This deserves a longer post than this, because ultimately I’m going to have some hands on experience comparing Ableton Live Intro vs. Propellerhead Record+Reason, but I actually like how this came out enough that I want to share it.

The short version of the background here is that I’ve been a long time Reason owner, and I have Record as well. I’m pretty poor with both, and I’ve finally set aside a little bit of time to figure out how to use everything. I’ve decided to start by just figuring out mashups and remixes (creating original songs seems way too hard right now) while trying to learn the guitar. For Christmas, I got a copy of the book Audio Mashup Construction Kit by DJ Earworm. It’s a good book, and I’m really learning quite a bit just from the music theory chapter. The only issue is that the book uses Sony ACID as the tool it describes in detail. ACID is a Windows-only product, so I’m SOL. So, that’s how I ended up messing with Live & Record this weekend.

Here’s a clip (about 30 seconds or so) of the mashup tutorial from the first chapter, built by me using Record.

Nothing complicated, obviously. Just a beatmatched, slightly sliced mix of Dizzee Rascal’s Stand Up Tall (Instrumental) with the a cappella track of Tag Team’s Whoomp There It Is. This probably took about 2-3 hours or so to learn what to do, how to do it, and then tweak until the beats lined up.

Like I said, this deserves a longer post, because I’ve learned a few things worth sharing for novices like me. For example, mixing/matching tempos is very different in the two products. So far, Live seems a bit more natural to me, but I was able to get better results out of Record (probably because I’m more familiar with Propellerhead’s products. More eventually, once I’ve done something a bit more original.

Amazon’s MP3 Store’s Best of 2009 list is a really neat, diverse mix of albums from 2009. Pleasantly surprised. I bought a bunch of albums last night from the list. Among them was the latest Midival Punditz album, Hello, Hello. I checked YouTube for this track, which was on the 2009 Best Song list and found this really need live performance with the Punditz & Karsh Kale. I also have Karsh Kale’s Broken English album. Some great tracks on there.

There are also several other videos on YouTube from their set at the Paleo festival, where this video was shot. You’ll see them in the related videos section if you click through to YouTube.

I know, two songs from the same album back-to-back, but I like the album. It’s different than most of the stuff I listen to, for sure. It is, however, really good. This is a cheesy song (Lerche describes it as show tune-y in the video), but it’s fun and light. I like it.

I love the strings in this song. It reminds me of a lot of Bollywood songs when I was a kid.

I first heard Sondre Lerche on the Dan in Real Life soundtrack. It was a great soundtrack. This is off his new album, also titled Heartbeat Radio. Haven’t listened to the whole album yet.

You may recognize this from just about every iPhone app commercial. (actual song starts about 20 seconds into the video)

The rest of the album, Unfamiliar Faces, is pretty good. Check it out.

This month’s mix is mellower than most. Lots of the Kooks and two commercial songs: Doorway was used in the Palm Pre Facebook ad (Palm’s last/only non-f’d up Pre commercial) and Daylight is used in the Bacardi Rum ad (where the guy goes from room to room further back in time). Both songs are really good. Sway is another favorite, as is Shine On. Enjoy!

I was going through the tracks I got in one of the sampler albums that Amazon gives away for free and found this fascinating track that just stopped me in my tracks. The track is Mr. Gowrie from Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project. The album is a exploration of the music of speech, of cadence and tone. You can watch the video below where Spearin explains a bit of what he was doing.

This is a neat project. You can stream the tracks from the Happiness Project website where there’s an even longer and more interesting video explaining Spearin’s motivation for doing this. Gowrie is my favorite track on the album, though I’m re-streaming other tracks.

Love finding stuff like this.

Late again, so this mix is just a quick rundown of mostly new additions and infatuations. The Virgins album is clearly my favorite purchase this month. I’ve had a couple of different songs that I play every day either to or from work. You could do worse than giving it a try.

