This weeks web site is a blog styled site I have come across which lists competitions on the internet where you have to remix a track in order to win something or get your remixed track released in some way. Reeemix lists a good number of these competitions from around the globe and also splits them up into those which are running and those which have ended. No matter what your genre of music you make is, I’m sure you’ll find a remix comp to have a go at.

I’ve had a go at the Bus Records one this week for Flip Side by Prime Time and had some great fun doing it. I didn’t listen to the track before doing it, just downloaded the sample pack and then listened to the track afterwards. Not sure that was a wise move though as it turned out very different, we’ll see whether it was if I win :-). If you want to have a go at remixing someone else’s work, Reeemix is a great little site. I found that my track turned out very different to my normal creations because you start off with samples that you may never of chose yourself. I might have a go at the 4Hero - Mr Kirk’s Nightmare one next as I actually remember that track from when I was about 10 years old.

One thing I try to do when creating drums for my tracks is to really try and get a BIG sound. I love big fat drum sounds :-). The drum tracks are the first part of a track that I lay down and I believe that if I can get the drums to sound great to me before putting any other sounds on, I know that my track will sound great to me also. One way I try to get a great drum track is by manipulating every single drum sound and layering it up so for example my main snare sound could have as many as five or six different snare samples in there. These are my tips and also my routine that I use for creating multi layered drum samples.

I use the Redrum in Reason for my drum layering because if you flip it over you can link the gate out on one sample to a gate in on another sample. This means that when sample one gets hit all the samples linked through these gate outs/ins will play together. This means that I can then manipulate each drum sound individually on the front of Redrum and play them together very easily. Whatever software or hardware you use, you need some way of editing each drum sound you are going to layer as well as some easy way to play all sounds together. This should make drum layering a much easier process.

Now you need some samples and there are loads to be had for free around the internet (Free Sound Samples). I doesn’t matter if some of these drum sounds you download sound weak or sound too much like a drum machine as when we layer them up they will sound stronger and very different. You need a good selection of different hits organised into categories (Kicks, Snare etc) so that you can choose a few that you like to layer up easily.

I start off by loading a single hit and manipulate it to how I want it to sound. Usually this is by pitching the drum sound up or down, changing the length, change the tone etc. Just do what sounds good to you for that particular drum sound. Don’t be afraid to change it drastically, or edit it in a audio editor either.

Now I find another drum sound that sounds nice with my first sound, I link the samples together (explained above) and listen to them together. You want to get a nice sounding mix between these two drum sounds so you can hear them both at the level you want to hear each of them. Now edit our new drum sample exactly like we did with the first by changing the pitch etc until we find something that sounds like what we want and mixes nicely with the other drum sound (re-adjust the levels if you have to). Now repeat this by layering up even more samples until you are happy with the overall sound of all samples together.

After this add any processing (for example a bit of compression or EQ). The example above shows a very basic drum layering technique and the more you do this yourself the more you will find different combinations of samples that will sound great with each other and find your own techniques that give you your own sound.

Here are some more of my tips that I use for multi-layering certain drums.

• Multi-layering kick drums can be trickiest as when we add more and more kicks our drum sound can actually sound weaker and more muffled as they are all fighting for space. You can stop this from happening by EQing each kick to have different dominant frequencies. For example if you are layering 3 kicks, on kick one increase the volume of 30Hz to 60Hz (or decrease the frequencies outside this band), on kick two increase the volume of 80Hz to 120Hz and on kick three increase say 150Hz to 180Hz. This will give each of our kicks a different space in the mix between them.
• Try layering bass sounds with your kicks. Create a very quick bass sound so it’s the length of your kick, filter out any high frequencies and then layering it together with your kick can give a nice low end sounding kick if done properly.
• For snares reduce one sample in length so it’s very short with hardly any tail (a snare that sounds poppy or cracky at the start) and layer this with another sound that has a nice sounding tail will create a very nice effect. This works great too with layering different crash and ride cymbals as well as other drums.
• Pitch up and down the same sample. For example take sample one and pitch it down, then take the same sample in another channel and pitch it up. Try this with already layered samples, by exporting your multi layered samples then reimporting.
• and finally experiment with different drum sounds as much as you can, drum layering seriously increases the number of samples and styles of drum hits available to us for music production and is well worth having a mess around with.

There is a lot to the art of drum layering, but I think once you know the basics you will develop your own techniques and way of doing it and in the process the sound of your music will benefit and you will create your own sounding style by creating different drum sounds that others don’t have.

Tutorial written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.

