My mix garden on the move again, hello peertube!

Digital Italics WebMix

I have been mixing away on the pacemaker device as usual. But noticed my mixgarden is having some troubles. I was using hyperaudio and webmonization to present my mixes. It was good however things changed over the last year.

Webmonization made a number of changes and hyperaudio seems to be slightly broken the configuration I currently have it in.

So with all this in mind and after looking at Peertube and Castopod, I decided to give peertube a try before running my own instance. Similar to what I had planned with Funkwhale a long time ago.

This has worked out well on rankett. Then I heard on podnews last week about music freediverse.

Music Freediverse is a new place for musicians to post their songs as an RSS feed, using PeerTube.

After a email with the sysadmin, about mixes and legality of them. They suggested I check out Split Kit if I have the metadata (which I do), this is something I looked into and now have a lightening address, which you can send sats to on my new mixgarden. I am also interested in the peer 2 peer tech

One of the good things about Peertube is the ability to sync videos over, which I took advantage of, it was a shame the metadata wasn’t copied over too but its fine, as I had it all.

In the short term I’ll keep using peertube but I have a plan to install a peertube instance myself and host it all locally. Then I could syndicate them out elsewhere. (Anyone can recommend a good docker container, do shout)

Another thing for the task list, but likely the best idea for now with lots of room to grow and expand.

Talking of which the next mix is a banger….

Adding activitypub or switching to peertube?

Mixcloud warning: You've reached your limit for published shows

In my latest mix the interdimensional transmission mix, I went to mixcloud to find, I’ve reached my limit for published shows. So been thinking about what mixcloud does do for me. Mainly distribution and a bit of charting.

On the distribution side, it seems like the fediverse could easily do a better job. Originally I would love to use funkwhale but from previous experience it doesn’t really support mixes well compared to single tunes. Which is why I setup my own webmixgarden.

Currently I’m using a static site generator (pubili) which is great because I could add webmonitisation. Although I’m wondering if I should switch to one which supports activitypub? However I feel there is a way which combines both and its likely another platform on the fediverse? I can’t be the only one who is putting out mixes right?

I tooted and had some suggestions. But decided to look at peertube to see if that could work. After finding a instance, which had rules which worked for what I was doing. I starter experimenting here but i’m waiting for my mix to be moderated (its a one man instance, so expect it might take some time). If things work out I might just install peertube on my server.

Update

My mix is now up on peertube via rankett.net, thats the big news.
However I wanted to talk through what happened.

William who runs the rankett instance of peertube messaged me via email asking about copyright details of the mix. This was a surprise because we are all use to faceless entities moderating via machine learning.  We had a little chat over email and I explained what I was doing and shared this blog post. Happy with the explanation, my mix was unblacklisted and its now available for all to play.

I’m currently looking at ways to add chapters markers to the mix, by slightly abusing the captions feature. I can’t really see another way to do it.

Another update

LPS messaged me on mastodon and pointing out a undocumented feature of peertube.

I can easily add time points in the description and with the correct formatting will automatically turn into jump points into the mix.

Adding jump points in peertube

We also talked about setting up peertube using yunohost, which I’m already using. So theres little excuse now for me to just set it up one day soon.

The interdimensional transmission mix

Communicating with space from the See Monster

Following the previous Pacemaker mix, I decided during a very long train journey to get the pacemaker out for some more trance. Using parts of the last few mixes, I decided to give the new mix some new direction.

The mix shifts along at a nice 136 bpm, complete with hands in the air moments and who couldn’t enjoy some stress test (hidden gem).

Enjoy!

You will notice there is no Mixcloud upload for this mix. Mainly because of the decisions of Mixcloud and being at my limit for a free account. Which means going to my mixgarden for future mixes.

  1. Escape – Markus Schulz
  2. Catch (Martin Roth remix) – Blank & Jones
  3. Stresstest (John Askew remix) – John O’Callaghan
  4. Tears (Protoculture remix) – Dakota
  5. Arjan – Angelica S
  6. Follow me (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended remix) – Jam & Spoon
  7. Talk to me (Orjan Nilsen trance mix) – John O’Callaghan and Timmy & Tommy
  8. Higher state – Kevin Crowley
  9. Shnorkel (Thankyou city remix) – Ido Ophir & Miki Litvak
  10. Running up the hill (Jerome Isma-ae bootleg mix) – Placebo
  11. Eternal Horizon – Alex M.O.R.P.H
  12. The Descent – Protoculture
  13. Grotesque – RAM & Alex M.O.R.P.H

I saw it coming, changes to Mixcloud

Mixing live in the EMFCamp null sector

Today there was a email from Mixcloud.com

Nico here, CEO and co-founder of Mixcloud. Today we’re announcing upcoming changes to Mixcloud:
From December 1st we’re introducing a maximum allowance of 10 published shows for creators on the basic tier.

