Remix Competition 3 - Bend it.

Neurojazz

Ok, difficult to pick the winner as 2 people filled even amounts of the requirements... so for their efforts - congratulations to:-

Splitrmx for getting the midi part 100%
&
Krd for supplying an excellent annotated write up - midi was slightly off.


For the next competition - one last task.

I will give some hints from the off to help people get their heads around this typical problem.

Here is the midi part:-
http://spiralking.com/boardscompo/

Now, here's the challenge/scenario.

Labels need remixes to pad out tracks / sell more records. A remixer need to be able to take something that is either great and make it better or take utter crap and make it awesome.

The midi i've supplied is rubbish - it's the worse possible scenario for a remixer (apart from KLF) - BUT, here's what you can crack by going for this.


We are looking for getting your skills up with presentation and colouring sound. By this I mean using intervals, clever bass work and chords to colour the simple melody supplied.

Technically - for those unsure, you need to pick/find a scale that the melody note is in and use every other note as a bassline or chord to 'change' the sound/feel of that simple melody note as tastefully as possible.

If you don't understand still, or get a problem - post and discuss.

The person to 'bend it' the most and create something musical wins - this will be the final 'technical task' - and my feedback will be as before.

Post your mixes here:- http://soundcloud.com/groups/boards-ie

Don't Blow your mixes!

Please post before Sunday Morning.

krd

Neurojazz wrote: »

Krd for supplying an excellent annotated write up - midi was slightly off.

[/QOUTE]

I was wondering. I could hear something a little off - but I thought it could have been the Ableton warp - I haven't learned how to use it properly yet. I can be slightly off. I did my notes in 16ths and didn't make a serious attempt at accenting.

[QOUTE]


The midi i've supplied is rubbish - it's the worse possible scenario for a remixer (apart from KLF) - BUT, here's what you can crack by going for this.

You want us to build a complete track around that piece of MIDI?
That 1 bar - 3 note - piece of Midi?


Something I found on line.

A complete copy of the KLF's The Manual - 1988.
http://www.kirps.com/web/main/resources/music/themanual/

It's an interesting read. Even though it was written in 88 - it's fresh and relevant - even though Top of the pops doesn't exist any more.

romarr

Neurojazz wrote: »

Splitrmx for getting the midi part 100%
&
Krd for supplying an excellent annotated write up - midi was slightly off.

could you post the victor's files so we can have a look see ?

krd

romarr wrote: »

could you post the victor's files so we can have a look see ?

Here's mine http://drop.io/krdremix2

There's not much to it - an I'm off somewhere

But there's pictures there that explain how I did what I did.

splitrmx

http://www.splitradix.com/klf/

Neurojazz

krd wrote: »

You want us to build a complete track around that piece of MIDI?
That 1 bar - 3 note - piece of Midi?

Yep. I want to see how creative people are with working with very little - hopefully will also show others many techniques... like inversions, how chords colour a single note, bassline and how they do it.

Remember also you could use trickery to expand on the melody.

Imagine *insert some flash DJs name here* was paying you 40k to do the remix just after he's done a years supply of *insert drug of choice*.

Android 666

Okay, got my laptop back on line (loose connection from the motherboard to the monitor, a tap to the plastic connector was all it took in the end) so I'm up for this week's challenge. Can we do anything we want with these three notes? Don't want to be sounding dumb but it seems extremely open ended…

Neurojazz

Android 666 wrote: »

Okay, got my laptop back on line (loose connection from the motherboard to the monitor, a tap to the plastic connector was all it took in the end) so I'm up for this week's challenge. Can we do anything we want with these three notes? Don't want to be sounding dumb but it seems extremely open ended…

There's only one note to the melody and a guiding chord underneath - it is open ended as in you'll need to open up your mojo bag of tricks to work that limited data to the max.

Inversions, Counters, tuned percussion and anything else you can think of to colour what's going on.

krd

I'm having less problems with this than Duderstat.

However I am have problems.