Here’s the full list:

There’s something just “right” about this remix. I started looking for this because of a tight mashup by DJ Earworm that features Whatever Lola Wants and Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado. Check that out. It’s actually a really good mix. In fact, most of DJ Earworm’s stuff is really good, with good production. He has a lot of his stuff available for free on his web site. Check out the United States of Pop if you do nothing else. I also blipped his Beyoncé/Tom Petty mashup. Some good stuff.

And, of course, if you don’t know Sarah Vaughan’s stuff, you’re missing out. One of the great jazz singers, her stuff is timeless. Amazon has a “best of” album of Vaughan’s stuff called Golden Hits – Sarah Vaughan. Recommended.

This made the Brea List in May, and I’ve been hooked on Metric since. I actually owned Combat Baby for a while, but I forgot about it (one of the pitfalls of my rather involved smart playlist system in iTunes). Anyway, Gimme Sympathy is a great song.

Update: I have no idea why the Amazon widget keeps screwing up the mix – this is the best I was able to get tonight, will look at it some more later.

May continues the spring feel. I almost forced myself to have a pair of songs per artist. I put in about 45 minutes when I realized that I was doing that.

I had this in the Feb/March Mix, from some free (or maybe not) compilation for this year’s SXSW. Good song, and the disco clothes really just work.

How many songs do you recognize? You can download the track for free from DJ Earworm’s site.

This month’s mix is split into two parts. The main mix for April is way more pop and light and fun. It’s been fun playing it with the windows down, sunroof open, during the awesome weather we’ve had recently.

This mix is really my Twitter mix, as the two key songs that I built the mix around were tweeted by @rvr and @cmarzi84. Those songs are Find a New Way by Young Love (thanks, Caty!) and Creeper by Islands (thanks, River!). It’s filled out by at least one soundtrack find, of course, and some oldies. I really like this mix a lot.

The alternative mix is what I’ve been working to when I need to just start cranking on code, or when the windows are up and it’s time for some, um, precision driving. Here’s that mix. As usual the full playlist in order is at the bottom (boy, am I glad I wrote that Applescript to generate that list!)

Main Mix:

Alternate Mix:

Enjoy!

(I missed February, so, uh, we’ll just count this mix for both months. )

This month’s mix is a pretty diverse set of music. As usual, there are a few items missing. Here’s the list as I have it in iTunes (songs Amazon doesn’t have are linked below in the notes column):

Enjoy!

When I see/hear/discover things like this video, there’s no doubt in my mind that remix culture has a lot to offer society. Watch this thing, listen to albums from artists like Girl Talk, and tell me there isn’t something of value here for society. We’re too far into a copyright driven culture these days. Wish we could pull back a bit to somewhere in the middle. Things like this video really ought to be permissible in a broadly legal way.

This is also a reminder for me to finally read Free Culture, which puts some legal brainpower behind these ideas.

The clip is explained a bit on its YouTube Page, or you can go to the creator’s site for this project, thru-you.com. It’s a great idea. He includes credits for all the clips used. Good stuff.

(found via @jasoncalacanis)

This month, I’ve been listening to a lot more punk/hardcore influences in large part because of Heidi’s road trip mix for our trip to Buffalo. Some good, older stuff in there that needed a few more plays. That led me to find Bella (MissBella on blip/wrapmeincold on Twitter) on Blip, which led me to discover AFI, Alkaline Trio, and Daniel Barassi/BRAT productions. One suggestion from Brea Grant plus some of my own finds round out the mix.

The first track was the result of trying to do some research on Rev. Lowery’s benediction during the Obama inauguration. The song has an interesting history, worth googling when you have time.

One track is missing below because Amazon doesn’t sell it. It’s The Hand That Gives You Up (BRAT Mashup), which you can download for free from the BRAT productions site. It slides in between Long Division and Say Aha in the mix.

As always, let me know what you think.

Love the bass line, and really love that the gunshots were taken out of the track. Really never liked the gunshots in the album version anyway.