Why is this happening?

We believe DJs and producers should be rewarded for the skill and creativity that goes into their work. That’s why for over 10 years we’ve subsidized hosting costs and built tools that enable creators to grow and earn money.

We also believe artists should be paid when their music is played. That’s why every show uploaded to Mixcloud is scanned by our content ID system. This enables us to identify the tunes being played and pay royalties to the artists who made them.

Unlike other platforms, we’ve spent years securing comprehensive licensing deals with the major and independent labels to ensure this money is paid to the right artists. We have shouldered these costs in order to create a fair music ecosystem.

Until now we’ve kept our basic tier uncapped. However, as we’ve grown our royalty and hosting costs have risen and we are not profitable. To continue running and improving Mixcloud we need to become more sustainable as a business, and Pro memberships help us cover our costs.

How will you be affected?

On 1st December all of your shows will remain published and available to listeners. But, if you want to make space for a new show, you will need to manually move shows into drafts until you are within the allowance or upgrade to Pro for unlimited published shows.

Fair point but I’m not totally convinced, as it wasn’t that long ago when rewind and track listing became not possible. It was clear to me that I needed to do something ahead of this all, hence why I setup my own webmix garden. I agree it would be great to pay the creators of the music, and using webmotization considered a way to do this.

Maybe this is where I part ways with Mixcloud? Its a shame but like all the people leaving Twitter due to Elon Musk. its just not suitable for me anymore.

I would still like to try that distributed payment pointer system and also explore the notion of distributed charts using DHTs, removing the need for huge amounts of centralised storage.

Follow me to the big trance sound of summer mix

Train tracks into the distance

During a recent holiday to Lisbon, I of course took my Pacemaker Device to create a brand new mix. This time, I went very trancey. Maybe it was the incredible sunshine, the fun of exploring Lisbon or just being in Europe again?

Whatever it was this mix is a much more pacey 135bpm and frankly kicks those tired legs with some force. I’d say this is a excellent mix and full of hands in the air moments. Its also full of new tracks alongside some old classics.

  1. Blood Angels (Chris Liebing mix) – John Starlight
  2. Catch (Martin Roth remix) – Blank & Jones
  3. Humming the lights – Armin Van Buuren & Gaia
  4. Venture (Nifra Extended remix) – Super8 & Tab
  5. Music is more than mathematics (Extended mix) – Protoculture
  6. Communication (Tomas Heredia remix) – Armin van Buuren
  7. Megalodon – MaRLo
  8. End transmission – ReDrive & Patrick Blanes
  9. Ecstasy – Eddie Makabi feat. Einat
  10. Wonder of Life (F&W remix) – Tukan
  11. Stresstest (John Askew remix) – John O’Callaghan
  12. Airtight (Extended mix) – Rafael Osmo
  13. We are one (Instrumental mix) – Dave202
  14. Arjan – Angelica S
  15. Valhalla (After future remix) – OneBeat
  16. Madagascar (Domi-Nation remix) – Art of Trance

Available in full on my webmix garden and mixcloud if you prefer…

The ravers ravenous retro revenge mix

The ravers ravenous retro revenge mix

With my thumb getting better, I’m doing more mixes again on the good old pacemaker device. This one was part of a much longer mix but the start was a bit crappy so cut it off and included the last 80%.

The ravers ravenous retro revenge came about after watching the Matrix Resurrections. There was lots of parts (seen it a few times now and still score it 8/10) but I found this line fascinating.

Morpheus: Nothing comforts anxiety like little nostalgia.

I have a lot to say about nostalgia but I decided to do a mix where it feels like the mix is being taken over by the rave. Does it work? I’ll leave it for you to decide. Maybe I should have called it R4 instead?

Listen to the Ravers ravenous retro revenge mix, on mixcloud and my own cloud.

Enjoy!

