The Real Poolmix 80’s (25th Anniversary Remaster) Vol.1 + 2.
These mixes were the first ‘full CD Length’ mixes, I ever made, back in 1999. I had very little experience mixing on a computer, and I had no professional equipment. What I did have, was a lot of 80’s music on vinyl, experience playing it In front of a crowd as a DJ, and I had a huge passion to ‘tell the 1980’s story’ in music.
Despite being quite primitive, these mixes spread and became very popular, and they have been stolen and sold, all over the world. I have heard them being played in bars and venues in both Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. I have seen them being sold in Turkey, Sunny Beach, Prague and even on Discogs. I have heard them on TV, being played at major sport events and I have even seen DJ’s pretending to be mixing, while a Poolmix was playing 
I’d be the first to say that Poolmix 80’s can in no way be considered technically advanced, even compared to the megamix standard back in 1999. The sound has never been very good, all songs were primitively recorded from vinyl’s (and a few even from cassette tape’s). It has been 25 years now, and Poolmix 80’s are still being shared on all major platforms. Over the years, the many downloads and conversions haven’t done the original sound quality any favor and today there are several different versions of the mixes floating around. In addition, people have created their own edits, covers and track lists full of flaws and mistakes.
I shouldn’t have any reason to be ashamed of the technical quality, I was a novice, and the mixes were made with the limited skills and equipment I had at the time. Poolmix 80’s was never created with any ambition or belief they could be in the same league as any of the established megamix names and series at the time. Ironically, and despite my continuous efforts to improve my mixing-skills, till this day, I am still being told that Poolmix 80’s are the best mixes I have ever made.
So, for everyone still enjoying these mixes, I have decided to revive Poolmix 80’s, because I want everyone to at least hear them, as they were originally intended to sound. A lot of work has gone into restoring them and to improve the sound quality. Only minor corrections have been done to the mixes themselves. Poolmix 80’s Volume two, which was always supposed to be one long mix, was split into 2 parts back then (due to CD limitations at the time), and it is now the one long mix it was intended to be.
The new titles ‘The Real Poolmix 80’s (25th Anniversary Remaster)’ is to easily distinguish them from all the poor-quality versions floating around. If you like the mixes, please share the links as you like, but please have the courtesy to link to the original creator.
So, I hope you will all enjoy these mixes for what they are: A unique 80’s track selection that does not only include the songs that has ‘survived’ the passing of time, but also the tracks that has not.
These are the hits of the 1980’s…….
DJ Pool
For fans and nerds. The Poolmix story and technical details below.
Poolmix
The ‘Pool’ concept was to mix all the songs, my friends and I had been listening to on our ‘Pool Cassette Tapes’ at various hotel-pools, when going on our summer party-vacations in our high-school years (late 80’s, early 90’s). And the songs should be in the EXACT same versions. So, most tracks were ripped from vinyl 12’’ or 7’’, but some were also ripped from vinyl album and even a few from cassette tapes. It also included bits & pieces from our favourite bootleg megamixes which is obviously very much frowned upon and a big no-no between established DJ’s and megamixers.
The first ‘Poolmix’ was just a silly thing between us friends. It was not even originally an 80’s mix and the tracklist includes many songs, that are not from the 80’s. I think less than 15 CDR copies were printed and distributed to the gang. I have not been able to track down any of them and I lost my own many years ago.
3 Poolmix of the 80’s was made subsequently, due to the unexpected popularity of the original mix.
Poolmix 80’s (Vol.1)
This mix was completed in March 1999.
Poolmix 80’s (Vol.2)
Part 1, Unknown but most likely late 1999.
Part 2, Completed in October 2000
As I recall, these mixes were released or shared in Germany or Australia by someone who called himself DJ Pool, and hence I was convinced by someone, I should take the name ‘DJ Pool DK’, which made sense at the time. I have never liked the name myself though and could wish today, we had chosen something different
Hardware used for ripping the songs in 1999
Technics SL1210 Turntable
Pioneer CDJ-500S CD Player
Pioneer DJM-500 Analogue Mixer
(I have not been able to track the brand of the cassette player but it wasn’t hight quality for sure)
Only the parts of the songs planned for use in the mix were ripped (not the entire song), and the parts were recorded and mixed in batches, as I did not have enough space on my AMD K6 500 Mhz PC.
The software used for the mixes was SAW, later SAW32 and SAWPRO. It only allowed one track or sample per track and the first version only had 16 tracks. So, after 16 tracks, you had to make sure everything sounded OK and boil it all down to one mix / track (no going back). There was no beat grid, no automation and it worked pretty much like mixing live. There was volume, EQ and a pitch-control (no master tempo / pitch correction). BPM count of songs was done manually (with a stopwatch) and only way of matching songs by key, was using the old ‘DJ-ear’.
2024 Remasters by Papa Branca
www.papabranca.com
The mixes have been ‘repaired’ and fixed spectrally, and the sound has been cleaned and balanced overall. Both mixes have undergone a complete phase correction, and the sound override has been removed / minimized (to the extent that I was possible) through interpolated and detailed work down to individual track and even sample-level.
(101)
