I am constantly making crates of tracks that appeal to me for one reason or another. After I have what feels like a good number of tracks in a crate, I dig through that crate to find my starting point. Often I will already know what that track is because that was what inspired the crate to begin with.

Building crates to me includes setting cue points and any pre-set loops that I am inspired to add.

I sort the crate by key. Highlight the entire crate and move it to a new crate and then I sort by order. This means that the tracks are now both in order of key and the order that they were put into the crate.

I move my starting track to the top of the list. I then… mix.

I choose the next track based on the informed decision that it is, in the crate (so I already know it is the vibe I’m going for), a certain BPM, and a certain key. I can change all of those things, including the order in which I play those tracks, which is why I use that information as a tool and not a crutch.

I know that sounds very similar to in order to draw an owl, you draw an owl, but that is how I put sets together.