  1. Electric Sunrise – Mental Overdrive
  2. Air conditionné – Julian Jeweil
  3. Silence (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended remix) – D-Nox, Baya, Lenn V
  4. I want you (Forever) (Full on mix) – Carl Cox
  5. Opium (Quivver remix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  6. Open up – Leftfield
  7. Sleeper in metropolis (Club mix) – Anne Clark
  8. Rewind (Makkas remix) – Emma Hewitt
  9. Charly (Alley cat mix) – The Prodigy
  10. Feel the beat (JS16 dark mix) – Darude
  11. The storm – Interitus Dei
  12. Back to earth (Rave mix) – Yves Deruyter
  13. Unchainied – Diego Morrill
  14. The sky – Summerland

The endless ambient cold mix

Its been a long time since i put out a Pacemaker mix. Main reasons being in August I damaged my thumb playing Volleyball. When using the Pacemaker device, I use the thumb to grip the device which was painful. I tried using my left hand but its kinda made for a right handed person (due to the positioning of buttons etc). As that took months to heal (its still not 100%) I also came down with a cold which turned into the flu. Luckily it was pre-omicron covid19 variant and I was testing all the way through the month long (as some people have called it) the mother of all colds.

With all this, I was able to pump out a mix while lying in bed one night. My friend Jasmine suggested it should be called “the sick mix.” So taking that notion, I present a more ambient slowed down mix from my usual mixes.

The endless ambient cold mix, on mixcloud and my own cloud.

Enjoy!

  1. Dark star – Delerium
  2. Troy (Push remix) – Sinead O’Connor
  3. A break in the clouds (Main mix) – Holden
  4. Soloris – Andro
  5. Flashback – Laurent Garnier
  6. Subrasumstimulation (Johnson mix) – Oliver Lieb
  7. Running up the hill (Jerome isma-ae bootleg mix) – Placebo
  8. The Storm – Intertus Dei
  9. Rheinkraft – Oliver Klien
  10. Grasshopper (Dance version) – Sander Van Doorn
  11. Raw Cut – Laurent Garnier
  12. Follow me (Roger shah extended deeper translation remix) – Jam Spoon
  13. Anomaly (CJ Art’s underwater tales remix) – Gordey Tsukanov
  14. Dead Cities – Future sound of London

I was always scared of tresor mix

Tresor I had the absolute joy to see Laurent Garnier at the Manchester International festival recently (July 2021). During his video there was lots of references to different things in his career including Manchester and also Berlin. There was a distinct moment when I turned to my sister and whispered, I have been to many clubs in Berlin during the first 15 years of the fall of the Berlin wall, but Tresor scared me and I never went because of the fear. I had heard too many stories of this hard techno/gabba club and the crazy things which could happen in the darkness of the disused bank vaults. Do I regret not going? A bit, but it was genuinely a little scary especially with me not speaking German. Maybe this is why Victoria resonated with me. Its certainly a stronger almost techno mix with no let up in pace and heavy beats. Look out for the Acid Trax! Its a classic killer! Imagine dancing in a vault in the dark to the raw sounds of the TB 303!

Enjoy the mix, which is another entry in the locked down, mixing out album of mixes. Also linked on my DJ blog.

  1. Acid drops – Meanwhile, back in communist Russia
  2. M.I.L.F – Laurent Garnier
  3. Trick – Carlo Ruetz
  4. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  5. Beat (Da Boxx) – Laurent Garnier
  6. Energy Flash – Joey Beltram
  7. Acid Trax (album version) – Phuture
  8. System hack – Carlo Ruetz
  9. Intruder – Armin van Buuren vs M.I.K.E
  10. Shnorkel – Miki Latvak & Ido Ophir
  11. Pǝsnɟuoɔ (Confused) – Laurent Garnier
  12. Rheinkraft – Oliver Klein
  13. Subrasumstimulation (Johnson mix) – Oliver Lieb
  14. Interstate Emperors – Jeffed

Wednesday 18th August

Its been a while but getting some good responses to this mix.

57th in the global tech trance charts

Life and joy in metropolis mix

Manchester City stadium with Lasers
Nice of Manchester City stadium to put on a light display for my latest mix

A mix with pace and some great old and new tunes. Its short and sweet but packs a punch. Recorded as the UK opens up after its third lockdown. The cases have dropped and the vaccination is going strong. You can get a real sense of the joy in peoples faces and living in the city is once again a great place to be, no matter what Anne Clark says.

Enjoy the mix, which is another entry in the locked down, mixing out album of mixes. You can also now listen to it at its original high quality and advert free on my personal mix site.

