33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 05 (1-30-13)

The next episode of my music variety radio show podcast is up! Press play below to give it a listen! 

Episode 05 features electronic music, some rock, a nice 50 Cent medley, and a whole variety of interesting, upbeat international music in the "third half" of the show!

Or click here to listen on the mixcloud site.  Mobile users -- download the Apple mixcloud app or the Android Mixcloud App. Follow JoeSoHeady (that's me.)  Here's some background about the program.

This week's show features music from different eras, different countries, and of course different genres -- as usual!  The program is all about sharing great music -- mostly stuff that other people have shared with ME over the last 15 yerars: music I've gotten from friends, roommates, tour travelers, girlfriends, Pandora, etc!

Press play below!

33 1/3 Cents A Pound New Episode 05 - Jan 30, 2013 by Joesoheady on Mixcloud

Here's the FULL SET LIST for Episode 05

The Streets -- Has it Come to This?
Ratatat (feat. Jay-Z and Biggie) -- Mumtaz Khan
Little Jackie -- The Stoop, from Pandora
Prince Buster -- Al Capone, reccommended by Av
Tenor Saw vs. Jay-Z -- Jigga Eeni Meeni My Nigga
Althea & Donna -- Uptown Top Ranking, from Ariella
The Egg -- Ben Hur (from Ben Silver)
Cee-Lo Green -- Bright Lights, Bigger City >>> (from Brandy)
Mark Ronson feat. Nate Dogg -- Ooh Wee >>> (from Jaimee)
The Orb -- Little Fluffy Clouds (from Nikkie)
50 Cent feat. Eminem -- Gatman and Robbin’ >>>
50 Cent -- Poor Li’l Rich >>>
50 Cent -- Back Down >>>
50 Cent -- Gunz Come Out >>>
50 Cent -- U Not Like Me
Bob Dylan -- Subterranean Homesick Blues
Cake -- Stickshifts and Safetybelts (from Av)
Amadou and Mariam -- La Réalité
Hedningarna -- Bierdna (The Bear) (from Cheryl)
Talvin Singh -- See Breeze (from Av)
Wimme -- Texas (from Cheryl)

Tenor Saw vs. Jay-Z -- Hey Eeni Meeni Papi

Basement Jaxx -- Jaxxalude (from somebody???)
Tenor Saw vs. Jay-Z -- Eeni Meeni Dirt Off Ya Shoulder

33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 04 (1-23-2013)

The next episode of my music variety radio show podcast is up! Press play below to give it a listen! 

Or click here to listen on the mixcloud site.  Mobile users -- download the Apple mixcloud app or the Android Mixcloud App and follow JoeSoHeady (that's me.)  Here's some background about the program.

This week's show features an excellent variety of music representing different eras, genres, and cultures. The program is all about sharing great music that I've been fortunate enough to listen to over the last 12 years (since I previously did my radio show). So many great friends have shared so much music with me -- and I'm packaging it up in this format for everyone else to enjoy.

Episode 04 features German dub duo Boozoo Bajou, dynamic hip-hop duo Red & Meth, funky soul duo Sam & Dave, a medley of Gramatik, plus Adele, Brenda Holloway, several songs called 'Fire,' listener comments, and much more...

Press play below!

33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 04 - January 23, 2013 by Joesoheady on Mixcloud

Years ago, when people used to trade burned CDs, people would give me all kinds of music. For the most part, I would stash it away somewhere and never listen to it. Eventually, though, I would give the disc a whirl -- or put it in iTunes and let it come up randomly. And most of what people gave me turned out to be good stuff!  Girlfriends, roommates, tour rats, promoters, neighbors...everyone wanted to share their music with me.

So now I'm sharing it back out by way of a radio show podcast. Since I personally don't have the licensing rights to broadcast copyright music (or make it available for download) I use mixcloud to post my show.

33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 03 - January 17, 2013

The next episode of my music variety radio show podcast is up! Press play below to give it a listen! 

Or click here to listen on the mixcloud site.  Mobile users -- download the Apple mixcloud app or the Android Mixcloud App. Follow JoeSoHeady (that's me.)  Here's some background about the program.

This week's show features music from different eras, different countries, and of course different genres -- as usual!  The program is all about sharing great music that I've been fortunate enough to listen to over the last 12 years (since I previously did my radio show).

Episode 04 features dub champion King Tubby, jazz guitarists Charlie Christian and Grant Green, Slick Rick, the Sounds, the Beatles, Nina Simone, and many more.

Press play below!

33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 03 - January 17, 2013 by Joesoheady on Mixcloud

Years ago, when people used to trade burned CDs, people would give me all kinds of music. For the most part, I would stash it away somewhere and never listen to it. Eventually, though, I would give the disc a whirl -- or put it in iTunes and let it come up randomly. And most of what people gave me turned out to be good stuff!  Girlfriends, roommates, tour wookies, neighbors...everyone wanted to share their music with me.

So now I'm sharing it back out by way of a radio show podcast. Since I personally don't have the licensing rights to broadcast copyright music (or make it available for download) I use mixcloud to post my show. I also have some good DJ mixes up there in addition to the radio show. My Eminem Mix is one of the most popular such mixes on the web!

33 1/3 Cents a Pound Episode 02

Here we go! Episode 02 of the all new 33 1/3 Cents a Pound, my radio show, is up. I play a variety of music on the show, including hip-hop, reggae, soul, funk, rock, electronic, international music, and all sorts of sub-genres. It's music that I love, music I want to share, music I think you will like. Check out this article about how I record and produce the show.  

