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You can enter your mash up in the NorthernTrax competition where your track will be heard by top music professionals.
If you don't know what a mashup is read on ...
| What is a mashup? - with thanks to Steve Lima (fuTuRo mashup) |
| Many
of you will already know what a mashup is but for the uninitiated,
in it's simplest form, a mashup is a combination of
two or sometimes more recordings, remixed to make a new song entirely.
This is usually done using digital sound tools on a PC (or mac) and
something that everybody has the capability of doing. After a few years of bubbling underground, mashup is now set to hit the bigtime. Where as once radio stations were very worried about playing tracks which were, and still are, technically illegal, station's worldwide now regularly have mashup shows and are happily playing them alongside more conventional hits. The major record labels seem to now have an unwritten rule which says " If it's good ,we don't mind ", some are even making available the artists original vocal tracks as downloads. This all means that you, YES YOU, can now remix some of your favourite songs , upload them to a website and let the world hear if you have talent as a remixer or producer. Many mashup producers are becoming well known for their creations and are much in demand for remixes . Party Ben (Oasis v Green Day) , Go Home Productions (Madonna v Sex Pistols), DJ BC (Rap vs The Beatles) plus many more are all at the forefront of this growing movement. All musical styles are covered and the more diverse the genres you combine the more kudos you get ! Let's
go through the process of making a simple mashup. Finding suitable backing is slightly trickier...what you are looking for are parts of tracks where there are no vocals ie. instrumental breaks or intro's or even solo's. When you have found something that may work it's time to load them into your favourite audio prog. If you are experienced with audio these may be Cubase, Logic or Pro Tools. If you are a beginner then Sony's Acid is pretty much THE app for this. Lay both tracks out next to each other and then play them back simultaneously listening to see if they are in the same key. Even if you are a non musician you should be able to spot things that are off key just as most people can when watching the X Factor (though sometimes not all of the judges) or similar. If it is clearly not in tune with the track don't despair as you can transpose your pella at least 3 semi tones + or - in pitch before it begins to sound too low or high. If this doesn't work then the two are obviously too far apart keywise to ever work. If it does work it is time to loop your backing track and vocal and get them working in time with each other. Many of you will know exactly how to loop or beatmap though for those who don't this is something that you will have to learn from the manuals or the many online tutorials that there are on this subject www.paintingbynumbers.com has some very good basic tutorials on creating mashups. Many programs such as Acid have tools to do this automatically and are very intuitive to use. Practice and experimenting are crucial when learning an audio app and many hours can be spent doing this. If music is really in your soul this will never be a problem. When you have finished a mix you are happy with how do you get it heard? Well, if you have your own webspace you could upload it to there. If not there are many sites such as www.streamload.com that will allow you a small but sufficient amount of free space to host several mixes. Now to get people to hear your creation you will need to inform the world via the forums and newsgroups of the world. There are many of these that relate to mashups and re-mixes though the undoubted king of these is Get Yer Bootlegs on (http://gybo.org) which is where all of the top producers "release" their tracks. In
this age of almost everyone wanting to be in the music biz creating
mashups is a good way to get noticed. Steve Lima fuTuRo mashup
To find out more about Steve Lima and his music click here |
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