  1. Sleeper in Metropolis (Club mix) – Anne Clark
  2. Untenthered (Jerome Isma-Ae remix) – Alastor & RUE
  3. Love Stimulation (PvD Love club mix) – Humate
  4. The Descent – Protoculture
  5. Silence (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended remix) – D-Nox and Baya featuring Lenn V
  6. Groteseque – RAM & Alex M.O.R.P.H
  7. Go (Extended mix) – Protoculure
  8. Shnorkel – Miki Litvak & Ido Ophir
  9. Wrist block (Joey Beltram remix) – Side Four
  10. Labyrinth (Paul Keyen remix) – Lee Cassells
  11. 1998 (Gouryella remix) – Binary Finary
  12. Freedom (Extended remix) – ARTY v Muvy

My own mixcloud, finally?

Mixing live in Skopje

I have been for a long time looking for an alternative to mixcloud. I have tried many things including some self hosted solutions like navidrome, subsonic, madsonic, airsonic and ampache. They have all been good except they are best for private sharing. I really wanted to use funkwhale but it was so geared up for single tracks it just didn’t make sense to run a node with my own mixes on it. There is so much I could suggest for  making these software/services better for DJs rather than musicians. A DJ version of funkwhale could be pretty cool, especially seeing the amount of DJs using Youtube and paying for Mixcloud premium to mix live during the pandemic. Heck you could even use web-monetization too (just done).

So with all this and finally thought I have the bandwidth and the storage, I just need a site and some simple software which can share the music files. So I decided to actually setup WordPress with it looking at the local file system (which I can easily have tons of storage). I was going to explore the static file generators again but decided to get something going.

Over the last few days between helping someone out with Linux and cryptocurrencies, I setup WordPress on my RaspberryPi 4 using Yunohost again. As its pretty much static, I think it makes sense.

So here is my own mixcloud site, which I’m still populating, but the latest mixes from my locked down, mixing out album are up complete with artwork. Expect to see more changes over time including a better audio player, more mixes and more everything.

Its not exactly a mixcloud replacement to be fair and my plans to use the .cue files and make better use of playlists, is put on hold for now. I’m sure there is audio plugin which will make use of them. Love to have UPnP and Subsonic apis access from wordpress, but I dream?

Do enjoy and let me know what you think could be improved.

Little update

Following my point about making it work for DJs and mixes. One of my biggest bug bears is playlists. I have been through many of the wordpress plugins for audio playback and I can’t find one which allows me to specify points in a long mix, when different music is played. Its simply a tracklist but all of the ones I have seen and tried are focused on single tracks. Meaning slicing the mix into pieces instead of marking out areas. None of them seemed to support CUE files or things like Ogg vorbis chapters. If there is one I should be looking at, do send it my way because it seems like such a simple thing to do, but I guess theres not enough interest to make it?

Another update

I have retired the old Mix site and replaced it with a new better one.
Learn more about the changes and WebMix.

Digital Italics WebMix

Weather is strange mix

Rain storm over east manchester

What a pacemaker mix, quite mix of tunes from previous mixes with some new ones. All with a changeable pace throughout.

I do love this one which was done during a period during April in Manchester with snow, rain and hot sun over a period of days. Weather is strange just like the choppy nature of this mix.

Listen to it on my personal cloud or mixcloud here and enjoy!

  1. Sunset (Bird of prey) – Fatboy Slim
  2. Go (Extended mix) – Protoculture
  3. Running up the hill (Jermone isma-ae bootleg mix) – Placebo
  4. Prosac – Tomcraft
  5. Wrist block (Joey Beltram remix) – Side four
  6. Wilde (Extended mix) – Jermone isma-ae & Alastor
  7. Follow me (Jermone isma-ae extended remix) – Jam Spoon
  8. Ecstasy – Eddie Makrabi featuring Einat
  9. Outlaw (Extended mix) – Fatum
  10. Sequence (Extended mix) – Estiva
  11. Tears (Protoculture remix) – Dakota
  12. Alastor & Rue (Jerome Isma-Ae untethered remix) – Progressive Astronaut
  13. Sunrise – Marninx pres Ecco
  14. Tomahawk (Extended mix) – Maarten de Jong
  15. The pride in your eyes (Martin Roth remix) – Tillmann Uhrmacher

Kubricks systematic percussive sequence mix

Kubricks systematic percussive sequence mix
Photo credit by @dizzyd718 – Drew Graham on unsplash.com

I have been loving a bunch of tech/progressive trance and decided its time for a nice mix using some of the tunes. I know there is some disagreement about the term, which I guess is closer to the techno category. Especially the tunes by Carlo Ruetz.

