Show HN: I love Essential Mixes. So I made this.

by kreutz • 14 years ago

125 110 14 years ago

kevinrpope2• 14 years ago

Looks like I'll be spending a lot of time on here...

First impression feedback: while quickly looking at a bunch of the Essential Mixes, many of them don't have the location where it took place. Personally, I've mentally sorted a lot of these by location && artist, so might find it hard to find something specific I'm looking for.

kreutz8• 14 years ago

Thanks for the feedback man! We are trying to keep it as complete and organized as possible. We tried to get the location of the majority of the ones that are live or recorded at clubs. If you find anything that is off please don't hesitate to let us know.

kevinrpope2• 14 years ago

No problem. Now that I've played around with it a little, a couple more points: - on the search results page the term 'essential mix' is set as a link, but when I click on it I'm taken to the entire collection of essential mixes - I'd expect the chosen essential mix to start playing. I see why you've done this, but I found it confusing as a first-time user. - I really like how clicking nearly anywhere on the search result starts playing the chosen mix

earwolf• 14 years ago

Blow me down - you have the best EM ever, props

http://mixture.fm/search/psychonauts

jordanbrown5• 14 years ago

We have them all! Thanks for the props.

jskopek• 14 years ago

For those who aren't aware, getting offered to play an essential mix is a huge honor in the electronic music world. Most of the mixes on this site are from artists giving it their very best.

Cracking good work! This looks incredibly polished for a side project; are you planning on building it up?

kreutz8• 14 years ago

Thanks for the kind words! Yes, we are planning on building it up. Just wanted to get it out and get some feedback.

Tossrock• 14 years ago

In case you don't know, the BBC is pretty happy to take down sites hosting their content. Be careful. I'm pretty sure Mixriot tried the same thing and got burned.

Feedback-wise, you might want to look into more flexible search for non-standard letters. Concrete example, "Tiesto" returns no results, but "Tiësto" returns seven. I have a feeling most people are not going to take the effort to find an umlauted e and will just assume you don't have any of his mixes.

anon8082• 14 years ago

I hope you're going with this where i think you're going with this.

This is way beyond essential mixes . . . I haven't come across one good dj mix sharing website out there.

Linking to already hosted content is 100% the way to go.

Please keep it going.

calebmpeterson2• 14 years ago

Thanks for this! I've been out of good EDM mixes for about 5 years now because I didn't know where to get them. Podcasts just aren't the same...

nerdyworm• 14 years ago

Wow I've been looking for some of the older sets for a while. Thanks!

p.s. shameless self promotion of my music site: http://trance-mixes.com

there• 14 years ago

Does this use Flash? I don't have it and clicking play does not play, but it also does not show any error.

kreutz8• 14 years ago

Yes, unfortunately it does use flash:( SoundManger should fallback to HTML5 though... I'll look into it.

labaraka• 14 years ago

This is fantastic. I love the EM's but I hate the BBC player so I am always trying to find the mixes on SoundCloud or the other shady download sites. Now they are all neatly packaged in one place.

Well done, dude!

skeletonjelly• 14 years ago

http://soundcloud.com/das-boy/sets/essential-mix

has a massive collection going back many years available in FLAC too.

guywithabike• 14 years ago

Doesn't seem to work for me. I just get the following error in the console:

    soundManager.createSound(): Audio support is not available.

;_;

Edit: Reloaded and it seems to be working now. YES.

decklin• 14 years ago

I'm still getting this error. OP, if it helps, I have click-to-play on for Flash.

nicholassmith• 14 years ago

Bookmarked, about to start furiously tweeting, this is excellent and kudos to you for doing it!

suhailpatel• 14 years ago

This looks and functions really well and you have a good selection of mixes.

For those like me who want to listen to a particular Essential Mix from 1993 till mid 2011, someone has uploaded 910 Essential Mix episodes into a Soundcloud Folder which can be found at http://soundcloud.com/das-boy/sets/essential-mix/. There are some real gems in here and it's pretty much a permanent tab for me.

Enjoy!

Inversechi2• 14 years ago

That is some impressive upload! Cheers for this!

joshka4• 14 years ago

Also, if you prefer to download them all as a torrent, check out http://themixingbowl.org/

medell• 14 years ago

Great share, thanks!

dcpdx3• 14 years ago

Had no clue this existed. Got some work to do this weekend now...

rdeshpande• 14 years ago

Really like the UI and am already a big fan. Well done.

Any chance you could integrate track listings (perhaps with the start/end times within the mix so you can identify the active song?)

kreutz8• 14 years ago

That's our vision! Turns out to be a pretty giant task though. Stay tuned:)

Fluxx2• 14 years ago

There was a Soundcloud account with a like every essential mix ever on it the other week, but shortly after it disappeared - I think due to licensing issues with BBC content outside of the UK. Did you look into that for your player?

aidos• 14 years ago

I'm still seeing it:

http://soundcloud.com/das-boy/sets/essential-mix

Fluxx2• 14 years ago

Oh weird. Less than 24 hours after I first saw it from Twitter, the account was no longer active. Nice to see it's back!

