psx
07-13-2006, 07:33 PM
I guess what I mean by that is... do you all have a certain process you follow when making your remixes? I'll start it off by laying out how I go about making a remix, and then maybe others will chime in with their techniques. I'll try to layout a general format for posts in this thread, starting with hardware/software setups, and then a step-by-step run through of how the mix gets done. So, uh.. here goes!
Hardware:
Powerbook G4
Midi keyboard
Stanton Str8-80 turntables & SK-6 mixer
Rockford Fosgate RF2000 Amp + some big ass speakers
whole lotta rca cables and 1/8" adapters
Software:
Reason 2.5
Audion for recording/sampling from vinyl
Setup:
I normally have my laptop plugged into one of the line-in's on my mixer, and then have the record-out from my mixer going into the line-in on the laptop. That should explain the rca cables and adapters. Then of course the mixer goes into the amp.
Process:
1. Find suitable a cappella and figure out rough bpm
2. Load up Reason and do the following:
a. Create a mixer
b. Create an NNXT sampler
c. Set the tempo
d. Turn looping off
e. Enable click
f. Load a cappella into nnxt as the only sample
g. Make sure midi is assigned to NNXT and press play/record
h. Count off 4 bars and then press and hold C3 on the midi kb
i. Wait until the vocal ends and then release the key
j. adjust the velocity of the note so that it's maxed out
l. Save
Now that gets me to the point where if I start playing from the beginning, the nnxt should play the entire a cappella.
3. Listen to it with the click and see if it lines up. If not, you either have the wrong tempo or are starting the vocal in the wrong spot. You're on your own here.. if you're sure the tempo is correct (iow, bboys/whoever told you what it is) then you can experiment with moving the vocal around until it matches the click. If that never works, you'll have to calculate the tempo yourself. I personally use this: http://blacktree.com/apps/iTunes-BPM/
Once you're sure that the click and vocal are happy together, you can start making your beat. I personally start out by adding a new Redrum drum machine. Load up a drum patch and start programming your drums. I find that for hip hop/rap music that a basic pattern set at 1/16t with 48 steps sounds pretty good. Don't worry about different patterns or programming any automation. Just get something simple going... kick, snare and hi-hat.
4. Once I get the drums sketched out, I start experimenting with different instruments/samples. Sometimes I'll sample my own sounds, other times I'll use refills. Go nuts. It's your remix, not mine :) One thing I've noticed is that once I get drums down, I almost always start goofing with different bass lines. A trick that I've used in the past is to find a midi file of a song that has a funky ass bass-line and extract just the bass notes. Then you can make a loop out of them and play them through any bass instrument you want (in Reason of course). I know that's kinda vague, but it'd take a good amount to explain the exact steps necessary. Experiment.
5. So now I've got a simple drum pattern and bassline, and maybe some other stuff playing along, and it all sticks to the vocals like it's supposed to. At this point though I have everything playing through the duration of the song.
6. This next area is kinda gray... season to taste if you will. What I usually do is listen to it about 8000 times, looking for places where I can change up the drums, or pull different instruments in and out. Once you've listened to it that many times, you start to get an idea of what needs to be where, and what doesn't need to be there. Here's where I start adding drum patterns, pattern automation, mixer automation, reverb/compression, etc.
7. Once I have a mix I'm happy with, I just export it to aiff and then convert to mp3, and then straight onto my mp3 player where I can play it in as many different setups as possible. Shit always sounds better on my home setup than it does in my little headphones, car, friends' cars, etc. Make notes and go back and do a little mastering. You might want to avoid automating the mixer (contradictory to the above step) because it's just gonna bite you in the ass if you decide to change things here.
8. My final (optional) step is to load the song up in reason and set it to loop. Then I just start scratching over it until I'm comfortable with what I want to scratch and where. Then I load up Audion and press record. Press play in Reason and scratch away. Audion records a final stereo track with my scratching mixed with the final version of the track. From there I just trim off any excess silence before and after and get it back onto my mp3 player so I can repeat the latter half of step 7 until I'm happy.