Either way its a good mix breaking into some classic trance by the end. The title of the mix is parts of the playlist, and the start is a long lost tune found after listening to one of the very first live mixes I did in Manchester. Roots is a killer start to a mix and sets the vibe perfectly. Reminds me how much I like Tomcraft actually.

Mixcloud restrictions

Hosted again on Mixcloud but unlike the last one, hopefully it won’t fall foul of the mixcloud rules over using the same artist too many times. (note to say I have got a new self-hosted platform but anonymous web access isn’t ideal)

Enjoy the mix and here is the complete playlist.

  1. Roots – Tomcraft
  2. Trick – Carlo Ruetz
  3. Percussive thinking (Meat Katie & Elite force remix) – Frome
  4. Kubrick (Extended mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae
  5. Rheninkraft – Oliver Klien
  6. System hack – Carlo Ruetz
  7. Running up the hill (Jerome Isma-Ae bootleg) – Placebo
  8. Opium (Stan Kolev remix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  9. Sequence (Extended mix) – Estiva
  10. Floyd (Extended mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  11. Outlaw (Extended mix) – Fatum
  12. Tears (Protoculture remix) – Dakota

Update: Feb 28th 2021

Kubricks systematic percussive sequence is now 95th in the global Tech Trance chart
As I thought, without the Mixcloud restrictions mentioned above, this mix has made it to the 95th place in the Tech trance chart.
Very tempted to see what happens if I rename the playlist for Pattersons pandemic run.

Replacing Mixcloud with Funkwhale

Funkwhale mixes

For a long while I have been threatening to leave Mixcloud in favour of hosting my own mixes. I looked around and thought funkwhale looks great as its a federated network for music. With some help from JonT, I started to scrape the metadata I stupidly forgot to keep for myself.

I installed Funkwhale on the Yunoserver but spent too much time trying to work out how to mount my NAS on the Yunoserver. I gave Navidrome but  decided it wasn’t right as there was no way to listen without logging in, so went back to Funkwhale and got things up and running.

Seems Funkwhale might not be the best solution for the mixes, plus the developer is looking for new maintainers recently. Its really setup for single tracks not mixes. I could upload mixes but my plan to use cue files, won’t work. The only place to put playlists is in the comments. I also need to do more digging as I can’t change the year of the mixes. More importantly, the public sharing is a bit broken for me. You should be able to listen to the radio but its not working for me

Funkwhale profile

As I get my head around it all but you can subscribe via RSS and if you’re using Mastodon or other fediverse applications, you can subscribe to this account: @digitalitalicmixes@mixes.cubicgarden.info.

Enjoy, I’m one step closer to self hosting my mixes.

Its been a while… the mayday rave up in your flat live mix

 

Its been a while since I uploaded a mix to mixcloud. I have plans to self host my own mixes using funkwhale or airsonic. But its not quite happened yet. So in the meanwhile I have done a few mixes and I’ll do the posse thing and upload it to mixcloud with a smaller amount of metadata.

Of course I’ll be keep a copy of my metadata for when I get my own system up and running. In the meanwhile the mixes will form not travels with pacemaker but locked in mixing out.

I present the mayday rave up in your flat live mix. Recorded live while mixing live on R&Dio the other day. The volume levels were a bit high sorry but its not horribly distorted

Here’s the tracklist… (at about 133bpm) as always enjoy!

  1. Gouryella (fall from heaven remix) – Gouryella
  2. The Desert – protoculture
  3. Arise – victor ruiz & d nox
  4. Switch (oliver klien & peter jurgens remix) – beckers
  5. Special K (timo maas remix) – Placebo
  6. Prosac (original mix) – Tomcraft
  7. Floyd (extended remix) – Jerome isma-ae & alastor
  8. Soundbar (extended mix) – Giuseppe Ottaviani
  9. Cuckoo – Jon Mangan
  10. Breathe (Blake Jarrell remix) – Anna nalick
  11. Cut and run feat Emma lock – Beat Service
  12. Freedom (extended mix) – Arty vs Muvy
  13. Tears (protoculture remix) – Dakota
  14. Megalodon – MaRLo
  15. Grotesque – RAM & Alex M.O.R.P.H
  16. The Legacy 2.0 (alphazone remix – Funabashi pres Saltwater
  17. Anahera (extended mix) – Ferry Corsten pres Gouryella
  18. Echoes (extended mix) – Henrik B, Niklas Gustavsson, Peter Johansson
  19. Higher State of Conscientiousness – Josh wink

.