Opinions Please on Disco Megamixes (Mixers)

[Old Disco DeeJay]

Ever since Bits & Pieces and the early Big Apple/Manhattan 12" Megamixes appeared in the late 70's/early 80's (when they were originally known as 'Mixers'), I've been a bit of a collector of such items and there are now hundreds available for download on the net (mostly youtube).

Depending on my mood, I sometimes quite enjoy listening to a mix of short 20 second clips, with special mixing effects..... On other days, I prefer listening to the full length original 12" version.

I was just wondering if I'm alone in this, or is it sacrilege to butcher the originals.

What do you guys/gals think?

I've given a link to an example below and I'd rather this thread didn't get into an argument about how good or bad the mixing techniques on this example are, purely an opinion on the concept.

Any other examples of mixers good or bad, are welcome.

Jim (O.D.D.)

YouTube - Mixcoast Edit Disco Funk Megamix

[djdanpooch]

From bits & pieces onward, i never played any of them. I found them to be enjoyable to listen to based on the talent of the editor/mixer. But i would never play them for my crowd. I had always found that to be cheating. I realize you cannot do the edit type mixes that you would hear on them live. But if you are going to play to your crowd, then you should exert your own talent remixing and creating effects.
Just my opinion, i could be wrong.

[Old Disco DeeJay]

Thanks Pooch,

I never played them in Clubs either, other than Bits & Pieces 3, which was very popular (and original) at the time.

Though I do have to admit to frequently messing around at the beginning of the night and making up a few of my own mixes on cassette tapes, which I sold (or gave away, depending on whether you were female and attractive). :icon_twisted: I threw out my own copies of my old cassettes many years ago, but keep hoping that I'll come across one of them on ebay, so that I can see how good/bad my mixing skills were 30 years ago. :icon_lol:

My interest is more of a personal thing. I have a folder on my IPod containing hundreds of these types of Mixers and I was wondering if anyone else on this site liked them, hated them, or just had general opinions.

PS. Don't worry, I would never play any of them in 'Club Pooch' on the 'Dare To Mix' thread.
PPS. Do I get payment for plugging your thread? LMAO

[kdavid13]

I'm always frustrated whenever I hear a short version of a song I love so a 30 seconds sample in a megamix only serves as a reminder. I usually go back and play the extended version. I love breaks and the more the better so whenever they cut to the chase and go straight into the chorus - I feel cheated.

Of course there are exceptions and just this afternoon I was listening to the WEST END 7th anniversary medleys (Side A & B) done by Tony Humphries back in 1982.

[Videoskooter]

But if you are going to play to your crowd, then you should exert your own talent remixing and creating effects.
Just my opinion, i could be wrong.

No, Dan, I agree 100%, if you do a live set you can NOT include such mixes, that's cheating on the public.

I did like 'em BITD, they were usually "secretly" sold in our record shop as a lot of 'em were bootleg mixes. I do like the Hot Plate series too, the official Canadian HI-NRG mixes.

And I specially cherish this one: http://www.discomusic.com/forums/onl...er-1980-a.html

[djdanpooch]

Jim (ODD) - You are plugging OUR thread! :icon_cool:

kdavid13 - I agree with you.

videoskooter - Those were cute mixes. There was also another series of "Bootleg" megas called "Hollywood" 1, 2 & 3. Did you ever hear any of those?
I am very happy to see you agree that it is cheating, a DJ after my own heart.:icon_biggrin:

[VINYLLIFE]

LOVE EM!!!! My favorite is "This is a test". Most mixers leave a lot to desire......but they are fun to collect. We always get excited to find a new one. I have one friend who collects them and usually......not always....ends up with my finds. He is up to about 100 of them. My buddy Reno in the Netherlands is also a big medley fiend.
Wonder if any one can tell us where the "High Voltage" series of medleys come from?
Also a shout out to Member Jay who did the Hollywood medley!!!!!!!!

[needlefingers]

I wouldn't call it cheating. DJs were just trying to be creative and they did take hours and days, to put together. Some were made by very well-known DJ's.

They were never meant to fill a night or replace the DJ. Truth is most people on the dance floor didn't care too much for them because of the short edits and constant change, though I am sure there were exceptions in some clubs.

They ended up being a novelty and many weren't played in the clubs. Those that were usually lasted for only 2-3 weeks. Still, Bits & Pieces III did evolve into Stars On 45.

I do like them too, but as a guilty pleasure. I really like the Disconet "end of year" mixes. I also like the Prelude mixes.

In my opinion, when they were around, they worked better on radio mixes or tape mixes.

But they were also not new. I remember hearing similar type of mixes with pop and rock songs in the 60's and early 70's on AM radio.

[Videoskooter]

videoskooter - Those were cute mixes. There was also another series of "Bootleg" megas called "Hollywood" 1, 2 & 3. Did you ever hear any of those?

Oh yes, Dan!!! There were very popular over here but very hard to find! Great stuff. Just like Needle said, a lot of those mixes took a lot of talent to make.

[canadiantire]

Well,

This one is to me, the most sophistically blended megamix I've heard so far.

The chosen titles have nothing out of the ordinary but the transitions achieved are close to perfection.

Like I said before, contrary to a lot of megamixes which are often of unequal quality, this one has a sustained momentum.

Keep in mind that BITD, these montages were manually "spliced"!

Whoever did this one knew a lot about music in general.

[DJRAZ]

Yes I agree they were never used for the most part but collection them was fun. However I did use the bonus beats at the end of this particular big apple mix.

YouTube - original big apple production volume 2 medley


I think some of the mixes are fantastic especially when they were released.