Back to a question I've asked before - I use Ableton 7 not 8.

There's two native drum machines Impulse and the Drum rack. On 7 - the drum rack allows you to assign a separate track for effects and automation to each sound. Impulse on 7 doesn't allow you to do this.

For lots of reasons Impulse is handier than the drum rack - but I can't do things like drop a compressor on the kick etc - without a separate Impulse for each hit.

I'm really trying to work on my sounds. My drums don't sound that great.

Neurojazz

krd wrote: »

I'm having less problems with this than Duderstat.

However I am have problems.

Back to a question I've asked before - I use Ableton 7 not 8.

There's two native drum machines Impulse and the Drum rack. On 7 - the drum rack allows you to assign a separate track for effects and automation to each sound. Impulse on 7 doesn't allow you to do this.

For lots of reasons Impulse is handier than the drum rack - but I can't do things like drop a compressor on the kick etc - without a separate Impulse for each hit.

I'm really trying to work on my sounds. My drums don't sound that great.

Try this:-

Kicks/snares:- Add an eq and clean the sound up and add a little warmth where you want it, Add a touch of overdrive (tiny little bit), add one compressor 1/4 ratio and knock 3db of it with a slow attack (to get the twack of the drum) and then another compressor to lift if - set to infintite ratio, fast attack and fast release - ram the threshold down until the MP forum complain bitterly. Same for the snare except more overdrive. while you're doing that, add some dirt to the hats also.

That might help get some guts in your drums - but be gentle with pushing all this out the master buss - unless you're making techno for 12"s then ram it right up.

Choice of kicks can take hours - if in doubt check out the vengeance stuff and slap the muso/producers who say that they are over used - remember your making music for dancers, not producers (real important!)

krd

Neurojazz wrote: »

Try this:-

Kicks/snares:- Add an eq and clean the sound up and add a little warmth where you want it, Add a touch of overdrive (tiny little bit), add one compressor 1/4 ratio and knock 3db of it with a slow attack (to get the twack of the drum) and then another compressor to lift if - set to infintite ratio, fast attack and fast release - ram the threshold down until the MP forum complain bitterly. Same for the snare except more overdrive. while you're doing that, add some dirt to the hats also.

That might help get some guts in your drums - but be gentle with pushing all this out the master buss - unless you're making techno for 12"s then ram it right up.

Choice of kicks can take hours - if in doubt check out the vengeance stuff and slap the muso/producers who say that they are over used - remember your making music for dancers, not producers (real important!)

Thanks for the advice.

I think a major thing is I've just switched to my monitors - I did it on the last night before finishing my Duderstat remix - which meant it was too bloody late to do anything about the crappy drums.

I spent an inordinate number of hours trying to get that squishy clap - and never got anywhere near it.

And then - I realised I was thinking all the wrong way about the drums - but it was too late to do anything even then.

The Groove - The Groove - I know what it is - and spiritually I can feel it - I just don't know how to do it yet. And I'm of the belief, you could do an entire house track without a kick or a snare or a clap - as long as the Groove is there - no one will notice.

Groove is actually far more important than being in tune. If a few bits are out but they groove - it stills sounds great.

I've got bits ready for Remix 3 - They're good bits. But I'll blow them because apart from lack many skills, technical limitations, personal limitations etc - Two skills I do not have down; Groove and Flow.

Groove is the Groove; It's in the heart - but if you can't get it in the DAW, you're fcuked.

Flow; It's the arrangement - but not the arrangement in a mechanical sense - Just where it all makes sense. You can have a great 4 bar groove - but turning it into a full track that makes sense.

The production techniques and tricks are all very well - but if they don't fit in to the groove and flow, they're worse than useless. You'd nearly be better off with the most basic drum machine and something with oscillators on it that has an arpegitator

Neurojazz

krd wrote: »

The Groove - The Groove - I know what it is - and spiritually I can feel it - I just don't know how to do it yet. And I'm of the belief, you could do an entire house track without a kick or a snare or a clap - as long as the Groove is there - no one will notice.

little 16ths before beats with subtle percussion, a little syncopation against something solid and bland usually does the trick.

