How The Album Was Created

1. Over the past six years, I have used iTunes to meticulously organize my music collection, tagging my favorites along the way

2. I had an urge to find the BPMs of all of my favorites so that I could try playing them at the same time and find songs that work together

3. To begin this project, I calculated the BPM of my favorite songs using the “Tap-to-Tempo” function in Pro Tools, and I kept track of everything using an Excel spreadsheet, often including the time codes of the best parts of the songs

4. Once I had my complete BPM list, I began using Pro Tools to cut loops from songs, and I would play the loops over-and-over while at the same time using iTunes to play songs within a similar BPM range

5. I collected data on whenever two songs sounded great together, and over time, I found many groups of songs that were within a very similar BPM range

6. I created a separate Pro Tools document for each group of songs within a limited BPM range

7. For each group, first I cut loops from the songs of approximately the same length, then I calculated an average BPM of all the songs in the group, and finally I “time-stretched” each of the loops to a length that matched the calculated average BPM, so I would have several loops of the exact same length

8. I would play all of the song loops at the same time, on a continuous loop, muting and un-muting individual songs, listening for what sounds good together, and again, taking notes

9. I arranged the loops together and mixed the levels the best I could in order to create a cohesive song for each file

10. I ordered the songs into an album and attempted to keep the volume consistent

11. I listened and remixed and listened and remixed

12. I tweaked the album by listening to it using varying formats, devices, speakers, and locations

13. I created high-quality mp3 versions using Pro Tools and uploaded the final products to this website for others to enjoy

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