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 This was requested in the Electronic Music thread and the last thread like this has dropped off into archives, so I'm here to give it another shot.What is a remix anyway? A remix is an alternate version or edit of a song that differs a little or a lot from the original version, usually to make it club-friendly or for weird artistic reasons. Early remixing mostly extended songs or accentuated or removed certain parts to change songs. Electronic music and genres related to it make extensive use of remixes to breathe new life into old songs, to rework a song to fit a different genre, and in some cases just to let engineers and other studio musicians gently caress around with songs for art's sake. There's a lot more to it but we're mostly here to remix and be remixed, not to learn various aspects of the history of electronic music. How do I remix (or get remixed)? There are a few different ways to go about this. Firstly, musicians can give other musicians access to master recordings to make B-sides, remix albums, and the like. These are usually the ones you'll see on singles and hear in clubs. Your chances of getting the masters for that pop act on the radio or from your favorite band are unfortunately pretty slim. There are a few ways around this. Firstly you could make bootleg remixes, wherein you take the original completed song and cut loops, phrases, and samples out of it, then build them back together along with your own production and sounds. I personally don't like doing this but if you have the patience to chop things up and rearrange them, the results can be impressive. This is most often done without the original artist's permission. Another option is taking advantage of various remix contests to get your hands on track stems or "remix kits," collections of sound files, either in their entirety or as a collection of loops and samples. Opinions on the contests themselves vary, and I mostly see negativity, since they can be predatory and rip off or mislead the winners, but they often feature bigger artists and they're usually freely downloadable. Beatport Play usually hosts large contests, and I've found a site that consolidates contests from other sources. Some artists heartily endorse fan-made remixes, most notably Nine Inch Nails, who have provided an extensive collection of stems and Garage Band/Ableton Live files on their website. The Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D album included a disc with track stems for all of the original songs on Year Zero. If Wikipedia is to be trusted, Björk and Public Enemy endorse fan remixes, among other groups. Furthermore, some groups will release a cappella versions of their songs, allowing fans to "remix" them by essentially writing completely new music to go with the lyrics. I personally don't like this, as it doesn't really seem like remixing to me. Regardless, some people do really cool things with a cappella tracks. Lastly, independent artists can talk with each other and trade stems or remix kits amongst themselves, which is why we're here in this thread  OK, how do I remix? I won't go into extensive details, but nowadays you'll want a nice PC or Mac with appropriate sound hardware and a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) of some sort that allows you to load various sound files, instruments, and effects to build your remix. The major ones I can think of off the top of my head are Ableton Live, ProTools, Logic, and Reason (v6+). I honestly couldn't tell you much about how it was done before computers became commonplace in studios. I can imagine it was much more time-consuming and difficult. I never learned how to splice tape. Depending on just how you want to remix a song, you can do something as simple as replacing beats or looping sections to extend it, to completely tearing a song apart and building something new that only vaguely resembles the original, which can be great fun despite the effort it takes. There really isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to go about it as long as the end result is something you like. You can utilize dozens of weird filters and effects to warp instruments into something new, add your own production to a song, completely rearrange everything, or just emphasize the parts you like the most. I'm a goon musician and want to be remixed! That's one reason this thread is here! Other goons and myself enjoy remixing things regardless of genre and all you've got to do is post a link to the original song (Hell, this isn't even necessary if you want really interesting reinterpretations) and a remix kit. This can be the entire collection of track stems (drums, bass, guitar, etc.) from a multitrack session, or it can be a zip file full of the basic loops or other such building blocks for your song. You'll probably need a reliable file host to share these, as WAV or AIFF files can get fairly large quickly. I usually use Dropbox or Google Drive. If you have an idea for what direction you'd like things to take, include that or leave us to our own devices and we'll come up with something unique or outright weird. Make sure you include the original tempo in BPM so that things don't get all wrecked up when others load them into a DAW at whatever default tempo it uses. I still don't quite understand the concept of a remix!  That's OK, I'll include a few examples of things I've personally done, along with the originals for comparison: Garbage: Automatic Systematic Habit vs. Automatic Systematic Habit (Killhamster's Dragged Out Remix) Nine Inch Nails: Only vs. Only (Killhamster's 'Things Aren't As Pretty' Remix) Kai Handberg: Priority Once vs. Priority One (Killhamster's Dark Energy Remix) (This came from the last remix thread) Mixerbio: People Person feat. Wormwood vs. People Person feat. Wormwood (Danny Carnage Remix) (This one came from the last thread too) OK, let's do this! Post here to get remixed, to remix each other, and to let everybody else know you want to remix them. We can dig through each other's Soundcloud profiles, Bandcamps, etc. for songs we want to play with, and show off remixes you may have already done. If there's enough interest, we can also delve into the history of remixing and share techniques and advice. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than myself can explain just how it happened before computers were a thing 
killhamster fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 23:37
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Cool, I'll get the ball rolling: https://soundcloud.com/colugo/bag-in-a-bag Stems: https://mega.co.nz/#!11JREB6Z!sy9fLm40Ry027QLFWnzgzaELEmKViiDt8r_K9Dr5V2M I can provide stems for most of the recent stuff on my soundcloud page, just let me know if you're interested.