I mean, all my drums are anally retentive, but always try to keep something bouncing around (be it lead, bass or percussion) to keep the flow going - also constant evolving.

Dotted echoes (like 1/8th + 1/8th dotted) is a great start... throw that on something dead simple and you get that elusive background movement/groove.

Another little tip is to pull the percussion back in time a little (but again only a single element or it won't work) by 12-20ms (like a layered clap tutorial posted ages ago) is nice also... think like a drummer getting ahead of himself.

red dave

Jazz,

Apologies for this silly laymans question. That midi with the few notes. Do you want them to be inclusive of a melody within the mix? As in, if doing a few chords or whatever that those notes are predominant?

Neurojazz

red dave wrote: »

Jazz,

Apologies for this silly laymans question. That midi with the few notes. Do you want them to be inclusive of a melody within the mix? As in, if doing a few chords or whatever that those notes are predominant?

There's only a single note for the melody - and a guiding chord beneath.

The rough idea is that you work around that single note melody using as much trickery with theory and technique as possible.

lazyatom

had the KLF thing all sorted by thursday last week (and it was bang on! imho!) and was going to upload on saturday. however, cos i'm in the process of emigrating to Australia on the 21st of October, my broadband supplier decided to be unnaturally efficient last friday and disconnected me within 4 hours, instead of their usual 10-15 days. so i'm disconnected from the intertubes and wandering around like i have some sort of stroke, unable to access anything online or do any of the normal stuff i seem to have taken for granted. such as doing these projects.

currently online with a borowed dongle. like being trapped in 1998, the thing is so s...lo..oooooo..oo.o.oooow.

so, lads, i'm afraid i'm out of the picture until i'm sorted online down under.

sigh.

best of luck and i look forward to getting stuck in on any future projects.

have fun folks and keep making some noise.

Android 666

lazyatom wrote: »

had the KLF thing all sorted by thursday last week (and it was bang on! imho!) and was going to upload on saturday. however, cos i'm in the process of emigrating to Australia on the 21st of October, my broadband supplier decided to be unnaturally efficient last friday and disconnected me within 4 hours, instead of their usual 10-15 days. so i'm disconnected from the intertubes and wandering around like i have some sort of stroke, unable to access anything online or do any of the normal stuff i seem to have taken for granted. such as doing these projects.

currently online with a borowed dongle. like being trapped in 1998, the thing is so s...lo..oooooo..oo.o.oooow.

so, lads, i'm afraid i'm out of the picture until i'm sorted online down under.

sigh.

best of luck and i look forward to getting stuck in on any future projects.

have fun folks and keep making some noise.

So only two weeks left of corruption, misery and national bankruptcy - how will you cope without it all when you leave!!!

Good luck with the move lazy, I hope everything goes well for you down under and you get sorted out quickly. Hopefully you'll still prattle around here when you get down there.

DarkJager

Neurojazz wrote: »

Ok, difficult to pick the winner as 2 people filled even amounts of the requirements... so for their efforts - congratulations to:-

Splitrmx for getting the midi part 100%
&
Krd for supplying an excellent annotated write up - midi was slightly off.


For the next competition - one last task.

I will give some hints from the off to help people get their heads around this typical problem.

Here is the midi part:-
http://spiralking.com/boardscompo/

Now, here's the challenge/scenario.

Labels need remixes to pad out tracks / sell more records. A remixer need to be able to take something that is either great and make it better or take utter crap and make it awesome.

The midi i've supplied is rubbish - it's the worse possible scenario for a remixer (apart from KLF) - BUT, here's what you can crack by going for this.


We are looking for getting your skills up with presentation and colouring sound. By this I mean using intervals, clever bass work and chords to colour the simple melody supplied.

Technically - for those unsure, you need to pick/find a scale that the melody note is in and use every other note as a bassline or chord to 'change' the sound/feel of that simple melody note as tastefully as possible.

