How to Remix Music

Start with good quality audio editing software. You will work mainly with that software. Digital audio workstation, also known as DAW for short, is where you enter audio tracks including split music, instrumental tracks, vocals, sound effects, etc. Some software allows users to perform complex operations, such as tempo syncing and pitch adjustment. Almost every software allows you to trim, transpose, invert, and lengthen audio in their interface.

• If your budget is tight, the Audacity app is a great place to start. This is a free application that runs on all popular operating systems. If you take the time to learn, this application can perform as well as any paid app.
• Ableton software is the right choice if money is not an issue. ^[1] For just $500, Ableton will accompany you on every live performance. Of course, you can prepare remixes at home or perform live in public.

Select songs to remix. Music remix is a derivative art form. In other words, one needs to rely on at least one existing work to create a mix. Choosing the track you want to remix is an important part of the process. Here are a few things you need to consider:

• Choose a song that has a catchy verse, melody, chorus, or other element that appeals to you. Remixing involves looping a part of a song several times in a row, so choose what you like and don’t get “boring”.
• You often have to work with complete remixes of original music pulled directly from a CD. If you can get or purchase individual track files from the singer who recorded them, especially the vocals, your remix will sound cleaner and make the workflow easier.
• While there’s nothing better than owning each original music file, both Audacity and Ableton software provide tools to help you separate the lyrics from the mix (just like karaoke) or remove everything but the lyrics. This isn’t easy and it’s rarely 100% effective, but you can thin the background music just enough to make the song in this case sound like only the lyrics. The noise cancellation plugin is the best choice when it comes to doing this, try to separate the frequency of the noise/vocals from the sweet tone you want to keep.

Add your own sounds. This is the step where you leave a personal mark in the music by adding your own material. Methods can be quite diverse, from adding a new rhythm track to change the mood of the song to breaking the structure of the entire piece.

Be sure to pay attention to the copyright laws where you live if you plan to sell music or perform live. Arbitrary use of an author’s music can get you into trouble with the law.

• Think about your favorite passage—–what would you like to keep and change? If necessary, try listening to the track a few more times to shape the look of the complete remix.

Dissect the music. To make remixing easier, you have to separate not only the melodic element, but the rhythm as well.

• You can do this using the audio editing app Ableton or Audacity. These apps make it easy to create loops.
• Creating a loop is a fairly simple process. First, listen to the music and determine the part you want to cut. Then, select the verse in your audio editing software, making sure you’ve highlighted the entire area you want to cut. One way to check the part you cut is to replay the selected area over and over. If the sound suddenly changes suddenly at the loop point, it may be because you have blacked out too much or too little.
• If the software allows you to play the loop and adjust the end point at the same time, play the loop and adjust the starting point first—you need to make sure the music starts playing in the correct position. Once you’re done, hover your mouse over the end and change the loop length slightly so that it sounds seamless, natural, and most importantly, on time.
• Be careful with loops that contain echoes or cymbals as they often linger through the entire verse. However, cutting the echo can create a really interesting effect.
• Cut carefully so that the speed adjustment function in the loop maker software works more accurately. For programs with the same tuning as Sonar and Acid, accuracy is a must.
• Adjust the time by specifying the beat per minute of the loop (usually automatically detected by the software) or highlighting in the loop browser window to indicate where the beat falls. All this helps you to achieve the same results as when cutting and looping, while the original file quality is preserved.
• You can take this time to tweak the loop a bit. If you only have a woodcut, you can enhance the quality of your vocals or individual instruments a bit with an equalizer.
• You need to remember that there is no way to completely separate the instrument or vocals from the woodcut. For example: You can brighten the bass area (bass drums, drums) or bass lines by lowering the frequency at the low endband. This helps to keep the sound from getting muffled when you overlap the vocals in the loop on top of a new bass line or drum beat. For example, a frequency boost to 3 to 5 khz makes the sound a lot brighter, while a boost in the lows makes the mix sound more bass and opaque.

Experiment! Try out all the effects available in your digital audio station/audio editing software to see how each piece sounds. There are many for you to choose, including: Delay (sound delay), phaser (sparkling effect), chorus (chorus effect), flanger (jet sound effect), filters and other EQ (filter and equalizer), reverb, amplitude modulation, ring modulation, frequency modulation, time stretching, pitch shifting or correction, vocoder and much more. Playing with each effect helps you find a style you like as well as practice listening a bit. Always remember that unfinished music is always more interesting than well-edited music, so keep it simple, as long as it’s fun.

Set parameters for the track. First, set the BMP (speed—beats per minute) and the tempo (usually 4/4 time for popular music, but sometimes 3/4 time) in your looping software. . Next, enter the loop. After entering and adjusting the time for the loop, you need to select the desired beat rate and minimize the loss caused by poor quality. Now you can start setting the parameters for the track.

• Sticking to the original music pattern (intro, verse, chorus, verse, interlude, and chorus) is both safe and easy, but you can also change things up to create structure. own. You can insert the verse from the chorus into a chorus. You can also take the full verse, cut the vocals to the right beat, and reverse them to the beginning of the piece. You can reconstruct the harmonies or narrations by introducing completely different elements. Have fun experimenting!

Export the work (audio post-processing). Once the remix is completed and you are satisfied, you should export the work to a file. Save it all or export it as a WAV or AIFF file (don’t encode the audio to MP3 in a hurry). Load the work into audio editing software and normalize the file up to 99%. This helps to ensure that the peak levels reach near-peak volume. Furthermore, you can make the remix volume louder by adding a compressor effect before normalizing.

While it’s not required, it’s still a good idea to go back and “audio post-process” your track. That is, add effects to highlight certain parts of the mix. Think about whether you want the full bass to sound coarser or the highs to sound brighter. Good audio post-processing is like letting the listener know the difference between recording in a private booth and recording in a professional studio.