How to prepare an essential mix ?

When i got the request from BBC Radio1 to mix the essential mix, my biggest question to myself was: "How on earth will i pull this together?"

You see, its not easy to mix an essential mix, you gotta have a clear "go" from all label & producers and at the same time to have as much as exclusive material as possible that's not released yet, a little big of a paradox. Easy? Not a chance.

Iv got a small list of producers that i respect & follow, the first thing i did was to give them a call and see if there was something new in the pipeline about 4-5 weeks before the mix. I realized that i hadn't much time to wait for unfinished project's that wasn't finished yet as i need to rely on that the material was done in time. So after creating a little mind map inside my head on how to build the mix i started to add my own finished projects and then looking for the material that was missing. I went through beatport.com a couple of million of times and i did only found 3 tracks that really impressed me and fit into this mix.

After a couple of weeks of searching under every rock for all tracks i started to complete the tracklist inside  my head. it wasnt easy as i wanted to make a mix that represent all my sound's im playing without becoming a huge mess, not easy at all as its all key mixed aswell in the end.... 

With 5 days left i started to make a winamp playlist with all the tunes i collected and already had, there was about 270 tracks that i had to select from, not easy! It actually took longer time to select each single track and the placement in the mix then actually mixing the mix itself..... I was also quite sad since i had to leave out soooo many good tunes that there wasnt time for in the mix. So if you are a producer and you sent me some awesome material and i said i really liked it but i didnt play it, well, it wasnt becuase i was lying, it was becuase there was no time for everything. And ofcourse, own material always goes first in such a mix.

Mixing the mix itself took about 7 hours in total, all done i Ableton Live 8 with a couple of millions of edits and automation lanes here and there! Once im back home im going to post a picture of how the mix looks in ableton :)

Im really greatful for all the fantastic feedback that iv had from this mix and iv also heard that BBC Radio1 was really really happy about it :) So that warms my heart to hear!

You can listen to my mix here:

Marcus Schossow - BBC Radio 1's Essential Mix (2010.10.16) by Marcus Schossow