German tech-house outfit M.A.N.D.Y explain the science behind the perfect compilation CD

By Mr HBF

When Renaissance approached German tech-house masters M.A.N.D.Y to compile a compilation CD, quite a few eyebrows were raised.

“Renaissance obviously has very deep roots in the progressive house scene, but they wanted to do something a bit different and they flew to Berlin to meet us,” explains Philipp.

“That’s the thing with us – we’re always up for a challenge,” says Patrick. “We’ve been DJing for 14 years, and we’ve never been ones to stick to just our crowd. It’s much more challenging to play to an unknown dancefloor than at your own club night.”

Philipp continues, “It’s like when a football team goes and plays in Peru and it’s much harder because of the different temperature, humidity, and oxygen levels. You still have to play your game though, and represent yourself as best as you can.”

Total artist control helps, of course. Renaissance gave M.A.N.D.Y. the scope to do whatever they wanted with their double mix compilation.

“We did one CD aimed solely at home listening, but with M.A.N.D.Y. there has to be another, more club orientated side too,” says Philipp, of the second CD. “However, with the club mix, we made sure it could still be listened to at home and that’s part of the hard work that goes into all of our mix CDs.”

That includes 2006’s warmly received ‘At the controls’ double compilation for Resist, 2007’s Fabric offering, as well as this year’s ‘Get Physical 7th Anniversary’ compilation - all were meticulously arranged in the studio.

As Philipp explains, “We spend shit loads of time doing a mix compilation. When we put together a mix, our main aim is for it to have longevity.

“That means we have to re-edit every single track, and spend many weeks refining each mix, into to the perfect arrangement.

“This is no promo bullshit. If you listen to our Body language CD or our ‘At The Controls’ mix, you can listen to them over and over again, without it getting boring.

“We spend so long programming a mix, that it even becomes almost like pop music. We cut out the intros and beats heavy sections, cut down the transitions and mixes, and make the whole thing much more musically tight.”

Patrick says, “It’s a music driven mix album, which is produced down to the smallest of details. We spent four weeks every single day in the studio working on the mix for Renaissance.”

There’s an abundance of DJ mix podcasts available for free online today, so does that make M.A.N.D.Y.’s job any harder, when compiling a mix which must adhere to the legalities of licensing?

“A professional mix compilation is very different from a podcast,” says Patrick. “A standard DJ mix is usually done in real time, using the latest hot tracks. But for a compilation, you must select music that doesn’t age, and then put it together in a way that can be listened to at home, again and again.

“The difference between a mix compilation and a standard DJ podcast, is like the difference between a film and flicking through endless TV channels. One is a piece of art, the other is quick and easy entertainment.”

For every compilation M.A.N.D.Y. sweat blood. They become monsters who can’t sleep, obsessed for weeks with one single mix.

“We said for the Renaissance one, ‘OK we’ll really only work on this as a day job’, but then you can never really control what happens.

“Sometimes you’ll work on it so much that you end up hating it and thinking it’s awful, or you love it too much and don’t want to stop working on it. Some days, we spent 20 hours on it in one go, refining it, making it better.”

Licensing problems didn’t help the shred of sanity that M.A.N.D.Y. do have.

“We couldn’t clear some tracks for it inevitably, and when one of those tracks is a key track, that screws up the whole mix, so you have to start all over again – I think we have about six versions of the Renaissance mix,” says Patrick.

“We tried to get a Simon & Garfunkel track, and also a track by The Cure but we couldn’t clear either. Even for tracks that we thought would be relatively simple to license because we knew the label owner, like an Emperor Machine track on DC Recordings for example, we couldn’t clear it.

“Although on the flip side, Carl Craig licensed us one of his tracks after just one email, so it’s the luck of the moment really. But that’s part of the long process behind a compilation.”

Philipp jokes, “Well, there is no M.A.N.D.Y. album yet, so at least we put a lot of effort into our mix compilations.”

The studio technique for the mix compilation was intensive. First the boys tried out different mixes in Traktor, practicing different versions of every mix.

“We had to get a feeling for the flow, and then once we had that done, we perfected it in Ableton Live, by doing re-edits of everything, cutting down every track, to make it all fit onto a CD,” says Philipp.

The result is a two-sided coin with perfectly round edges. The first mix offers 17 tracks of blissful electronica that segues into warm moments from Sebastien Tellier and Holge Zilske.

The second mix, cuts through an impressive 27 tracks of body rocking tech house, four-to-the-floor electronic house gems, and the odd quirky surprise from DJ Koze and Gang Gang Dance, all wrapped up in just 80 minutes.

“We could have kept going, but that’s one of the challenges of doing a mix for CD,” says Patrick. “You have to tell your story within 80 minutes.”

We can only hope M.A.N.D.Y can find this level of obsession for the own material and get their long awaited debut album finished. Let hope New York inspires them to create something special.