On Thu, 6 Jul 1995, Francois Dion wrote:
quoted 14 lines Just did my first radio show since i had stopped last year. It was lots of> Just did my first radio show since i had stopped last year. It was lots of
> fun, particularly the phone calls from people who were regular listeners
> of my friday night show... Anyway, now I only have 1 hour, compared to three
> hours, so 8 minutes songs do take up a lot of precious space on my playlist.
>
> Is it proper radio etiquette to mix long songs after 4 or 6 minutes? What
> would you prefer (supposing you were within range), full versions, almost
> full (when it starts to fade, mix the other on top of it), or clearly
> cut 25% or something like that (or more) of the playing time?
>
> I mean, i had stuff like pyrex (david kristian) clocking 6:45 and coltrane -
> fire mix (System 7) at 8:45 (from memory), and hmmm, silversub - fm remix
> (autechre), over 7 minutes etc... I almost played them all, mixing them
> as they would start fading or loosing momentum.
Well, personally, i've been doing a radio show for about 6 years now in
Guelph, ontario (93.3 fm cfru, 10-12 sunday nights). I've talked to both
listeners and musicians who tune in to my show and they prefer to hear
large tracks of music. Not to say that you can't play around with mixing
(especially ambient, which i tend to mix up a bit more) but for the more
idm type stuff i like to play the full song. People are usually
listening to hear full cuts to decide if they like it enough to buy or are
possibly listening on a more intellectual level (ie-sitting down at home
with the music on and relaxing or whatever). That is, radio gives people a
chance to focus on the musician as creating a piece of art rather than
paying heed to the mixing skills of the dj. In other words, i think
there's two kinds of djing. The first focuses more on building a vibe up
and getting a crowd of people moving-track selections are short and mixed
up by the dj as artist. The second in radio djing, which focuses on the
the people making the music and enlightens the listening audience to what
is interesting and current in todays electronic music scene. That's not
to make it sound like radio djing is boring! I find there's still lots of
latitude at the beginning and end of most songs to do a nice
beatmatch/mix/whatever to make the songs flow nicely-just let them play
most of the way through is what i'm saying.
carl