Phew!! Sorry if that's incredibly long. All off the cuff so I'll probably try to edit it down. Any feedback or questions, post em up. I'm of course more interested in how you folks do your thing though, so feel free to post up your processes. It'd be cool to have a sorta "tips n' tricks" thread here that we can all learn something from.
keep on and ya don't stop...
psx
Hardware:
Powerbook G4
Midi keyboard
Stanton Str8-80 turntables & SK-6 mixer
Rockford Fosgate RF2000 Amp + some big ass speakers
whole lotta rca cables and 1/8" adapters
Software:
Reason 2.5
Audion for recording/sampling from vinyl
Setup:
I normally have my laptop plugged into one of the line-in's on my mixer, and then have the record-out from my mixer going into the line-in on the laptop. That should explain the rca cables and adapters. Then of course the mixer goes into the amp.
Process:
1. Find suitable a cappella and figure out rough bpm
2. Load up Reason and do the following:
a. Create a mixer
b. Create an NNXT sampler
c. Set the tempo
d. Turn looping off
e. Enable click
f. Load a cappella into nnxt as the only sample
g. Make sure midi is assigned to NNXT and press play/record
h. Count off 4 bars and then press and hold C3 on the midi kb
i. Wait until the vocal ends and then release the key
j. adjust the velocity of the note so that it's maxed out
l. Save
Now that gets me to the point where if I start playing from the beginning, the nnxt should play the entire a cappella.
3. Listen to it with the click and see if it lines up. If not, you either have the wrong tempo or are starting the vocal in the wrong spot. You're on your own here.. if you're sure the tempo is correct (iow, bboys/whoever told you what it is) then you can experiment with moving the vocal around until it matches the click. If that never works, you'll have to calculate the tempo yourself. I personally use this: http://blacktree.com/apps/iTunes-BPM/
Once you're sure that the click and vocal are happy together, you can start making your beat. I personally start out by adding a new Redrum drum machine. Load up a drum patch and start programming your drums. I find that for hip hop/rap music that a basic pattern set at 1/16t with 48 steps sounds pretty good. Don't worry about different patterns or programming any automation. Just get something simple going... kick, snare and hi-hat.
4. Once I get the drums sketched out, I start experimenting with different instruments/samples. Sometimes I'll sample my own sounds, other times I'll use refills. Go nuts. It's your remix, not mine :) One thing I've noticed is that once I get drums down, I almost always start goofing with different bass lines. A trick that I've used in the past is to find a midi file of a song that has a funky ass bass-line and extract just the bass notes. Then you can make a loop out of them and play them through any bass instrument you want (in Reason of course). I know that's kinda vague, but it'd take a good amount to explain the exact steps necessary. Experiment.
5. So now I've got a simple drum pattern and bassline, and maybe some other stuff playing along, and it all sticks to the vocals like it's supposed to. At this point though I have everything playing through the duration of the song.
6. This next area is kinda gray... season to taste if you will. What I usually do is listen to it about 8000 times, looking for places where I can change up the drums, or pull different instruments in and out. Once you've listened to it that many times, you start to get an idea of what needs to be where, and what doesn't need to be there. Here's where I start adding drum patterns, pattern automation, mixer automation, reverb/compression, etc.
7. Once I have a mix I'm happy with, I just export it to aiff and then convert to mp3, and then straight onto my mp3 player where I can play it in as many different setups as possible. Shit always sounds better on my home setup than it does in my little headphones, car, friends' cars, etc. Make notes and go back and do a little mastering. You might want to avoid automating the mixer (contradictory to the above step) because it's just gonna bite you in the ass if you decide to change things here.
8. My final (optional) step is to load the song up in reason and set it to loop. Then I just start scratching over it until I'm comfortable with what I want to scratch and where. Then I load up Audion and press record. Press play in Reason and scratch away. Audion records a final stereo track with my scratching mixed with the final version of the track. From there I just trim off any excess silence before and after and get it back onto my mp3 player so I can repeat the latter half of step 7 until I'm happy.
Phew!! Sorry if that's incredibly long. All off the cuff so I'll probably try to edit it down. Any feedback or questions, post em up. I'm of course more interested in how you folks do your thing though, so feel free to post up your processes. It'd be cool to have a sorta "tips n' tricks" thread here that we can all learn something from.
keep on and ya don't stop...
psx