Quote:
Originally Posted by tuc70021
Ok, this is a perpetual problem for me as I don't seem to be able to grasp recording/sound reinforcement at all, but can someone explain how a mix like this can actually be made? There was a point where the vocals for Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun were laid over some other beat, but as far as I know the acapella for that track was never released. Does this DJ just have some exclusive access to instrumentals/acapellas? Is there a way to isolate vocals through a mixer or something? Or were these instrumentals/acapellas just released on some bootlegs I don't know about.
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Z-Trip is a very high-profile DJ so there is a very good chance that he may have access to certain tracks or even components of the tracks ("stems") directly from the Beastie Boys. I suspect that's how he got the early version of "Make Some Noise". Even back in the old days, DJs would get advanced a cappellas so that they could remix tracks for official remixes. So, DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill fame got the a cappella of "So What Cha Want" back in 92 and used that to create his remix for the single. There are also a good amount of "unreleased" instrumentals floating around that were obtained from concert/show vinyl that ended up in collectors' hands. Also, the Beasties self-released a lot of a cappella trough this website some time ago (Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun was one of them).
It used to be that DJs would have to track down the vinyl and piece these mixes together (either live using turntables, or on a multi-track recorder) directly from the vinyl. So, for example, you can get the instrumental version of a track and put the a cappella from another track over that. There are tons of tricks. You can create "instrumentals" by manual looping of parts of the track turntables. Or, you can track down the source samples and use those. You're basically just tempo-matching the sounds and bringing them in and out in much the same way that hip hop tracks are produced in the first place.
Now that DJs have digital tools, they can piece together audio from any source and the sharing of digital files is really easy. You no longer have to track down concert vinyl with only 10 copies in existence to get instrumentals. You can just download the file and put it into your digital djing program and control it just like it was vinyl.