Electronic Remix!
So it's the end of my EMP unit and i finished my remix of Tom Stevenson's Step back. Firstly i'd like to say i never really imagined making this kind of music, but i've been converted! Thanks Nick for the knowledge, i had a lot of fun learning about all this stuff.
Now for a little bit of reflection on the process! I basically stuck with my initial plan to use a loop of the acoustic guitar part that goes through the song. I slowed it down to 90 BPM and warped it to a loop i was liking. i felt 90 bpm for the riff was a bit slow so i warped the speed up quite a bit. In part i didn't really know what kind of sound i was going to end up with, I just knew i liked old school sample based hip hop beats, so i tried to get that vibe from mainly using samples. After getting that main loop i made a little drum rack and played a beat on the keyboard, then Quantized it. Then i used an operator synth bass line, which i played with for ages, and did a fair bit of research online to achieve the sound i was happy with. I used an arpeggiated Analog synth that comes in and out through the song as well but i could never really get that sound to suit the song.
That was pretty much the foundation of it. At this point things got a bit tricky for me, not having any experience in beat making i was struggling on how to keep it fun and interesting. So i thought i would just take another loop of the guitar and put a little breakdown in the middle of the song. it started to have the feel of those old school sample based hip hop songs. So i put the vocal line in the sampler and went a bit crazy with scratches. But i found that it really brought everything together.
As for artist feedback, i've sent him the song and asked for his thoughts and about all i got back was a message saying "Groovy". Not really sure what to make of it but that musicians for you. I'm not sure he was really all that interested in an electronic remix to begin with, just gave me the all clear to use his stems.
And thats how we ended up here. Obviously that was a quick breakdown but thats the bones of it!
