You're asleep...

...and I'm at work. I make IVs at night and while I'm making IVs I've got one earbud in listening to the songs I'm hoping to mix. I picked up some new tracks and I'm excited to see if they mesh with some of the tracks I'm currently using. Again, progress is slow, I still haven't truly mastered beat matching and I certainly don't know my songs well enough to mix them decently. One of the hardest things I'm finding is trying to listen to a five to 10 minute song actively. By "active" I'm referring to listening to audio cues that let me know when the track is changing from a verse to a chorus to a breakdown to an outro. Knowing when each phase happens is key in creating a smooth seamless mix. At the moment I'm really most interested in beat matching intros and outros as this is the building block of mixing, but when I'm not at my decks I try to learn my songs, all their little nuances. Bars, phrases, cymbal crashes and most importantly timing when bringing in the new track. So hard, but I love the music so that makes it worthwhile.