[Greg Wilson]

There was also another series of "Bootleg" megas called "Hollywood" 1, 2 & 3. Did you ever hear any of those?
I am very happy to see you agree that it is cheating, a DJ after my own heart.:icon_biggrin:

Oh yes, Dan!!! There were very popular over here but very hard to find! Great stuff. Just like Needle said, a lot of those mixes took a lot of talent to make.

Juan Jay Negron, who posts here, take a bow.

Here's an interview he did:

discopatrick site

[DannyBoy]

I bought what I think turned out to be a bootleg of Bits & Pieces II way back in the early 80s. It starts out with "Stretchin Out by Gayle Adams" and is followed by a quick burst of "Let's Get Serious by Jermaine Jackson". Most tracks were a matter of thirty seconds or so. Over the years I managed to identify more and more tracks, buying them where I could. Every now and again, Ben Liebrand or Vinyl Masterpiece and the like will release a compilation and I find another one.

I reckon they're brilliant in the car or home listening. The only ones I ever heard in clubs were Bits & Pieces III and the Starsound stuff(not really a mixer). DMC's Michael Jackson Cassette got a few spins back in 83 as well. I suppose the "cheating" debate is a matter of opinion. However, most of the ones I've heard tend to start with slower beats and build up to a big finish. To play them back to back would be a bit of a rollercoaster. Some of the Canadian Hot Plates started at 100 mph and kept on going. I'd have loved to hear some but there were no clubs around my part of the world spinning that stuff at the time.

I still love a good mixer, but agree they're better for radio or home listening than in a club.

[needlefingers]

Juan Jay Negron, who posts here, take a bow.

Here's an interview he did:

discopatrick site

Nice interview. Thanks Greg and Jay. I do like the Hollywood Mixes too.

[Jay Negron]

Thanks for the props Greg!!
Every once in a while the "Hollywood" Dub comes up.
I did it when I was 20 yrs old and I don't believe how big it got.
It was done as a lark after a "long" weekend, plenty of 'hooch', and after hearing Walter Gibbons play till the wee hours.

I played it for about 2-3 months and only as an ending to "San Francisco/Hollywood".
I didn't like the other variations or the Bits & Pieces that came out subsequently.

Cheating?
No, I think that is too harsh a word to use.
When a DJ plays a mix-set off his PC or tape deck while he supposed to be spinning,
That's cheating!

When I was DJing in NYC ('74-'84) we used to go see other DJs that would make songs better by changing or extending the intro/outro/breaks and stuff like that.
Walter Gibbons was the first I seen do that.
He would play a track off his reel to reel that he edited at home to make it better.
It was incredible and a real show of talent.
I can still remember the reaction to his version of "Disco Party" by The Trammps, how he edited it AND how he worked the tri-amp system at Galaxy 21 while playing it!!! WOW!

After I seen that, I would do the same. I made different versions of the songs I felt I could make better; and it was a thrill to see the dancers' reactions week after week.
It was exciting to come up with an idea, edit the tape, go to Sunshine Sound or Associated Sound to put your stuff on acetate to play that evening.

"Hollywood-Dub" was an abberation. I did it as a lark.
I never liked to use plates with multiple songs on it to play for the crowd. It created a different atmosphere that I was looking for.

You still had to spin the home-made acetate edits it like a record in your set during the night.
So to me, that's not cheating.

That was over 30 years ago.
Now the technology has grown by leaps & bounds.
Times are different now.
It's nothing new now for DJs to cut & paste an edit on your PC and play it.

[Old Disco DeeJay]

Thanks for your comments Jay. I'm honoured to have a legend contributing to my thread.

[Videoskooter]

Cheating?
No, I think that is too harsh a word to use.
When a DJ plays a mix-set off his PC or tape deck while he supposed to be spinning,
That's cheating!for.

I can't speak for Dan but that was what I meant. A DJ who's doing a live set, simply has to do a LIVE set. When he includes some excerpts from a Megamix that could be OK but not if he's only pushing a button and is mixing some tapes. And we once caught a guy who was doing that BITD. A show off, the star of the town until 1 day I got behind the DJ booth ( I was drunk and in a fight with the bouncers who were chasing me) and I saw that the guy was simply using tapedecks. He pretended to be spinning live!

So props to you J-ski for making these legendary mixes and thank you Greg for finding this article (BTW I finally find your "DC LeGroove Edit", awesome!)

[Mixmachine]

I don't know if I'd call playing a Mashup/Boot mix cheating, after all many Djs played their own home-made mixes of hot songs of the day at the club's they were working at, (some made a career of this into the 90's ).

Now for a DJ to be playing a "regular" mixtape of a previous night's work or someone else's while the club was jumping, that's what I consider 'cheating'.

Many of these "mixes" were not very dance floor friendly, and were difficult if not impossible to program into a night's set..

But a few were, I remember spinning the "I will survive" mix (with "At midnight" conga's breakdown) many times, many other local Djs did too, and the dance floors used to get packed..

I even played many times that "Disco brake" mix that VideoSkooter posted here....

But NeedleFingers is right, these mixes usually didn't have more than a couple of weeks of Dance floor shelf life if that, one of the many reasons for this short life was because this mixes took a while to put together, and by the time they were released many of the songs were old and/or on the way out of Djs playlist already.

But word of mouth kept them alive for much longer in local record shops, where up and coming young Djs and Disco fans collecting them continued to hunt them down long after they were produced.

Some of these Mixes' original pressings are today very dificult to find and expensive, a very well known one sold for 200.00 USD on ebay last time I checked.