Inversechi2• 14 years ago

Thanks for putting this together... Looks good:) reminds me of console.fm.

Is there any way to skip through the selected mix?

bernatfp• 14 years ago

A huge thumbs up for this! May I suggest the Resident Advisor and XLR8R podcasts to be added too? Again: Thanks for creating this site.

kreutz8• 14 years ago

Thanks man! Those two are definitely in the works.

LeandroLovisolo• 14 years ago

I absolutely love this.

Couple of things:

- It would be nice to be able to skip to an arbitrary part of the mix.

- Sound didn't work for me until I reloaded the page.

kreutz8• 14 years ago

| It would be nice to be able to skip to an arbitrary part of the mix. This is in the works. Just wanted to get the bare minimum out the door.

| Sound didn't work for me until I reloaded the page. Looking into this right now.

Thanks for the feedback:)

dguaraglia• 14 years ago

Yep, skipping the - sometimes longish - intro talks would be a plus.

That said... awesome! Already sharing stuff on my Facebook :)

christoph• 14 years ago

I was going to leave the same feedback about skipping ;)

One other thing.. the pause || & |> is misaligned (Windows Chrome) in the circle (it sits a little bottom-left rather than central)

Other than that, great work :)

bcrescimanno5• 14 years ago

Right around the turn of the millenium, I downloaded a couple dozen Essential Mixes while I was on the GT campus. This just made my day--I really hope any legal issues can be avoided and this can stay online. :)

bcrescimanno5• 14 years ago

I really can't describe how much I'm enjoying going back and finding mixes from that era. Not only is the music great; but I feel like I just stepped into a time machine!

coda_6• 14 years ago

love that you posted here when you first saw it, then posted again after listening to a bunch that brought back memories... i did the exact same thing.

zennit• 14 years ago

love the site design, can I ask what you are using to build the front/backend? Love the colours and the gradient used in the background, how is this generated? Thanks

kreutz8• 14 years ago

Sure thing man! Frontend is all Backbone.js hooked up to a Rails API for the backend. We use MongoDB with Mongoid and LESS for CSS with the old bootstrap.less (which later became Twitter Bootstrap). As for the background I could of used a gradient but its just an image made with photoshop.

prmr• 14 years ago

Love it. Netsky's Essential Mix is amazing to listen to while programming: http://mixture.fm/search/netsky :)

peterwwillis• 14 years ago

Pandora plays the crap out of Netsky if you make a station of Ed Rush (and that's a good thing!). I actually like the occasional break in play from Pandora as it reminds me to get up and walk around a bit.

omarish• 14 years ago

Wow. Was about to go find the Nero Essential Mix and write a new feature, but this site takes care of the first part for me :). Great work!

AmericanOP3• 14 years ago

Nero's Essential Mix really impressed me when it first came out. The long instrumental around 1h:16m was really unique for one of these mixes, probably a more artistic flair than they would even inject in a live set. The dramatic bpm flux around 1h:28m is also a really experimental, unique climax which could only work near the end of a long two hour set like this one.

/ChristianBale

Eduard2• 14 years ago

How can I upload my own mixes?

nikatwork• 14 years ago

This appears to only contain mixes from BBC's radio 1 essential mix, and FACT magazine guest mixes. So you'll need to become a world-famous DJ/producer to get your own mix uploaded.

Eduard2• 14 years ago

Wow. This is very elite Web 1.0

gravitronic2• 14 years ago

Love it, and loving your selection I'm seeing in there.

You might like the "mix youtube music videos" website I made. You can load any youtube user's video playlists as "crates" and then mix from track to track:

http://burnsmod.com/fun/mixtube/mixtube.html

delackner• 14 years ago

That looks fun. Would be really useful if each list had a field to "cue" a youtube url that was not in the crate already. That way you can browse youtube in a separate tab to find a video, then cue it up and start the crossfade.

gravitronic2• 14 years ago

Good idea, thanks!

kreek• 14 years ago

Wow, looks (and sounds) great, listening to the Four Tet one as we speak :) It looks like all the sounds are hosted on SoundCloud, is this in your own pro+ account? I'm guessing this was the most economical way to host the files?

noinput• 14 years ago

You sir, are my new hero. Fantastic work. One added bonus here would be to include the track-list for each one. A simple contribution feature here I think would be a big hit so others can do the work to find them.

