Dear Electroctagonauts
Does anybody of you have some advice about remixing on the OT.
I got some singer/songwriter stems of a good friend of mine that wants me to remix his first single. I’m honoured and desperate at the same time… Never did a remix of anything…
I was roughly thinking along the lines of what bandersong has suggested…but trying to possibly add some other ideas.
I’m still wrapping my head around it.
This will be my first ‘real’ (not just playing around and jamming) project with the OT.
hagbard1st, I’d really like to hear what you come up with and I’ll share mine as well…when/if I can get it done to my satisfaction.
seems you could still take the path some do on a computer as wel…i.e. listen to the drums, re-create and/or sample those drums, change up a bit, some remixes even change the tempo…depending on how deep you are remixing and what source data you have, it may be more difficult to cut out say music from vocals, etc…obviously, if you had the original tracks, that would make it easier
keep us updated, I will definitely be interested and how it comes out (for anyone that is attempting it)
I’ve only ever done one real remix for another artist. I took the vocal stems and then just rewrote the whole song. Ground up. Work out the key, find a groove, chop the vocals into verse chorus etc (you could even just use small fragments and less straight song composition) and build from there. If the song you’re remixing has vocals thats probably the part of the song the artist want’s you to retain, but other than that make it your own.
how does the OT go with purely vocal loops? i wonder if the retiming works if the vocals are sporadic and not regularly defining a rhythm… perhaps the OT figures things out via the time length of the audio clip and the likely bar length from there.
Hi all
Thanks for the replies!
I prepared snippets of elements that chractarize the song in studio one and labeled them with the tempo so that the OT knows the tempo right away. At the moment I’m goofing around searching for the right beat/groove that goes well with the lyrics. I’m not that much of a house/four to the floor fan. The song has more of a slight reggae feel and the tempo is around 140. So I’m trying to combine that feeling into a dub/dubsteppy kind of thing.
I’m sorry but I can’t show or give you the material, since I don’t want to violate the copyright of the yet unpublished album/single.
As always I’m really struggling on making the beat. As a pianist it’s really hard for me to get it grooving. Learning by doing will be the only cure to that diseas…
If you have other tipps for me concerning the beat making on the OT than the youtube tutorials that are online please let me know.
One of my questions is how to manage the transitions from one part/pattern to another where the drum is alternating/varying it’s pattern at the end. Do you guys create a separate pattern for those transitions or do you have other ways to manage this task.
I think when the beat idea is ready I will take the whole vocal line and build up the song around that long sample.
it’s amazing what you can do with beats just with LFOs and retriggers, it can take a 4 on the floor sound/feel and create something completely different, I’m not experienced enough on the OT yet to get good answers from but I have used scenes to change only the beat when doing a pattern change
One shot trigs. Either a single one to trigger a sampled fill lasting a number of steps …or several to trigger, filter , reverse individual snare hits etc. grid recording mode on. Press Enter/Yes. Hold Yes to keep re-arming.
Hi, working on my first ever remix right now,
though its really just building a new track for an acapella
Its going fine, but one difficulty with chopping up vocals, especially rap (perhaps)
is trying to keep it in time,
For example in one of the verses the guy starts just before the measure ,
which is really infuriating to program into a 4 bar sequencer!
Other than that, working well, the OT gives lots of possibilities to radically change the vocals and add fx,
Working with 48 - 1/8 on the track and the master track which fits each verse - must be about 24bars
One shot trigs. Either a single one to trigger a sampled fill lasting a number of steps …or several to trigger, filter , reverse individual snare hits etc. grid recording mode on. Press Enter/Yes. Hold Yes to keep re-arming.[/quote]
keep in mind that you may need to press function/yes or track/yes depending on your personal settings (I don’t use just the yes/no arm option)
I started out remixing from the original (which was mine btw) but ended up individually recording two-chord chunks for verse, chorus, and bridge on guitar.
I did each three different ways (clean, FX from KP3, and through my Baldwin Professional amp).
I also recorded two one-bar leads in the same way.
Then I recorded three vocal segments for each part (no FX)
The percussion is a lighter knocking against a ceramic jar with a wooden lid (sampled several different ways.
I basically mashed it all up and split verse bridge and chorus into three more-or-less distinct parts.
I still need to tame the bass some and get rid of some clicks and noise (hey, it’s glitch right?) but it’s mostly done.
it’s just mono right now bc my cable fritzed out on me.
hagbard1st: I accidentally saved over the original version of the song and the only other one is on a hard drive I can’t find at the moment.
I will post it in the next couple days (FYI it is only a bedroom live recording of me and a guitar…not a completed track or anything)
The Octatrack is so powerful at remixes. Here’s some tidbits about a few I’ve done lately, all of which have appeared in my live sets.
That’s doing it live but here’s the record. Anyway, the long vox phrases are one-shot trigs so I can keep the cut up breaks and guitars moving underneath them while they play out. Also the intro part with all the asynchronous repeating that then goes into the faster 4/4 verse was all thanks to the OT.
The original track is jazz fusion(?) with tons of weird time signatures, so doing this remix without the OT would have meant shoving it uncomfortably into 4/4. As it is I put lots of samples from the stems plus a couple of synthy kicks in the OT and went at it. 4/4/, 9/8, 19/8, whatever.
https://soundcloud.com/speakonion/p-wrecks-invitation-speak
This is just a new track built under the acapaella, but the break chopping and also the little karplus strong sound that is flying all over the place come from the OT, with tons of scenes affecting pitch, retrig, etc. Same thing with the vox on one-shot trigs so I can do this live.
OT filter on the guitar part in the breakdown is soooo juicy. Plus also the stretched out vocal chant in the intro. Cutting up the vox like that was just a joy. I had to stop myself from making this just a total abstract cutup.
So yeah, there’s a bunch more (and a couple yet to be released), but essentially, I can bang out remixes 10x better and 100x faster than I could before I had OT.
@ tjt - interesting spacy track you got there, i like how its a remix of a track you accidentally recorded over!, i remix my stuff all the time, every gig nearly, plus every time a get new equipment
@ Speak Onion - some crazy hardcore shit!!!
You put a lot of trust in the stability of your table/desk!!
I like the set up, is that custom made or can one buy one somewhere?