Spotify Lossless is all that everyone can talk about at the moment – who can blame them, we’ve waited long enough – but although Lossless is the new queen bee of the app’s ecosystem, I still can’t get the Spotify Mix playlist tool out of my head.
Spotify Mix is now rolling out to Premium subscribers, but I was lucky enough to get my hands on it a few weeks back – I was given early access to the feature after joining a livestream launch event for invited media. Since then, I’ve been experimenting with it as much as I can across my playlists, and I have to say, Spotify has ticked a lot of boxes with the feature.
Mix is essentially Spotify’s answer to Apple Music’s AutoMix, which uses artificial intelligence to blend the end of one song into the beginning of another like a DJ would during a set. With Spotify Mix, it requires a bit more work than Apple’s mixing tool, but the results are a lot more rewarding.
Aside from a few minor setbacks, which I’ll get into below, Spotify Mix has been well received by users who are starting to get access to it. Some are already saying it’s one of the best features the music streaming service has launched – and I can totally see why.
More creativity, more control
Compared to my experience with Apple Music’s AutoMix, Spotify’s Mix tool puts you directly in the DJ booth. You can find the Mix button in any of your personal Spotify playlists, and when Mix is enabled, transition buttons appear in between each song, along with details including song duration, beats per minute, and key to allow for smoother transitions.
As for the transitions themselves, this is where the real fun starts.
Tapping on a transition tab opens a page that looks a lot like audio mixing software, and it’s fairly simple to use. You can decide where you want the transition to occur in a song, with the option to adjust volume, EQ, and effects.
In most cases you can customize how long your tracks transition for, with a choice of three options; 2 bars, 4 bars, or 8 bars – I find that longer transitions sound better. Or if you don’t have a lot of time, you can easily select one of the transition presets (Auto, Fade, Rise, Blend, Wave, Melt, or Slam), and you can also fine-tune any of these.
If beat-matching between two songs isn’t possible you’ll get an alert to that effect, and you can resolve this by editing the order of a playlist to pair tracks with similar keys and BPM.
Some minor faults, but not awful overall
Not every new feature Spotify is 100% perfect, and the same applies to Mix. I’ve previously addressed some of the biggest unanswered questions about the feature, and highlighted some of its limitations.
As well as its incompatibility with Spotify Connect, one of the main setbacks that I’ve picked up on is that you can’t view or save playlists mixed by others – which would be a fun way for users who are also budding DJs to share their curated playlists – hopefully Spotify can add this functionality in a future update.
Another minor issue is that Spotify Mix isn’t necessarily designed to suit all types of playlists, so I’d take note of that before you start to mix one of your more mellow playlists for example. However, it’s a great way to enhance your more upbeat playlists, especially if you have a running playlist or one filled with pop bangers, both of which I’ve a blast curating.
Prior to getting Mix I relied on the classic crossfade function to have a continuous flow of music to keep me motivated while running. It did the trick to an extent, but adding custom transitions with Mix has given my running soundtrack an entirely new energy. The same goes for my pop-infused playlist, which is perfect for getting the party started.
I can’t speak for all users, but for me, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives – and I’m definitely not done with exploring mixed playlists. As far as Spotify’s newest features go, Mix is up there with Upcoming Releases as one of my favorite additions to the interface. I just hope that Spotify will listen to user feedback, and make Mix even better in the future.
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rowan.davies@futurenet.com (Rowan Davies)
