to the original tempo and my feet are most certainly tapping. The hiphop vibe is definately here and as this track peaks and breaks, 20 secs from the end I bring in 15year old DJ CONWAY 2K (from Reading" with "LOVE YOU ANYMORE." Mainly female singing here but some male too, this track kinda slows in pace even though things are bubbling nicely at 102bpm but this serves the mix well prior to getting ejay's true rap artist into the arena. Before they come along though comes MAGNU'S "MARS FLOW." A conjunction of R&B, funk, trip hop & Indie style guitar, this took 6 months for Magnu to complete and he used HipHop 1 and some sample kits, the actual fusion lasts for about 50 secs starting with a nice piano sample and the even flow of male & female samples continues. This track has been raised in tempo but is hardly noticeable from the original because of it's laid back nature. 'I want the party' is the main message here and it's certainly something which I am trying to achieve. Not bad for a first attempt into this genre of music. As just stated, ejay's most recognised rap artist comes into play now in the form of VENOMOUS and this starts 1 of 3 tracks from the man himself. The next two are collaborations but IF I GET WRECKED is from his album Mind Rape which he shoved into my hand at the fest. Only fitting then that I should drag a track from it.

Now we all know that HipHop always seems to lend itself to either bad language, attitude or a combination of both. The next three tracks are no exception and is certainly something the eJay community comes to expect whenever VENOMOUS releases anything. Also there was the issue of swearing and whether I was going to include it in the mix. Well, since this IS a HipHop album, I decided to keep it in. For one it allowed me to produce at least one album where I could stick a "Warning! Contains explicit material" sticker on the front album cover and for another, I'm prone to a little controversalism myself. "IF I GET WRECKED" has all the elements you'd expect from HipHop which is why I guess VENOMOUS is THE main HipHop Hero within the eJay community. For this album Ven has also worked collaboratively with DJ MEZZER & SPY DJ to produce a couple of outstanding HipHop trax. First up is SPY DJ vs VEN "SO VENOMOUS." Using samples from the old HH2 nearly all of the track was manipulated and edited in Cool Edit Pro 2.0 and was one of the tracks that kinda held up production of HipHop Heroes for about a month. SPY DJ comes from Sweden and so the track had to travel several times between the two artists until completion. This is classic R n' B / Hip Hop with provocative lyrics and the wait was worth it. Again both these tracks melded perfectly. I did have to speed this up considerably to make the fit. 100bpm back down to 92bpm gradually over the first minute of play. The third and last VENOMOUS reworking comes with the aid of DJ MEZZER called "NO CONTEST." This track in it's pure form is slowwwww. I've had to speed it up by nearly 12% and it still sounds slow which is great because it allows me to get a peak level in with DJ MEZZERS 2nd helping called "RETURN TO SILENT HILL (LIVE)" This mix gave me a lift as strictly speaking it's not a hiphop track, not even an old-school one. You can hear the start of this mix exactly 1 min toward the end of "NO CONTEST" as the guitar sample comes in. Just as the guys are rapping about "Too Much Bass Drop Off" up goes the level, in come the banging drums and a crescendo is made. In total I used 7 original fest tracks and SLIPPY T'S "GET COOL (COS IT'S LIKE THAT)" is the last. 40 secs does this mix last for and I think the female samples DJ MEZZER used work perfectly. Both tracks again were sped up but by not so much from the original. Now at this point in production I had run out of tracks which I could use. I was still aiming to get the full 80mins in and even now only managed to achieve around 70 minutes. I also did not have the ending I was looking for and I do like to end my sets on a high note just as I do when I finish a gig. You gotta leave your audience wanting more right? That way they come back. But alas an ending I did not have. Although I still had tracks left over in the stockpiled list, none of them would fit the way the set stood. Hence the next track from myself which I had to make especially. I had to make one that fitted okay with "GET COOL (COS IT'S LIKE THAT)" but would also allow me to tag something