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Jul 29, 2014 20:19
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I'm keen for this, I've been looking at the remixcomp website for a while but haven't really done much with any of the ones I have attempted, working with predefined stems makes me feel a bit limited and I run into a wall pretty quickly. I've done some remixes of my younger brothers stuff, but in those cases it's more a rearrange and polish as opposed to complete reinterpretation. When you guys approach a remix do you have a genre in mind to take the track towards? Or maybe try and integrate it into an in-progress project you have going already? At what point would you say a song stops being a remix and becomes an independent track that merely samples parts from another? Dicky B posted:Cool, I'll get the ball rolling: Those are some weird sounds man, I'd never think to come up with something like that. There were a few sections in there where a certain group of sounds or a phrase sparked off something in my head so I'll see what I can do. I've yet to publish any of my own stuff online but I'm far more comfortable sharing a reworking of someone elses work so I have the fallback excuse of "don't like it? blame that guy, it's his song...". Keep bumping this thread too, I hate seeing interesting stuff in ML fizzle out after a half dozen replies and then disappear into the archives.
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Jul 30, 2014 09:35
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RandomCheese posted:I'm keen for this, I've been looking at the remixcomp website for a while but haven't really done much with any of the ones I have attempted, working with predefined stems makes me feel a bit limited and I run into a wall pretty quickly. I've done some remixes of my younger brothers stuff, but in those cases it's more a rearrange and polish as opposed to complete reinterpretation. When you guys approach a remix do you have a genre in mind to take the track towards? Or maybe try and integrate it into an in-progress project you have going already? Sometimes I go into things with a very distinct idea in mind, like "I want to rework this into a psytrance track" or "this would be awesome as drum & bass" but sometimes I just sit and solo/mute individual tracks and play with the tempo and just see where it takes me. I have stolen drumloops and other parts from stalled ideas and stuck them into remixes but that can be kind of hit-or-miss depending on the sounds. RandomCheese posted:At what point would you say a song stops being a remix and becomes an independent track that merely samples parts from another? I tend to synthesize a lot more than I sample, so I'm not sure I'd be best equipped to answer this. Maybe some other goon could chime in here  RandomCheese posted:I'm far more comfortable sharing a reworking of someone elses work so I have the fallback excuse of "don't like it? blame that guy, it's his song...". It's also a great way to practice your mixing/production/arrangement techniques and stave off creative slumps. When I get stuck and can't seem to write, it's great to pull up someone else's work, see how they do things, and then totally destroy it and rebuild it from the ground up.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:40
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Here are two tracks I already had stemmed out for some friends. Would love to see them remixed! Ok, Soda (108bpm) Original Stems Refraction (90bpm) Original Stems I'll keep my eye on this thread because I also love doing remixes myself. I find them easy to start because I have a clear base for my track rather than having to start from complete scratch with an original track. My approach to doing a remix is usually to take small melodic phrases from the original and try to expand on them, but with my own style. I tend to re-harmonize the track a bit too. SineRider fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 16:26
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SineRider posted:Here are two tracks I already had stemmed out for some friends. Would love to see them remixed! I downloaded both of these to play with but I forgot to put a very important note in the OP, I'll be going back to include it. What BPM are each of these at originally? killhamster fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 23:33
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killhamster posted:I downloaded both of these to play with but I forgot to put a very important note in the OP, I'll be going back to included it. What BPM are each of these at originally? Oh durr, completely forgot! I'll edit the BPM into my post once I check the files.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:31
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This one came out pretty quickly, sometimes that happens and I can knock out a track or two in a couple of days  Lakewaves - Refraction (Killhamster Remix)
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Aug 4, 2014 23:06
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I'm back in town after several vacations and have things to share: Worlds of Ice (80 BPM) Unmanufacture (180 BPM) One from each end of my weird musical spectrum, if anybody wants something to play around with.
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Aug 14, 2014 23:11
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I like doing remixes/remix comps. I've done two remix comps so far and they are fun and a decent way to get exposure even if you don't win. Here's my latest remix: https://soundcloud.com/ttinga/kai-pattenberg-drumheads-ttinga-remix
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Aug 15, 2014 18:30
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SineRider posted:Ok, Soda (108bpm) https://soundcloud.com/colugo/sinerider-ok-soda-colugo-remix
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Aug 17, 2014 23:04
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killhamster posted:This one came out pretty quickly, sometimes that happens and I can knock out a track or two in a couple of days Dicky B posted:Finished! That was fun Both of these are excellent! Cogulo, your edits are really crazy intricate, and I love it. I'm currently working on a remix of Bag in a Bag and it's slowly coming along.
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Aug 17, 2014 23:18
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Just finished this one up last night, but it looks like you already found it: https://soundcloud.com/killhamster/sinerider-ok-soda-killhamsters-sugar-rush-mixDicky B posted:Finished! That was fun I'd be upset that this is so short but there's so much packed into it that it's not disappointing at all. Really cool remix
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Aug 22, 2014 18:35
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