If you don't understand still, or get a problem - post and discuss.

The person to 'bend it' the most and create something musical wins - this will be the final 'technical task' - and my feedback will be as before.

Post your mixes here:- http://soundcloud.com/groups/boards-ie

Don't Blow your mixes!

Please post before Sunday Morning.

Think I'm going to try this one out! Do we need to use the midi supplied or just build off the melody of it?

Neurojazz

DarkJager wrote: »

Think I'm going to try this one out! Do we need to use the midi supplied or just build off the melody of it?

Use the midi supplied please

DarkJager

I'm having trouble with this. The midi just seems completely out of place with any melody or groove I try to do and just sounds horrible against any attempt to build something around it. Any advice on how to do something with this, even to integrate it with a rhythm so I can start something?

Neurojazz

DarkJager wrote: »

I'm having trouble with this. The midi just seems completely out of place with any melody or groove I try to do and just sounds horrible against any attempt to build something around it. Any advise on how to do something with this, even to integrate it with a rhythm?

Well this is the challenge. Remixing can bring some really BIG problems to your table and you just have to deal with it and learn to dress up what is there in the best way possible. After people chew on this one their own tunes or next remixes with be able to 'bend' around corners that they couldn't before.

It's like having a little mojo bag of tricks - the more you know, the more you have go in your mojo bag for later use.

If theory is lacking, then checkout inversions and how many scales those 3 notes exist in.

cloudydsound

Neurojazz wrote: »

Well this is the challenge. Remixing can bring some really BIG problems to your table and you just have to deal with it and learn to dress up what is there in the best way possible .

what kind of problems would you encounter with it?

would you not get all the seperate stems if asked to remix a tune for an artist by a label?

krd

cloudydsound wrote: »

what kind of problems would you encounter with it?

would you not get all the seperate stems if asked to remix a tune for an artist by a label?

Because sometimes you get sweet FA from the label. And the artist won't even give the label their stems.

And if you had a label - and they wanted someone else to do a remix - would you hand everything over?

But of course, here on boards, we share all our secrets - And cloudy if I ever find out you're holding back on me - I will chop off your toes and feed them back to you. Feed them back to you.... through your arsehole.

Years ago - a friend did some graphic work for Hotpress - Ireland's "Rock" magazine - he did work on spec. And they turned around to him and said sorry we're not going to use it -

---

they used his stuff for years and years and years.

Ok - I have been drinking some beers - but I think I've made a vague point that's important.

If a label or whoever asks you to hand over all your project files - you hand them a three note piece of midi and say "there you go".

But Cloudy - if I ask you for project files - it's ok for you to give me everything.

romarr

submission ...

in deep fiesto

looking forward to hearing what the rest of you have done !

Android 666

Okay, after hearing romarr's contribution I'm nearly embarrased to be putting this up but here goes:

http://soundcloud.com/android-78/fiesto-ecstatic-krautrock-remix

I called it the ecstatic krautrock remix except it's not really that ecstatic or krautrocky. And yeah it's all in C major, what you going to do about it (the black keys scared me). Tbh I don't know what to make of it at this stage. Anyways there it is and that's what it is.

splitrmx

http://soundcloud.com/splitradix/boards-midi-thing

dasdog

I'm leaving this late. It's a race against the clock now.

red dave

here's mine:
http://soundcloud.com/red-dave/fiesto-red-dave-remix

krd

My entry

http://soundcloud.com/the-noobian-prince/the-noobian-prince-fiesto-after-partay-remix-3-140-bpm

Could have done more with it - probably could have lost a minute or two off it.


It does use the original Midi throughout.

Android 666

krd wrote: »

My entry

http://soundcloud.com/the-noobian-prince/the-noobian-prince-fiesto-after-partay-remix-3-140-bpm

Could have done more with it - probably could have lost a minute or two off it.


It does use the original Midi throughout.

You might want to stick in the boards group krd...

Neurojazz

Locked! - usual announces with next kipper slapping remix!