You can listen to it by clicking on the player below!

Click here to listen on the mixcloud site.

Or download the mixcloud app for your mobile device and follow JoeSoHeady (that's me).

This episode of the show features Boogaloo Joe Jones, Ratatat, Chaka Demus (and Pliers), among others. There are two DJ mix segments (sick!): an MC Frontalot medley and a nice underground hip-hop mix segment at the end.

Check it out!

33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 02 January 2013 by Joesoheady on Mixcloud

If I ever mispronounce anyone's name or get any information wrong, please correct me. 

How I Do the Show

I use some very basic hardware and software to record and produce the radio show podcast. There are plenty of tools available for people to do this kind of thing. You can take a really simple, straightforward approach, or you can get really complicated with it and create a whole radio studio in your house -- whatever approach works best for you.

Since I used to do an actual live radio show on WRCT in college (which is not your average college radio station; they broadcast within a 15 mile radius, reaching over a million people in SWPA) and would like to do a live stream or show again, I want to replicate the live process when I record my show.  Recording the show ahead of time and "broadcasting" on mixcloud is much easier, avoids legal restrictions, and costs nothing. Streaming/broadcasting music live is a much more complicated story, on many levels, so I'm avoiding that for now.

Even though I record, edit, and "produce" the show, I try to only do things that could be done on a live show by myself. For example, adding an echo effect to my voice when I introduce a song is easy to do live, so I feel like I can include that kind of production work in the recorded version. There are two main steps in my process: recording the music part and recording my talking part. I don't do anything with the music in the recorded version that I wouldn't do in a live radio show. I  just play and record the music part (including the promos), then listen to it and record the vocal part (me talking). 

Virtual DJ on the left has a song loaded on each turntable and the promos in the sampler on the bottom. You can see my iTunes playlist on the right, from which I just have to drag the song to VDJ.
The playlist includes valuable information like the artist, album, year, genre, BPM, etc.

My brother got me this
Blue Snowball Microphone.

For the music part, I use iTunes and Virtual DJ (see the picture). First I make a playlist in iTunes, which I'll use as a rough outline of what I want to play on the show. Then I play and record the songs and promos using software called Virtual DJ, which provides 2 turntables with beat matching and looping, a mixer, and a sampler -- and the ability to record the whole thing. You drag a song on to the left deck, then hit record to start recording. Press play on the song on the left and drag a new song to the deck on the right. Get ready to press play when the first song ends. You can use the mixer to fade the volume of each song up and down. Pre-cueing is a key feature. While one song is playing over the speakers, you can listen to the next song in your headphones to get it ready. The software has beat matching and some other great features for quality DJing. I use the sampler to play all the promos: the little snippets that say "You're listening to thirty three and a third cents a pound" in a funny voice or whatever.

Next I use a free audio editing program called Audacity that is pretty common. I load the music part of the show and then record my vocal parts to go along with it. I use a snowball microphone to record my voice, which works great. To make the timing easier, I mark the music track (see picture below) in two ways. 

The music is the top half; my vocal snippets are on the lower half.
You can label different spots in the track, for example where to start talking.

First I mark a good spot to start talking. But the most important thing, in my opinion, is to know exactly when to stop talking -- right before the song really kicks in, or "drops," so to speak. That could be just the beginning of the song, or it might be 30 seconds into it when the vocals start. Maybe there's a gradual build up and then the key melody starts playing. So I try to talk up until that point. This is definitely something I can do live. A good DJ would be familiar with the song and just know when to stop talking. Or I can cheat and mark/label these spots in the song in Virtual DJ.

You can alter the volume if certain parts came out too loud or too quiet, and when it's all done you export it as an .mp3 or .wav file and there you have your podcast ready to upload. I upload mine to mixcloud and then post here on blogger, facebook, twitter, etc.

33 1/3 Cents a Pound Episode 01

Here it is, the first (new) episode of my radio show! I've thought about doing this for a while, and started talking about it a few months ago. I just posted the first episode of the all new 33 1/3 Cents a Pound, my radio show. It's just a recorded podcast right now, not a live streaming broadcast, but that's ok. This is how I create the show.

Listen to it on the mixcloud site or play it below.

On mobile? Get the Apple Mixcloud App or the Android Mixcloud App and follow JoeSoHeady.

If you want to download it, I can make it available on dropbox. Check back for Episode 02 coming soon!

33 1/3 Cents a Pound New Episode 01 - January 2013 by Joesoheady on Mixcloud

If I ever get any information wrong or mispronounce a name, please correct me.

Club Hits Plus More DJ Mix

I posted this DJ mix on mixcloud a couple of weeks ago. It starts out with a bunch of club songs from 2012 then goes into a whole variety of different stuff, the way I like to do: mc chris, lady gaga, the sounds, disco biscuits, etc. Then it goes back into some club music at the end. I think the whole thing is kind of a love story, with a mixed male/female perspective. I think it has a personal touch, and I think the male angst comes through, even if the male character often appears "off stage," as referred to by the female singer and main character of many of the songs.  You can listen to it on mixcloud, or play it here on this page below. Or download the mixcloud app for you mobile device.

Beat Cruiser II -- 2012 Club Hits & Much MUCH More by Joesoheady on Mixcloud