Well, the great Alan Levine left the right comment on the last post. He asked when’s the next one?

So I’m going to dust off a really old draft and find some way to hit publish on it.

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I’ve been having a lot of fun DJing on DS106 Radio. (Usually Friday nights, usually 7 PM-ish Eastern US time.) It’s a free-form, live streaming station originally set up to broadcast the audio creations of the DS106 digital storytelling class/community. “Free-form” sounds pretty artistic, but what it really means is that at any given time, someone might be playing tunes, talking with friends, experimenting with different ways to capture and broadcast sound, playing a produced story, or all of the above.

OK, it really really means “we’re making it up as we go along.” One time on Twitter I said that DS106 Radio is kind of like walking down a dorm hall in college and hearing that your friend has a cool album on with the door open. This is the part I like best – the chat about music (or whatever sound or story is going on) that happens on social media while someone’s on the air.

So this is the post where I say some things about how I broadcast. I won’t represent that this is the best way, and it’s certainly not the only way, but it’s the one which works for me, for the purpose of playing music.

Step 1: Have an idea

I think this is the biggest hurdle. You have to believe that you have an idea which, at a minimum, will entertain you for as long as it takes to prepare and play it. My friends seem to like either what I play, or the fact that I’m playing it. But just in case no one tunes in, I might as well be having a good time.

Here’s the good news: anything is an idea. “I want to play this album all the way through” is a nice easy one. “These are some good songs I’ve heard recently” is a good one. Many of my playlists start that way. I have a standing Thursday night card game, and I usually have my iTunes either playing an album or on random shuffle, and whatever song makes me think “oh I haven’t heard that in a while” becomes the tent pole for the show on Friday.

My show doesn’t have a predictable genre, so a genre set is an idea. (My “idea” from Thanksgiving to New Years is “Christmas songs.”) Recent musician birthdays and deaths work well. I’ve had some fun with keywords – I did a St. Patrick’s Day set that was just a search for the word green.

(I have an open challenge from a friend to “rock around the clock” – a set full of songs which reference the time of day. This one has stumped me but I’d welcome your suggestions in the comments.)

Step 2: Get a big collection of MP3s.

This is not a requirement; it’s just how I do it. I do have a cheap turntable I can use for a “vinylcast”, and I know how to get the audio from a streaming source on the air. But most of my listening is based on digital files on my hard drive, and most of my broadcasting is too.

I know it’s a little weird to talk about virtuous consumption and pirate radio at the same time, but the fact is, artists make a lot more money when we buy their works than when we stream it. So this choice is important to me.

Full disclosure: I do end up spending something between $2 and $20 per show most weeks, depending on whether I’m buying singles or springing for whole albums. (Honestly $20 is rare, but $10 isn’t.) So it’s a little unclear if this is a hobby, or a habit.

Step 3: Get a copy of Mixxx

Why Mixxx? Because it’s free. Yeah, at the end of the day, that was my whole thought process. I didn’t know if this was going to stick, and I didn’t want to spend $70 on Audio Hijack and use it once. Anything Icecast-compatible should work.

Mixxx is imposing to look at. Definitely from the “more buttons is better” school of interface design. Explaining Mixxx is also where this post has consistently ended up in the drafts folder, so maybe I just need to promise that I will do a more specific “here’s how I make Mixxx work” post so I can hit publish on this thing.

If I had one major gripe with Mixxx, it’s that I keep thinking that all those buttons and especially dials would be easier if I bought a hardware controller. (Dials are awesome in analog but really suck with a mouse.) I’ve resisted so far but…

Step 4: Make a playlist

The next step for me is to create a new playlist and start dragging songs onto it. This is technically about the same as doing it on Spotify or Apple Music or probably any other digital music player, and conceptually the same as using a double-deck boombox to make a mix tape.

Mostly, I spend a lot of time previewing the starts and ends of songs to see how they’ll go together. Probably the next thing I could do to get better would be documenting songs that could be shorter – noodley intros and outros, long chunks of applause or banter on live tracks – so I could mix around them.

I also try to keep an eye out for the maudlin section which gets into most of my playlists. Three sad songs in a row is pretty much my limit. Well, it’s not my limit, but it’s the limit of what I want to inflict on my friends and an unsuspecting public. (My friends, really, should know the sentimental fool they’re dealing with.)

Step 5: On the Air

Then, for me, I go live and play it. I like doing this in real time, dragging tracks from the playlists to the decks and deciding when to hit play. I like announcing in real time too. For me, the Friday evening show is a ritual, and I want the focus of the live event.

That said, Mixxx has an “autoDJ” feature which will run through a playlist on its own, and I’ve found it useful when I want to broadcast but also split my attention. And I’m impressed by eLearning Techie, who prerecords her entire shows, and broadcasts them free of technical or verbal flubs.

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OK, that’s enough for now. I will try to have the “seriously, how do you make Mixxx work” post together in less than another 3.5 years (which is how long this one sat in draft).