Remixes
- Thread starter NASA
- Start date
You gotta start with a GOOD acapella. I try to find them in a good .wav file. Alot of them on the net are in .mp3. All the shit I've ever had only accepted .wav or .aiff into the sampler. Daz gives away accapellas all the time @ www.dpgrecordz.com , but those are in .mp3 format. I always had trouble after a .wav conversion. With those. Theres also some blank space at the beginning of most of them on the net. So make sure to truncate it properly. I also use Mixmeister to get a pretty good starting point on the BPM.
http://www.mixmeister.com/download_freestuff.html
http://www.mixmeister.com/download_freestuff.html
3VID3NC3 has a good technique. Just match the metronome with the original song until you get it as close as possible. Import your A cappella and start positioning it to get it nice and tight. You can even just match the metronome to the A cappella itself. I like to map out the tempo to the hook of the song, so I will basically loop the hook and play with the tempo until I get it close, say about 90-95%. Doberman makes a good point about the A capellas, there will be space on them, you need to really tweak the positioning to get it right, in most cases where you know the exact tempo of the song before going in, you can't just snap the track and have it on beat, you'll notice you really have to tweak it, even if you have the tempo, this is due to the fact that it's has air and space and you have to position it just on the right spot. Doesn't have to be exact, you just have to get it on beat, then you can fine tune the tempo later. You can do Beat Mapping in most software DAW's. After you have the A capella on beat, pick your drums and start laying down your drums immediately. Again, you really just need to loop the hook and build the song on the hook. Once you get your drums sounding right you can move on to the next step which would be for me, finding the right synth and playing with melodies, finding something catchy, that stands out and goes with the track as a whole. I like to start with a synth sound that I can really get creative with and build on top of.
Really tho, just listen to the song, you should already have an idea of where the lyrics/verses fit into a beat.
The first thing you really have to do is find the BPM of the acapella. That is the most important part of the process.
Couple ways you can do this are:
A) Listen to the original song, look it up...or tap it out yourself. An easy way I learned to do it was to count the beats ( each downbeat, and each snare ) for 15 seconds. Then I would multiply this by 4...and then you have your BPM.
B) Like mentioned there is some software that can do this for you. I never needed it...because once you get into the ball park of the BPM...you can fine tune later.
I usually add beats that I have started, or completed...to acapellas...because I personally don't have a software that can timestretch the acapella to change the tempo. So I'll just adjust the beat to whatever tempo the acapella is.
Hope that helps. Feel free to ask any questions...I'll be happy to offer the little that I know...lol
The first thing you really have to do is find the BPM of the acapella. That is the most important part of the process.
Couple ways you can do this are:
A) Listen to the original song, look it up...or tap it out yourself. An easy way I learned to do it was to count the beats ( each downbeat, and each snare ) for 15 seconds. Then I would multiply this by 4...and then you have your BPM.
B) Like mentioned there is some software that can do this for you. I never needed it...because once you get into the ball park of the BPM...you can fine tune later.
I usually add beats that I have started, or completed...to acapellas...because I personally don't have a software that can timestretch the acapella to change the tempo. So I'll just adjust the beat to whatever tempo the acapella is.
Hope that helps. Feel free to ask any questions...I'll be happy to offer the little that I know...lol
Here is a site that I use to find the Tempo of popular songs, also rare songs, they have a huge catalog of songs.
http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/services.mv
Scroll down to Browse Tracks Below.
Find the letter matching the artist(s) song you want to remix, once you hit the page, use the Search function in your browser to find the artist. Find the song, take a mental note of the BPM and get to work.
http://www.harmonic-mixing.com/services.mv
Scroll down to Browse Tracks Below.
Find the letter matching the artist(s) song you want to remix, once you hit the page, use the Search function in your browser to find the artist. Find the song, take a mental note of the BPM and get to work.