(be sure to click the title to see the full widget)

I did the original December mix early because I thought I wouldn’t have time to do one later, but I’ve gotten enough new music during the month that I figure it was worth updating the mix with a few items. So, here’s the new list. As in the original, here are the missing songs:

1. Soko’s The Dandy Cowboys (played after Wine, Women, and Song) (not available in the U.S. iTunes store, either… weird).
2. Ethan Stoller’s BKAB (speechless mix), which you can listen to at his MySpace page and buy at his website. (after Goody Two Shoes)
3. Encore from Danger Mouse’s brilliant (unauthorized) Jay-Z/Beatles mashup, The Grey Album which you can get (for free!) at Illegal Art (last song)

Additions are a couple of tracks used in commercials, including an iPod commercial or two. I actually created ringtones for my iPhone from Around the Bend and Calabria, just looping sections without vocals.

I usually would wait until closer to the end of the month, but considering that I probably won’t be spending any more money on music for the rest of the month, and that things will undoubtedly get hectic around the holidays, here it is. (how’s that for a long sentence)

Influences this month are TV commercials (duh), Pitchfork, Brea Grant, and my own wanderings around the Intertubes.

Three songs are missing/unavailable at Amazon’s MP3 store.

1. Soko’s The Dandy Cowboys (after Wine, Women, and Song) (not available in the U.S. iTunes store, either… weird).
2. Ethan Stoller’s BKAB (speechless mix), which you can listen to at his MySpace page and buy at his website. (at #13 after Goody Two Shoes)
3. Encore from Danger Mouse’s brilliant (unauthorized) Jay-Z/Beatles mashup, The Grey Album which you can get at Illegal Art (last song)

Oh, and while you’re at Ethan Stoller’s MySpace page, you should check out Connecticut’s for F**king. It made me laugh. You can buy it on iTunes.

Yeah, I forgot to do October. Just got busy, skipped it. I had a couple of issues putting together this month’s mix. The order isn’t quite right, but it’s mostly there. The bigger issue is that the mix contains a few tracks that the Amazon MP3 store doesn’t have. They were:

• Dontcha Wish Your Seether Was a Freak Like Me (mashup by Party Ben)
• Step in the Club off of the Gangstagrass album
• Love Shack by the B-52s (yes, they didn’t have it!)

The versions in this mix also aren’t necessarily the recordings or mixes that I have on my CD, but hey, it’s close enough for government work.

Lots of 80s/90s music this month and a sharp transition about midway. Hope there’s something you like in the bunch:

Happy to hear any feedback (even if it’s “WTF do you listen to, Sujal???!”).

Finally, after way too freaking long, Buraka Som Sistema has released their latest album, Black Diamond. The song above, Sound of Kuduro is by far the best on the album, but there are some other nice gems on here. MIA is featured on several tracks, and the rhythm is just addicting. I cannot sit still when this is on.

Click on the image to download the album (as DRM free MP3s) from Amazon.

A few times a month, I put together a new CD to go in the car. I’m going to start putting one of those mixes up on FM each month.

This month is largely driven by suggestions from friends and random stuff I’m reading online, rather than commercials, soundtracks, or browsing top lists on iTunes or Amazon. Kerri’s radio show, Atrios’s open thread selections, Warren Ellis’s Twitter stream, and Brea Grant’s blog are key influences this month.

Hope there’s something you like in there, too.

One of my favorite afternoon cartoons ever, and I’m not afraid to admit that I watched this in high school and even college. The video above is “Yakko’s World” where Yakko goes through naming all the countries in the world. I had to post this after I heard it today when I had my iTunes on a full shuffle of the entire library. Yes, I own two (2!) Animaniacs albums. Still have the CDs, too.

Here’s Wakko doing all of the capitals in the United States:

I used to be able to sing both songs without missing a country or capital. I wonder if that makes me qualified to run for VP?

You can still get the Animaniacs Album with both songs at Amazon. You KNOW you want it.

Via Warren Ellis’s Blip.fm stream, I found this track by the Super Furry Animals called Rings Around the World. I recommend buying the physical CD if you want the whole album as the MP3’s are quite expensive for the whole set.

I discovered Michael Franti via Kerri’s radio show. The new album, All Rebel Rockers, just came out earlier this week and it’s a fun, solid listen. Reggae influences mixed with hip-hop and other genres give it a unique feel. Check it out.