For publishers with catalogs that have a number of mixes (or alternative versions) of their main tracks, our new ‘Mixes’ feature gives them an option to have them grouped together with each of their main tracks. This article explains how this feature works and how to set it up according to your catalog and licensing store needs.

Example of mixes

For example if the main track is a 3 minute song with vocals, some mix versions might be:

Mix A – Bed, song without vocals which could be used as a sound bed or accompaniment track.
Mix B – Instrumental version of song, using for example a guitar or piano to play the lead melody.
Mix C – 60 second (instrumental version)
Mix D – 30 second
Mix E – DnB (drums and bass) only mix
Mix F – Full-length instrumental with no drums
Mix G – Bumper, used at end of audio or audio/visual presentation, typically 3 – 5 seconds long

Though any song/track can have a number of opitional mix versions, most catalogs and libraries normally focus on a set that works best for their type of catalog, ranging from 2 or 3, up to as high as 6 or 7 mix tracks.

Generally it’s best to to keep the same number of mixes for each main track, and keep the same set of mixes to be consistent, so music supervisors and licensing clients know what’s available and what to expect in terms of your catalog offering.

Typical set of mixes

For catalogs that only have instrumental music (without lyrics and vocals), this might be a typical set of mixes:

15 Second
30 Second
60 Second
Bed
DnB
No Drums
Bumper

In the example above, there’s a total of 7 unique mixes.

How to add track mixes

To add track mixes on the Tracks/Songs > Edit Track page, start with the same name as the main track title followed by a colon and then the unique mix name.

Example
Song Name
Song Name : Mix A
Song Name : Mix B
Song Name : Mix C

In the above example, you’ll find the main “Song Name” track in your store with the “3 mixes” notice below the title. When you click the mixes notice, they will open up in their own mixes box.

Tips:
1. Mixes are a handy way to group various track versions together in your store, and each mix track still counts as a “song” in regards to your LQ plan total tracks limit. For example, if you have 50 main tracks and each has 3 mixes, that’s a total of 50 tracks + 150 mixes = 200 total tracks.

2. After the colon you can use any subtrack mix title you wish, as long as the main title remains exactly the same.

3. If you change your mind or don’t need the mix version(s) anymore, rename them to another track title, or delete them from your catalog.

4. If you are importing tracks from a spreadsheet, on a CSV file, the same rule applies by using the “colon” to designate the mix tracks as shown in the example above.

Main vs mix track search functions

The mix (child) tracks will be found only by searching for the main (parent) tracks, hence the main track’s meta-data (tags or custom fields) should include some information about the mix tracks which can picked up by the store’s search functions, including the keyword searches and various filters. In other words, even though the mix track’s description, tags and other fields data can be viewed in the store (when selecting or playing the mix track), the search engine will only search for data among the main track titles. To summarize, this means the search results will only “return” the main tracks that qualify best for any given search and filtering.

With a bit of planning, you can set up a nicely streamlined catalog that’s optimized to keep all mix tracks grouped together with the main (primary) song / track titles they belong to. When buyers add mix tracks to a projects folder in your store, they can then get price quotes, send inquiries, license and download them as any other main track in your store.