GRANDMIX 86

1st Broadcast 1986 on Radio Veronica

2nd Broadcast : Saturday 24th april 1999 from 18:00-19:00 Hours on Radio 538

Equipment
2 x SL1200mkII turntables with Stanton Triple E cartridges
1 x Teac Tascam mixer 3A (8 channels)
1 x Teac Tascam 4 channel tapedeck for tapeloops
1 x Master Recorder: Revox PR99 with Studer "Butterfly" recording heads.
Speed: 38 cm/s 2track
Tape: 1/4 inch BASF 911 at 510 nanoweber level

Background info
After gathering all the dance charts of the year, an initial list was made in the month
November. This list was sorted by tempo (BPM beats per minute) and on the 1st of
December, work was started on the mix. It took the full month of December to complete
and perfect the mix, usually working the last 72 hours in one stretch.

Reel to reel tape
These early Grandmixes were all edited on tape.
As the edited tape was the final thing, each edit and crossfade not only had to be
rhythmically correct, but even more important , at the right volume level. The mix
would otherwise become louder and louder, resulting in overload and distortion.
Ben never liked limiters and compressors on final mixes, so the grandmix was also made
without them.
This mix was transferred from analog tape to the Sony SL-F1 prior to broadcasting.

TV appearance
The Grandmix 86 was also the first mix that made it to a TV show. Mixes started to become
mainstream gathering a steady growing audience. Ben Liebrand was the first DJ/Producer to
show on TV how these mixes were made. On the TV show "Tineke" Ben demonstrated how
tapeloops worked, synchronizing records to tape-looped rhythm patterns live on stage.
As Tineke was switching between to sets of Studio decor for each interview, Ben had 7 minutes
to install a mixer, turntables and a four-track tape recorder, including selecting a tapeloop, and
synchronizing the record "Broken Wings" to this loop, whilst hooking up his system to the
TV studio set-up. The difficult bit was to stay "cool" (temperature wise) when the cameras
switched on.

Directors Cut
The Grandmix 86 as broadcasted 24th of April 1999 was transferred from to the Akai DD1000 .
The mix was then leveled to 0 dB and minor imperfections were corrected.
The intro starts of with "Timewarp complete - Ready for transmission" followed by the original
"Control" Intro featuring Ben Liebrand on Vocoder. The mix was then recorded on to DAT.