else onto the end of it. "WHATCHA GONNA NEED" fitted both criteria and also allowed me to fill up some of that time gap I had. Since my original version was as slow and soft in temp as my other offering on the album "SLOW 'N' LOW" and "GET COOL (COS IT'S LIKE THAT)" was more of an upbeat scratching exercise I had to make up a 2 min intro. for my track The first minute is spent in the background of "GET COOL (COS IT'S LIKE THAT)" whilst the 2nd minute allows me to get from the scratching scenario to a more gentile one. Instead of going from a higher tempo to slow, I've had to reverse things going from -3.7% up to +6.1% which equates to 98bpm to 104bpm. The final two tracks were submitted after I was still not happy with the ending and had to canvass some more. SKEEDARWEED'S "RECIDIVISM" came as a result and is the only track I've had to slow down considerably. Right down I mean to -12.8% just to keep the flow - but it works well as the penultimate track. Made on Hiphop 4, Acid Pro 2 and Soundforge 4.5 using ejay samples, it took about 2 weeks to create. SKEEDARWEED describes it as chill out hiphop as he wanted to make a hiphop tune that had a classical edge to it, so he worked off the violin sample and took it from there. To me it's a kind of haunting track and allowed me a 2min 20 sec mix with the string section. A lot of quick start/stopping on the play button just looping the first 4 bars. "Hip The Rock, Hop The Trip" calls out and this was only one of two tracks that I actually had to slightly remix. A kind of blend between hiphop & Old School, 32yr old SKEEDARWEED blends in guitar drums, strings and piano. It's the drum section at the end that I've manipulated. Lots of echo, perhaps too much I think on reflection but since this is another of those dub tracks, and I'm aiming for a crescendo, it doesn't work to bad. Finally we have the last track then and this one actually turned out to be my favourite of them all. Produced by MZ ANGELICA who I think is a so-called 'Newbie' from the eJay community this is as near as you can get to hiphop/R'n'B. "ANOTHER NIGHT SETTING IT OFF" is a soft and gentle tune after all the excitement of the last 60mins or so. "Do You Wanna Love Me, Do You Wanna Go On To The Break Of Dawn" is my kinda message, especially as I'm now gearing up for that much more excitable house album. Made using a combination of Magix Kool Music Maker, Ejay Hip Hop and Ejay Street Style, oiginally this track took MZ ANGELICA only 3-4 hrs to complete over a year ago, but he uninstalled some time ago and had it on tape so he had to do the whole thing again. Someone listened to it and said that the intro. was to long so he decided to cut it. The along comes DJ MuzikAL and extends the original 3 1/2 min 5 ½. It's worth it though just to hear the keyboard samples. He writes "I loved the vocals and it married well together with the rap and with a cool soulful r&b sound, it all just feels in place for me". I have to agree. It's a beautiful tune and even though this track had to receive the fastest speed up at 14.4% down to +6%, to my mind this was the perfect ending for what I wanted to achieve. I always say leave the best to last and in my opinion that's what I've done here. Ooh La La.

So there you go. An incredible journey for me into the world of HipHop as I hope it is for you also. My thanks go out once again to all the artists who put their faith in me enough to allow their tracks to be used.

The CD is out now and can be purchased with PAYPAL or from the EJ2DJ website.

Tools used: 2 Gemini CD 240 Pro decks, Gemini PDM10 mixing desk, Ecler MAC 50 mixing desk and Wavelab 4 (used for normalizing the tracks used). This means the CD was recorded like a live set.

Respect

DJ MuzikAL

Footnote: Most of these tracks are created on software from Ejay. You can visit their site www.ejay.com. Ejay is a good entry level program (I used it in the early days of mixing). Some of the artists on this mix have a long background in the music industry and have worked with some big names. The Ejay fest that DJ MuzikAL talks about is held annually in England and features artists that use Ejay software.

There are many companies that create software like Ejay. Be sure to check out the software page to find links to other software manufacturers.

DJ Scott -e

© 2003 Any unauthorized copying or reproduction of this article or part of it without the permission of the author is prohibited.