This infuriated me and I would often end up buying imported CDs so I could get that all important 12” mix. The reason why I couldn’t get them on the UK releases wasn’t just because they only had 20 minutes to play with, but because record labels insisted on including inferior remixes in preference to the original full length version of the track in question. You’d pick up a CD single and find a Radio Edit plus two pointless remixes with no 12” club mix in sight.
I recall Multiply and Manifesto being the worst offenders for this. Sometime after the millennium this rule was relaxed and we began to see a lot of Maxi Singles featuring a plethora of remixes including the good old original extended mix. Recently though, things seems to have gone backwards again. When looking to buy a new dance release now, I find that most of the time there are two digital choices.
Choice 1: a short ‘original’ mix. Usually stupidly short (less than three minutes). Choice 2: ‘The Remixes’ . Four or five remixes of the track but, of course, they do not include an extended mix of the original.
Not only that, but these remixes are also less than three minutes a pop and therefore largely unsuitable for proper beat mixing. I don’t quite know where this has come from, but it really winds me up! More recently, I have noticed that some 12” mixes are still being produced, but for some ridiculous reason aren’t being made available commercially and instead hidden away on expensive ‘DJ only’ subscription services. For starters, I don’t want to pay a lot of money for 19 tracks I don’t want to get 1 that I do.
But, more importantly, it isn’t just DJs that enjoy a full extended mix, so why not make it available to buy for everyone? I’m an on-and-off fan of dance act Galantis. Sometimes they’re glorious, sometimes they’re awful. They seem to be one of the main culprits for this.
Up until a few years ago they were always producing an extended or ‘club’ mix, but they’ve since stopped. I was especially annoyed when in 2019 they released the rather marvellous Dolly Parton collaboration ‘Faith’ , but all they let us have was a 3:07 Edit and a collection of awful – and awfully short – remixes. So – what to do? If you’re not someone that mixes anyway, then you’ll probably see this as an irrelevant whinge.
But if you do still try to mix live as much as you can, depending on how creative you are and what you have at your disposal, then you can have a go at making your own 12” mixes. I personally had a crack at this with Corona’s ‘Rhythm Of The Night’ . I should point out here that I have never played the nasty, tacky little ‘Rapino Brothers’ version (that was used After what has felt like a lifetime of fussing over what system I wanted to replace my ageing Numark equipment with, I finally plumped for an exdemonstration Denon MCX8000.
Having sorted out a version of Engine that actually worked, I was off and running. I’m very happy with it and the main reason I chose it is because I wanted something simple and user-friendly that allows me to beat mix my music. Mixing is something I’ve always been passionate about – not just as a DJ, but as a listener and ex-clubber. I love hearing two records sandwiched together beautifully.
I really enjoy a long, drawn-out mix where you start to hear different elements joining in, bit by bit. Such was the creativeness of dance music in the past, one could instantly recognise what was gradually coming in. ‘Horny ‘98’ and ‘ Mysterious Times’ were two such tracks that I would enjoy hearing mixing in – ‘Horny’ with its ‘popping’ and ‘Mysterious Times’ with it distinctive ‘der der der der’ drum. Sometimes it seems though, that I am a bit of a dying breed when it comes to being into mixing and I’m not quite sure why.
I have, however, noticed two things and I’m not sure which is a result of which. Firstly, a lot of DJs don’t seem to mix anymore and, secondly, music – dance music especially – isn’t being released with mixable extended versions. Now, in true ‘chicken and egg’ style, I don’t know whether DJs aren’t bothering to mix anymore because new music rarely has mixable mixes, or producers aren’t producing mixable versions of their tracks because they know DJs aren’t bothering to mix anymore!
Still with me? I’m sure we’re all familiar with the concept of the 12” mix. It began in the late ‘70s, but it wasn’t until the ‘80s onwards that most dance records, at least, were produced with short and long mixes. Short for the single and radio play, long for the club DJs to mix them into their sets.
This, however, didn’t always go to plan and sometimes you would encounter an extremely extended mix, yet you still couldn’t really mix with it. I for one could never work out why the lead mix of Ultra Nate’s ‘Free’ , despite clocking in at over 12 minutes, didn’t have a mixable intro and outro. But on the whole, some sort of extended mix was always included, either on a vinyl 12” or compact disc. This worked well until the latter half of the 1990s when the powers that be decided that a dance single containing seven tracks looked bad value against some sort of indie-rock release with only two or three.