For example, a few results down on: http://track-list.com/page/2/?s=deadmau5 will give the track-list for item #3 in your list.

joshka4• 14 years ago

Or checkout http://www.mixesdb.com/db/index.php/Category:Essential_Mix for a bunch of CC licensed set list info

stevengg• 14 years ago

edit: this site is awesome here are some my favorite essential mixes you may have missed

mr scruff http://mxtr.fm/KBmUTW

Essential Mix with Audio Bullys http://mxtr.fm/IDmIIU

the goa mix ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_Mix ) http://mxtr.fm/K4Yian

some other good sites to download dj mixes are http://www.livesets.us/ and http://themixingbowl.org/ both great.

Robot_Overlord2• 14 years ago

love mr scruff thanks for the link

AmericanOP3• 14 years ago

Can't believe I'm seeing this here. Well done!

I highly recommend http://core.thomaslaupstad.com/

The owner has been diligently putting out downloads of Essential Mixes and other top UK radio shows of the genre as soon as they come out.

Cheers!

dsl• 14 years ago

I. Love. You.

joshka4• 14 years ago

For those wanting a torrent download instead, checkout http://themixingbowl.org/

joshka4• 14 years ago

Is the login with facebook button broken?

Robot_Overlord2• 14 years ago

worked on chrome for me

ironsuturtle• 14 years ago

Love this!!

radley• 14 years ago

sigh Essential mix sites pop up every year or so and get shut down pretty quickly.

The best one (~2010) used really simple code to store the files and my bud managed to auto-download the whole library, even after the site was "shut down".

AmericanOP3• 14 years ago

For people who are new to the genre, Essential Mixes are one of the best ways to get to really know EDM artists. While artists typically get popular through hit singles, in full sets artists make a lot of experimental tweaks and changes to make it a unique experience. In the same way that CD's killed the full-album experience, live sets are bringing that "full" artist experience back.

I've compiled a short list of well respected DJs in case you want to use this site to explore other big names in this type of music beyond the usual suspects (Deadmau5.) There are many, many more and this is just a sampling of different sounds from the most recent mixes only.

Above & Beyond, Kaskade, Nero, Cosmic Gate, Flux Pavilion (dubstep), Jamie XX

bcrescimanno5• 14 years ago

Those are definitely some good names today; but if you want a bit of a history lesson I'd check out Sasha in the late 90's and early 00's.

Also Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, John Digweed, and Carl Cox were all in their prime during those days.

dfischer• 14 years ago

Digweed and Carl Cox still tear it up. Specifically Carl, damn that guy is a legend.

dcpdx3• 14 years ago

Armin Van Buren. He's been around awhile and still cranks out bangers consistently.

calebmpeterson2• 14 years ago

So true - Paul Van Dyk was my gateway into the whole EDM genre.

After that it was Tiesto and Van Buuren.

Nu NRG is also good.

adriand• 14 years ago

If you dig that stuff, you should definitely check out what John 'OO' Fleming is putting out these days. His Essential Mixes are absolute quality, and he's also got a monthly podcast that you can get on iTunes that is very addictive.

maximilianburke• 14 years ago

Agreed. Sasha's February 27, 2000, Essential Mix is a classic. There are no fancy cuts back and forth, no ADHD mixing, it's just a fairly small number of well picked, well mixed tracks.

lyime• 14 years ago

This is awesome! You should add track lists and scrubbing without having to download the entire set.

Remind me of the days when I used to work on Mugasha. My main problem was that it was a pain for me to find good stuff to listen to while listening.

Check out bunch of old essential mixes on there. http://mugasha.com/essential-mix

So I built Mugasha and solved that problem. You can listen to a ton of essential mixes on there and other sets. Including track lists and scrubbing ahead.

What's really sad is that I don't work on Mugasha anymore and I have the exact same problem again.

- I cant easily listen to new DJ sets like I used to.

- I have to resort to listening to Itunes podcasts again and have NO idea what I am listening (track list problem)

- Maybe I can find a new owner for Mugasha so I don't have these problems anymore.

coda_6• 14 years ago

That's well done, hope you find a way to keep it alive.

mchristoff• 14 years ago

Rad! This is great.

GoofyGewber• 14 years ago

I love the design and layout!

waffle_ss2• 14 years ago

Very nice work! Essential Mixes are what really got me into trance music way back around Y2K (particularly Paul Oakenfold's... don't much care for his work nowadays though). So thanks for the trip down memory lane, and thanks to the BBC for creating the program.

giles2• 14 years ago

Oakies Essential Mix world tour? Absolutely incredible! Although I do agree his work nowadays is crap.

bcrescimanno5• 14 years ago

The one from Shanghai was just awesome! It was the first one I sought out on the site and listened to again.

waffle_ss2• 14 years ago

Yes, the world tour! My favorite one is Home @ Space in Ibiza[1].

[1] http://soundcloud.com/djmixes/paul-oakenfold-1999-07-25-esse...

ReedR95• 14 years ago

This is awesome.

