Remixing is a central feature of music production, allowing songs to be reformed into completely different genres from their own. The art form requires a lot of consideration and can be a delicate balancing act between new and existing material, in the attempt to stay faithful to the original track whilst creating something with your own unique sound.
In the first course of the series, Simon Shackleton joins the Producertech community to share his wealth of knowledge on the topic, having remixed the likes of Grandmaster Flash, Groove Armada and many more. On the course, he works through all of the main areas of focus, as he reworks the stems from Ellie Dixon’s Alt Pop Production Techniques course into a slamming House track.
After discussing a bit of history and some of the main objectives, Simon briefly reviews the provided material, before starting to work on the initial core of the remix. One of the bounced stems is used as the cornerstone, which is timestretched, reversed and processed with effects, to help mould it into suitable foundations for the groove. This is then enhanced with kick and bass layers to fill out the rhythm section and create the main drop section of the track.
Subsequent modules then look at how various melodic parts are treated, with vocal backing and piano lines becoming sweeping textural layers that seamlessly weave the original stems into the arrangement whilst adding the necessary stabs and FX. The main vocal also becomes the central idea in one section, with the remix’s intelligently selected tempo allowing for more options when it comes to time stretching and repitching.
The course ends with an explanation of how additional instruments can be incorporated, to deliver new melodic ideas and atmospheric content that improves flow and fills out the mix, before some final words of advice from Simon to wrap things up.
Enrolling on the course provides instant access to the streamed tutorials and the course project, as well as a bonus 100MB pack of House samples from Loopmasters; everything you need to get making quality House remixes today!
Before enrolling, take a listen to the track from the course…
