How to make a mixtape pt. 2: freeware

As the word "mixtape" suggests, this form of art was originally executed with cassette tapes, which required at least two tape decks and (if I may be frank) a ridiculously high level of patience. Thankfully, today's technology makes this method wholly obsolete and almost entirely useless: even if you were to put up with the hassles of making a true mixtape, very few people would be able to listen to it. Still, the best or easiest ways to make modern mixtapes are not obvious or (in many cases) well-known. This post will examine some of the tools I've used while making mixtapes in CD form with my computer.

An important first step to making mixtapes is having a consistent, easily accessible, and searchable music library. By that I mean a collection of digital songs organized both in their disk location (e.g., C:\My Music) and in a piece of software that allows for searching and sorting. So long as you use only one program to obtain digital music, you won't have to worry about organizing the songs on-disk: that'll happen automatically. Two good programs that will do this are iTunes and Winamp. The first has the benefit of an attached music store and compatibility with other Apple products, whereas the second has a much smoother interface - either will suffice, though. (If you have an mp3 player, it may come with its own software that does these things. That should be fine, but make sure that it features the ability to create and maintain playlists.)

Not all music or other audio content can easily be bought, either on a CD (which can then be ripped) or directly as a digital file. Dialogue from movies or TV, live performances, streaming media, and audio from other sources can be hard - if not impossible - to find as a simple digital audio file. If your computer can play the audio in question, though, programs like Audacity will enable you to record the desired audio from your soundcard when you play it and then export it into a convenient file format (like a standard mp3). Such programs will also allow for more advanced editing, such as combining tracks and using the common sound mixing features (fade in/out, tempo speed up/down, echo, etc.). Besides making non-music audio clips available for your mixtape, these programs will also help if you have an audio file in an unusual format that your CD burning software doesn't understand.

As for trasnferring the mix onto a physical medium, the same software you used to rip music and store your library - iTunes or Winamp, if you took my advice - should also have the ability to burn CDs. In fact, it should have the specific ability to burn playlists, so if you compiled your mixtape as a playlist (hint hint), two or three clicks will suffice to turn it into a physical object. Unless you're in a big old rush, choose a middling speed to write to the CD - it won't hurt you any to wait for a few minutes longer and it'll go a long way towards ensuring that the resulting mix CD actually plays correctly. (Burning a CD typically takes up a significant chunk of a computer's processing power, so choosing a lower speed will give you a larger margin of error and therefore more ability to safely use other programs while the CD is being processed.)

If making a physical mix is either impossible (say, due to hardware constraints) or just inconvenient, one can also transmit mixtapes in a purely digital fashion. For purists, sound editing programs like Audacity will enable you to export the entire mix as one audio file, thus better emulating the original mixtape experience and facilitating file transfer (as a general principle, it's easier to transfer one file than many): just string one song after another, leaving room for 1- to 2-second pauses between songs as appropriate, and export the whole thing as a single file. If you'd rather keep the tracks separate, data compression programs like Winzip or WinRAR will place all the songs in a single folder-like file such that the recipient can simply open the resulting file and then listen to the individual tracks at their leisure. While most email providers won't allow large attachments, most IM programs allow file transfers of any size (GTalk and AIM certainly do) and the internet has no shortage of filehosting websites (just Google for some). Finally, if you're lucky or dedicated enough to have access to your own server, freeware programs like mixwidget and opentape will enable you to share your mixtape with anyone online - but if you're savvy enough to run your own server I think you can figure those out on your own.

And as always, remember that it's always okay to start a mix over from scratch or to put one on indefinite hold until inspiration strikes. Or, to quote Darren Aronofksy, "You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he's received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she's forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he's entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that's a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams 'Eureka' and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king's palace to report his discovery."