How to use the Set Builder canvas

TL;DR — watch the video to see the set builder in action. For a deeper dive, read on.

Why it's a canvas

A vinyl set shouldn't be a playlist. But every set starts with practice and exploration, these are the ingredients that allow you to level up: you learn which records carry a room, what feels right.

When I designed the set builder, I didn't want it looking like a list. A list is useful, but more as a reference. What you actually need is a canvas to lay your ideas out on. Being able to see the releases and connect tracks — helping you visualise your ideas.

Getting started

The Set Builder lives in you account, so to use it, sign in, then go to My Crates → My Sets (under the Crate Sets section) → Set Builder.

The shelf on the left holds the records in your crates — everything you've bought from the store. Search it by title or artist, click a record, and it lands on the canvas. Drag it wherever you want it.

Records sitting in your cart turn up on the shelf too, so you can build with them before you've paid for anything. If a set contains records you haven't bought yet, a band appears at the top with a Complete this set link.

Don't own anything yet? That's OK — you can use the demo to test out a house or techno set.

Pro tip: Fit brings the whole set back into frame when you've got a lot going on. And the zoom percentage in the bottom corner is a button — click it and you're back to 100%.

Joining track to track

Creating a relationship between two tracks is easy, links go from a track to a track. Click the dot next to a track, then click the dot next to the track you want to go into, and the line is drawn between them.

Note: The direction is the order you clicked: mix out of the first, into the second. That matters, because pitch is calculated asymmetrically. Taking 140 down to 136 is not the same move as taking 136 up to 140. Make sure the direction is flowing the way you intended.

What the link tells you

Click the ring on any link and the panel opens with three things on it.

The pitch figure. This represents how far the incoming record has to move to sit with the one before it, as a percentage — the number you'd be reaching for the fader to find. If it's more than the fader has, it will show a warning. That ceiling is ±8%, the standard pitch range on a Technics 1200, and honestly, past that you're going to struggle to mix it.

Keys, in their colours. To make life easier for you, we use the same colours the store uses. Compatible means the same key, its relative major or minor, or one step around the circle of fifths — the same rule the key wheel uses on the Advanced Key Search page.

The clash warning. When two linked tracks don't sit well together harmonically, the warning is written into the track list, so you can see the problem without opening anything.

A disclaimer. Pitch, BPM and key are best effort. Accuracy depends on the BPM you're actually running and on how well key and BPM analysis went when the tracks were imported. Treat all of it as a guide.

A note on harmonic mixing: a key clash shouldn't stop you trying a combination. Think of this as a set of visual tools to help you think about the way you mix. Nothing beats knowing your music and learning to feel your way through a mix — hopefully these tools add to that.

Target BPM

Put your target in the Target BPM box at the top of the canvas. Every card then gets a pitch column: for each track, the tempo it's printed at, the tempo you're taking it to, the percentage that takes, how many cents that is, and the key you actually land in.

Remember: On vinyl the key moves with the fader, so pitching a record to fit a set is also transposing it.

The column tells you roughly where the pitch will sit, and warns you when a track needs more than the fader has — which is really helpful when you're mixing across styles with larger BPM gaps.

Tip: it's optional, but really useful when you're first digging through your crates.

Notes to help you practice

There are three places you can leave a note.

On a record. I tend to write about the release itself — the vibe I get from it, when I've played it, or just whether it's a favourite.

On a link. The mix, not the record. This is probably the most useful note you can leave yourself. I write about how the two tracks went together: bass-lines or mids that clash, that sort of thing.

Anywhere on the canvas. General notes about the set itself — what it does, where I'd play it, what I liked or didn't like about it.

Branching from tracks

There are so many ways to mix the same track. You might love playing it one way in one set and a completely different way in another. That's the beauty of branching: you can branch off the same track to different destinations, and every branch creates a new flow — a different feeling for the set. You can listen to each one while you're building, which is where a lot of the ideas come from.

Flows

The minute you link one track to another you've created a flow. The flows panel appears in the corner and lists every route through the set. Branch in different places and each branch becomes its own flow.

You can have up to twelve routes, and a route can be up to forty tracks long.

Autosave

Sets save automatically and live on the My Sets page: name them, open them, delete them. You can currently save up to 200 sets.

Taking it to the booth

Building a set at a desk and playing one in a live setting are very different jobs. When your set is ready, Mix this set opens it in mix view.

Mix view is really for reading, not editing. All of your release and transition notes, keys, BPMs and the pitch shift between every pair of tracks, laid out in a list and built for mobile.

There are two ways to follow a set:

1. Flow moves through one route start to finish, the way you planned it.
2. Branch keeps the set live and you can switch flows at each branch.

There's a Print button too, which prints the route you're looking at as a running order, if you'd rather use the traditional method of writing it down.

Tip: your sets are saved onto the device you opened them on, which helps when you're Wi-Fi is patchy.

Remember: part of mixing is being in the moment. I'd rather hear a vinyl set with some bumps and left turns than a pre-planned one that feels stale, or like a playlist. Spontaneity, and the connection with the music, is what makes a live set. These tools are here to fill the gaps and give you a baseline to launch from.

— JJ, inklusv Records