The Best Family Mix I Could Do - 100 Disk Changer

The Best Family Mix I Could Do - 100 Disk Changer

Taking on the task of making a really good mix for a family 100 disk changer is a monumental task. Firstly, virtually every track must seemingly mix with the rest of the others. That is roughly 1,000 tracks that have to mix. I achieved this by what would normally be considered music that doesn’t mix, but yet it does in my changer. I have successfully mixed bands like America and Metallica through the idea of giving the listener a break. Thus, both band America and Metallica in the mix stand out. What I found that I couldn’t do was make a mix of music with bands like Metallica and sustain it for hours on end without ticking on my wife. Nor do I have the patience to listen to tons of folk bands like America. This meant making some sacrifices, but in the end the overall mix is better. Some speed metal, like The Very Best of Testament just didn’t go in the mix. Likewise, my wife doesn’t like listening to even 1 song of theirs. I have to admit that perhaps I would have liked to be able to mix in some Slayer and some God Forbid, but the fact of the matter was that they just simply didn’t go. What I have done is to create bands that have intermediates to their sounds in this player. Each band is unique, but each is different. For example, the connection of Metallica to America might be made by a band such as Apocalyptica, which is 4 cellos playing Metallica acoustically. The way the music is intended to sound is that some songs are punchy; some are breaks to the madness, while intermediate bands fill in the gaps. The constant eclectic nature of this style of mixing is quite formulaic, and the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me.

Secondly, not only do the tracks have to mix, but there also has to be 1,000 good ones. Every compact disk has to be chock full of good songs without any real let downs.

The following are the 100 disks in the changer:

Steve Morse – Prime Cuts

Wes Montgomery – On the Go and Movin’ Wes

Wes Montgomery – Fusion

Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Soup

Simon Philips – Another Lifetime

Steve Morse – The Introduction

Django Reinhardt – Jazz Masters 30

Operation Ivy

George Benson – Beyond the Blue Horizon

Dixie Dregs – Divided We Stand

Gipsy Kings – Greatest Hits

Return to Forever – This is Jazz 12

Garsed, Helmerich, Willis, Chambers – Uncle Moe’s Space Ranch

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magic

CAB – (Tony MacAlpine, Brunnel, Dennis Chambers)

Rolling Stones – 40 Hot Licks disk 1

Mull Muzzler – Keep It to Yourself

Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes – Question and Answer

Smashing Pumpkins – Twilight to Starlight

Primus - Frizzle Fry

Django Reinhardt – Retrospective 1940 – 1947

Chick Corea – The Best of

Return to Forever – Romantic Warrior

Van Halen – 1984

Derek Sherinian – Blood of the Snake’

Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual

Bela Fleck – Greatest Hits of the 20^th Century

Dennis Chambers – Outbreak

Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Judas Priest – British Steel

Wes Montgomery – Ultimate

Evanescence – Fallen

Mix

Steve Vai

Eric Johnson

Joe Satriani

Yngwie Malmsteem

The Allman Brothers

Eric Clapton

George Benson

Skid Row – Slave to the Grind

Medeski, Martin, Wood – Last Chance to Dance Trance

Queensyrche – Empire

Victor Wooten – A Show of Hands

Eric Johnson – 7 Worlds & Souvenir

Eric Johnson – Bloom

Savatage – Edge of Thorns

Jimi Hendrix – South Saturn Delta

Megadeth – Rust in Peace

Planet X – Quantum

Jimi Hendrix – Blues

Derek Sherinian’s Planet X

Planet X – Moonbabies

Nirvanna – bootleg

Shadow Gallery – Prime Cuts

Fates Warning – No Exit

Greg Howe – self titled

James LaBrie – Elements of Persuasion

Queensyrche – Greatest Hits

Jimi Hendrix – Axis: Bold as Love

Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind

Metallica – black album

Queen – Greatest Hits 1

Pearl Jam – Ten

Led Zepplin – symbols

Van Halen – Best of Vol. 1

Poison – Greatest Hits (1986 - 1996)

Earth Crisis – (1991 - 2001) Forever True

Dream Theater – Official Bootleg: When Dream & Day Unite 15^th Anniversary Live

Dream Theater – Score disk 1

Dream Theater – Metropolis pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory

Dream Theater – Images and Words

Tool – Aenima

Tony MacAlpine – Evolution

Jazz standards mix

King Crimson – In The Court of the Crimson King and In the Wake of Poseidon

Apocalyptica – Plays Metallica

Richie Kotzen/Greg Howe – Project

Santana – the best of

Tony MacAlpine – Chromaticity

Mull Muzzler – 2

Morse, Portnoy, George – Cover to Cover

Dream Theater – Live: Scenes from New York disk 2

Al Di Meola – Hotel Slendido

Metallica – Kill ‘em All

Metallica – Ride the Lightning

Dream Theater – Once in a Livetime disk 2

Iced Earth – Days of Purgatory disk 1

Greg Howe – Introspection

Van Halen – self titled

Red Hot Chili Peppers – the best of

Fates Warning – Disconnected

Iced Earth – The Blessed

Dio – the very beast of

Jordan Rudess – Feeding the Wheel

Greg Howe - Ascend

Dream Theater – Systematic Chaos

Platypus – Ice Cycles

Drained – No One In Control

An Evening with Jordan Rudess & John Petrucci

Scorpions – 20^th Century Masters

Liquid Tension Experiment – self titled

Elton John – Greatest Hits

Greg Howe – Five

Jordan Rudess – Rhythm of Time

Iced Earth – The Damned

America - History