One thing I'd like to request would be the ability to skip around the mixes. I was 45 minutes into the Above and Beyond Mix and I accidentally clicked on another mix, losing my place.

Otherwise, everything seems to work great!

fumar3• 14 years ago

Not bad. I wish someone would create the same, but instead use Fabric mixes. A more well rounded mix series. Nothing against Essential. I just prefer Fabric and Fabriclive stuff.

kreutz8• 14 years ago

Don't you worry. They're coming;)

fumar3• 14 years ago

Keep us posted. Keep up the good work.

ryankirkman• 14 years ago

This is the greatest revolution in music listening for me in my entire life. I love electronic music and when I'm coding I want my music to flow non-stop. You can't get that with individual tracks.

I can't thank you enough! Props to helping people discover Essential Mixes.

rogerjin• 14 years ago

Hey Eric, your site is awesome. I love how easy it is to play music. I had some thoughts from a UX perspective of things I didn't like about it.

Dislike: There’s no sign up, only a Login with Facebook button (which is annoying personally because I don’t like logging in with Facebook http://screencast.com/t/hsKqMkyuR.)

There’s a bunch of white space to the right hand side of the page (http://screencast.com/t/2swhK5EPb2i), which makes the page unsymmetrical and doesn’t feel right.

I don’t like how most of the things on the page don’t have any description beyond an icon. I know most frequent internet users can probably figure it out, but it still requires me to think for a second to make the associations (http://screencast.com/t/6E2ydk3kh) and some older users and perhaps not as savvy internet users may not understand it at all (albeit the site might not be aimed towards them.)

I know this site is for people who like Essential Mixes, but I have no idea what a collection, Essential Mix collection or FACT collection is. Adding a description could add an unnecessary element while removing a confusing aspect, so its up to you to make the choice. I think a description can be made (without hurting user experience) by adding a disposable box next to the collections briefly explaining what they are.

Some specific aspects of the design I don't like (misalignment, pixels off center, etc.): http://screencast.com/t/1Tg9Fo75xo3

Hope you don't take my thoughts negatively, just trying to help. Overall I like the site, its is simple and has no truly unnecessary elements, that’s good. Also, I like this touch http://screencast.com/t/oWFv5kkU2), adds to the user experience. And I like how easy it is to play songs (just click and it starts playing http://screencast.com/t/MwkkU8musZ).

joejohnson• 14 years ago

Ah, I wish you could scroll through them. I really want to hear the end of Nero's.

coda_6• 14 years ago

Yes, after starting a few that bring back some major memories, I really want to skip ahead and hear stuff from later. It's definitely possible with soundmanager2, which he's using (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/). Hope he adds that. Don't get me wrong, I love the site!

dgallagher• 14 years ago

Knife Party (formed by two Pendulum guys) released an amazing mix two weeks ago: http://knifeparty.com/news/ukf-live-stream

You'll like if you're into Skrillex, Kill the Noise, Nero, Zedd, Swedish House Mafia, etc...

zmj• 14 years ago

Maybe I'm missing something obvious - is there a volume control?

slyn• 14 years ago

Love the site, just wish I could have this at a different volume than Mumble/Skype.

djkz• 14 years ago

Any chance of adding some Solid Steel mixes to the collections?

coda_6• 14 years ago

Great work! Good use of soundmanager2 (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/) would love to see if it works on an iPad/iPhone and takes advantage of HTML5 audio capabilities. Please post of you've tried it with either.

coda_6• 14 years ago

dude, this is effing awesome, there's some classic mixes here that I thought I'd never hear again... thank you!

cjstewart88• 14 years ago

From someone that runs a music streaming app, I love this, good job keeping it simple man.

mvkel• 14 years ago

So you made... a splash screen?

I've been listening to EMs since 1999 - Oakey's world tour. Looking forward to whatever you're building.

jordanbrown5• 14 years ago

Splash screen? You might of hit it on mobile. Check it out on your desktop computer.

deepkut• 14 years ago

What hover effect is going on here? Might someone point to the pertinent CSS?

Is it just a glow effect?

brandonkm• 14 years ago

This is great! Immensely useful for browsing essential mixes.

Would be awesome to see more BBC radio shows added in the future.

orftz• 14 years ago

I'd like to see an About page on this.

executive• 14 years ago

it's 2012.. can we get some seek controls?

fagatini• 14 years ago

Pretty awesome. I love essential mixes too, so I suspect that I will be using this while I work.

pinchyfingers• 14 years ago

I just got home from seeing Steve Lawler and I saw this. Lawler's got mixes in the mixture.fm results: http://mixture.fm/search/lawler

jordanbrown5• 14 years ago

Looks like you have a long night ahead of you. ;)

fiznool• 14 years ago

Brilliant site. One suggestion - can you add a 'Random' or 'Shuffle' button?

Show HN: I love Essential Mixes. So I made this.

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