Recently I completed a remix as an entry into a remix contest. I haven’t done too much remixing before but I think I did pretty well with the track I remixed and thought I would share my thoughts, tips and ideas about the remixing process and what seemed to work well for me when remixing.

The track I remixed was called Nude - Dreams for their remix contest. You can hear the end remix that I came up with on my MySpace Page.

I found myself approaching the remix very differently to the way I would normally go about making a track completely from scratch. The reason is that most of the musical ideas are already there in front of you in the original and it is less about musical creativity and making sounds and more focused towards musical arrangement.

The main aim I started with was to take the track, try to keep the main elements and feel but add my own style to it. It is a balance I think you want to try to get right. You don’t want to sound too much like the original mix, but you don’t want to stray too far from the original that it wouldn’t really be classed as a remix. To achieve this aim I think it is a good idea to limit the amount of times you listen to the original. Listening too much could slow your creativity as the original might stick in your head.

In the contest I took part in, you were given the loops of each part/instrument of the track and the vocals. The first job I did was to cut these loops up and save individual hits of drums/instruments ready for import into Reason. For example I took kick, snare, and hat samples from the drums, a few bass notes from the baseline etc. I then cleaned all these individual hit samples up slightly by fading in or out the first and last few milliseconds to remove any of those nasty clicks you get.

Next I decided I wasn’t keen on the original 135bpm as I found that speed slightly too fast for my style of drums so I slowed it down to 124bpm. I noticed that most of the other current entries had stuck to the 135bpm and that is just fine, but if you do want to change the bpm your going to have to do either some time-stretching of any loops or your going to have to cut up each note in the loop and retrigger the samples.

It’s probably best if your using the loops to decide on a bpm and stick to it, otherwise it can be a real pain going and re-timestretching loops later. Timestretching can introduce some unwanted effects such as echos so you don’t want to go too overboard with huge changes in tempo (unless you want these effects).

I found that cutting loops into phrases allowed me to be a bit more experimental as you have more control over when each phrase will get triggered. It’s better than just putting the full loop over the top as you can start to add your own timings and variations of these phrases much easier later on.

Once I had the loops and samples in the shape I wanted them in, I started to import them into Reason. Using a sampler such as those in Reason which allows multiple samples to be allocated to different keys on the keyboard really worked well here. You can set out all your cut up loop phrases so they can be played in order. You will also find it easier if you tune any of the individual samples to their appropiate keys at this point too.

As you can see I spent lots of time preparing the samples and importing them before even trying to lay any sort of track out. I had basically setup every part of the original mix and made it possible to play every part easily on the keyboard too. This can be a bit time consuming at first but once this is done the fun begins.

I started to play with the drums as this is where I usually start with my own tracks. I wanted to try and keep as many of the original drum samples in as possible, I think this is a good way of trying to achieve the aim of not go too far away from the original but the drum tracks is the place in a remix where you can really give a remix your own style. I only introduced a few new drum sounds when I couldn’t get the sound I wanted by layering these new samples with the originals.

For each of the instrumental parts I was to play along to the original track and then to go and play along to my own beat and try and vary it slightly in both timing and note sequence but sticking to the same set of notes used in the original. It seemed to work for me and the track built up reasonably quick.

Adding your own parts to make the track stand out from other remixes in a contest is I think a good idea. Use the same scale/notes as the other instruments and try to make it fit well. As long as you don’t make it too different and have enough sections from the original you should be ok. I added two new main sections that were not in the original.

Firstly a synth line that just went for 16 bars, it is smack in the centre of the track but it fits well, uses the same scale, it’s short as I don’t think you should make any personalised sections that stand out too long as that would have broken my main aim. Next I added a guitar sound but I faded it back into the mix a lot to disguise it. Putting a sound further back in the mix allows you to make a section go for longer without going too far off track.

When adding your own sections it is a good idea to not use any copyrighted samples that you don’t own if your entering a remix contest which has the possibility of release. It saves hassle later and there are loads of great sites for free sounds.

Effects is where you can again add your own mark to the track so you will want to do this similarly to how you would normally. Careful not to add too many effects especially if the samples you were given already have a lot of effects on. During mix down stage try to emulate the original in terms of overall frequency levels, if the original mix down sounds brighter than yours, then your remix is going to sound dull. Same goes with overall volume, use a limiter to bring your track upto the same volume levels without distorting your track.

Anyway those are my thoughts on producing a remix that came out of personally doing one. If anyone has anything to add that they think is important or different views on remixing please add them to the comments of this post. If your looking for a remix contest to have a go at, try the site Reeemix.

Article written for Rhythm Creation by Edward Cufaude