The 64 Bar Orchestra is a collection of beats by the producers from the 64 bar project. This show features exclusives soon released on Disfigured Dubz from Echo Park, Brand New Music from DJ Food, and a 20 minute excerpt taken from the fifth 64 bar challenge mix.The good people at http://www.mixcloud.com will include the 64 bar challenge mixes in their featured mix series section.
I’ll update this post when it goes live, for now have a look at the 64 bar page @ http://mixclud.com/sixtyfourbarmusic
We started using mix cloud in 2010, after using Postbocks.com for our hosting before that.
Now, whenever we complete a mix, it is loaded to both those sites, and http://www.officialfm.com and http://percussionlab.com
The latest mix, the 64barchallenge volume 6, has had nearly 400 plays on Mixcloud alone, If you add up the other sites, that number doubles, and if you add the 5.5k plays thanks to it’s appearance on Solid Steel radio, it’s made quite an impact.
“Thanks to Mixcloud for featuring us,” said Kovas. “I am a huge fan of the site and so when they told me this was happening I thought ‘result’ this is bound to mean more plays and more exposure for the project.”
The 64 bar challenge mix series ran six mix albums in a two-year period and featured DJs and producers who came together through the Ninja Tune records forum.
DJ Kovas was the man who came up with the concept where by everyone involved votes for a tempo to make a track 64 bars in length. He explained the project
“It was an idea that just seemed to catch everyone’s imagination. It gave people a reason to start writing beats. A lot of the people of the project had either fallen out of love with making music, or life had got in the way and their music production gear was gathering dust.
“The 64 bar challenge gave everyone a focus.
“The first mix was turned around within a couple of weeks, and It was really well received. Numbers were small, but it had a couple of hundred plays on Postbocks in the first week.
“That was encouragement enough to do another one, and then a third.”
By this stage, the projects were taking up to five months to put together, so the fourth mix was earmarked as the final one in the series.
“It was just becoming too much like a job,” said Kovas. “Liaising with the 30 or so producers, getting the artwork sorted, running the blog, generating pr, uploading and promoting the mixes, it was hard work.”
But the results kept improving and the fourth mix hit 500 plays within 48 hours. Still small, but big enough for the community to call for a fifth mix.
In the end, the sixth mix was released in September 2011, with DJ Food at the controls.
“Having DJ Food on board for the final mix felt like a fitting end. He had backed the project for a while and everyone respects how well he put the mix together, it’s unquestionably the best one of the lot, so a perfect time to call it a day.”
The sixth and final mix in the 64 bar challenge series will be released in early September, with the project drawing to a natural conclusion by way of a return to its roots.DJ Food has selected and sliced 29 tracks into a 52 minute mix that draws a neat line under a 28 month project.
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