They felt that record buyers might go and buy ‘Run Away’ by Real McCoy and not Oasis ‘Live Forever’ for example. The industry has always been anti-dance and so, despite this assertion being absolute drivel, a rule was brought in whereby a single couldn’t last as the lead mix in the UK) and always play the proper, beefier and atmospheric original. Even though the UK had a double CD release, neither contained an original club mix, so I tracked down a French CD single.
As was so often the case with Italian dance in the ‘90s, the ‘12” Mix’ still didn’t have an intro or outro that one could mix, but they did have a ‘mix out’ point two thirds in. I used this stripped down middle section as my intro and outro and after a lot of mucking about in Mixmeister, I came away with a decent enough extended mix that I could use for live mixing. I’m not, however, prepared (nor able) to do this for every single track where the artist and/or record label can’t be bothered to make a 12” extended mix readily available.
Thankfully, someone is. Step forward Mastermix! I’ve always thought this to be a company staffed by genuine music fanatics and, as such, people who probably get just as annoyed about the lack of mixable music as I do. This sentiment is borne out by the DJ Beats Series, introduced in around 2012.
This monthly release featuring ‘extended’ versions of tracks that are created especially so they can be mixed live. They are only marginally extended though, as the basic premise is to tack on a mixable intro and outro to the original edit. Sometimes I don’t see the point of this, Livin’ Joy’ ‘Dreamer’ being a prime example. The full Original Mix isn’t that long anyway and already has the intros and outros, so I’m not sure why anyone needs a DJ Beats version.
They did once tell me that it’s because some DJs don’t like playing a full extended mix, which makes sense, although I do. Hence why, when I play the full ‘K-Klassic Mix’ of Bobby Brown’s ‘Two Can Play That Game’ , I often get revellers stop mid-dance when the freestyle rap section breaks out. Because this isn’t in the radio edit, nobody knows it and it completely throws them! When you think about it, there shouldn’t actually be a need for DJ Beats.
As Mastermix have proved with this series, any track - regardless of genre - has the potential to be released in a mixable format. But it’s especially criminal when it comes to dance music, a genre that was built on mixing. When most of the people producing dance music these days have been, or claim to be, working DJs, one would have thought they’d put a bit more thought into what DJs might want to do with their music when they’re playing it. Since there’s not a lot we can do to change the situation, let’s just be thankful Mastermix have taken a positive step.
Personally, I derive real joy from DJ Beats as it provides mixable versions of tracks where one has never been available before. Sometimes they get it wrong (‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’ as an example), most of the time they get it right. Sometimes they go a step further and get it bang on in a way I find tremendously exciting (a perfect example being ‘On A Ragga Tip’). It’s also tremendous fun to be able to beat mix genres like ‘80s rock, or reggae, when you perhaps wouldn’t have been able to before.
In an age where it feels like anyone who can put a playlist together on Spotify and amplify it can call themselves a DJ, it’s great to have such tracks at our disposal so we really can showcase our skills and create a unique experience. This is a great marketing tool for demonstrating to people why they should book an actual DJ. As I come towards a close, I think this is perhaps the message I want you to take away from this article: if you do mix, keep mixing; if you don’t, then try.
I’ve found it hard in recent times to keep going as a DJ, but mixing is one of the ways I’ve tried to keep myself relevant. My advice is to develop your own way of doing it, get creative with what you mix and make your sets unique to you. Make yourself different and, crucially, bookable. I should point out that this article really wasn’t a sponsored piece on behalf of Mastermix, it’s just that as a DJ I want the tools to do my job to the best of my abilities and they are simply providing the tools where others aren’t.
DJ Beats really does contain some incredibly exciting creations for those of us who like to play around with our tunes, and fills what I consider to be a vital gap in the music market. Now if they could just sort me out DJ Beats versions of ‘Set You Free’ and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ … SPEAKER. *3 year standard; 6 years with product registration. , LLC. All rights reserved. OSC and the QSC logo are registered trademarks of QSC, LLC in the U.S.
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