Along with books, I love music! Before I became a teacher, I was even a mobile DJ. I have tons of CDs and am amassing a large collection of MP3 downloads, as well. Sometimes, I am listening to a song I really like and I think, "I can make that more danceable". So I break out my audio tools, and I make a remix!
Here you can listen to some of the remixes that I have done over the years. Occasionally when I hear remixes of songs by other DJs or producers, I feel like they changed the song so much it doesn't sound anything like the original. The reason I liked the song in the first place is gone! So, most of the remixes I create do sound a LOT like the original. I got a comment online many years ago from another DJ who said my remixes sounded like "old school" extended mixes (they used to be called "12-inches" because they were recorded on 12 inch diameter vinyl discs) that used to be produced by record companies. I took it as a compliment!
Click on a song name to read more about it, see the album art I created for it, and listen to it. Click on the thumbnail album art to see a full-size picture (where available).
Remixes
(2012)
"Beat Box" was one of the first huge "breakdance" hits when I was in high school. I really got into The Art of Noise (TAON) because of this song. It's actually funny that this song was so influential in spreading hip-hop culture to the mainstream; TAON even won a "best new black artist" award in America even though they were white Londoners. They were cool electronic music pioneers, not hip-hop artists. More...
There's a whole interesting history of the many "Diversions" of this song. TAON produced at least eight different "Diversions" and a couple special "Mixes", not counting remixes done by other producers/DJs. Back in the day, I owned the 12-inch remix known as "Diversion One" as well as the original version (now sometimes referred to as "Diversion Zero") from the Into the Battle... EP.
My version is composed only of samples from "Diversion One", though some samples are heavily processed. I was inspired to give it a couple bass "drops" like in dubstep songs, but I would never call this a real dubstep version lest all the haters rush to my doorstep! I went to a lot of trouble to make a "real" video for it; I hate it when people post songs on YouTube and it's just a picture or two. It's VIDEO not PHOTO. Hope you enjoy!
The artwork for this remix is completely original. However, I needed some link to The Art of Noise at least. So I took the "drama masks" from the American release of their first full-length album, (Who's Afraid Of) The Art of Noise!. They are incorporated into the labels of the 45-RPM records that form the "B" of "Box". It's one of those inside-baseball details that I think are cool!
(2002)
One of my early remixes using just Cool Edit. Nothing too crazy here, just took the album version and moved stuff around. Right at the beginning and toward the end, there are little bits where I got fancy. I just liked the song enough to want to make it longer and, hopefully, more interesting.
This ends up being one of the songs that I listen to and can't really tell what was original and what was remixed. I like that it's subtle enough to pass for the original version but if you listened to this side-by-side with the original you would definitely notice.
When my computer crashed in 2003, the artwork I originally created for the CD single was lost. I used to make custom CD cases back then. This was back before MP3s, if you can imagine such a time! I recreated it as best as I can remember.
(2012)
Okay, admit it! This song is really catchy! Annoyingly so, for some people. But since I don't listen to popular radio, I never got sick of it. (I find new music through Pandora, emusic.com, and trolling Billboard lists.) I sped it up, added drums, did some rearranging, and now I have what I consider a "classic-style" extended version.
I made the artwork to go along with the video I made. My idea for the video was to re-do some of the scenes from the original in an anime-ish style; heavy lines, blended transitions, "fixed" cameras. Unfortunately, I had already completed processing all the images for the video using one time-consuming technique before accidentally stumbling on another technique. I think this second technique resulted in a more anime-style image than the ones used in the video, which are heavier and blotchier. It would take days to redo the video! So, I used the new technique on the album art instead. Maybe if I ever get bored in the future and have 3 or 4 days to kill...
(2003)
This song off the hugely popular album, Hybrid Theory, was interesting to me. I tried to make it more "club-by" (club-like? club-ish?), but the minor key keeps it pretty dark. I can see this in a club that plays more goth and stuff like that. I still like it, but I like the mix I did on "In The End" better.
The album art is just the original album cover with the Rimex logo added. This was designed before I really got into playing with the art.
(2006)
I tried to do a "drum-and-bass" mix on this one. I think I was mildly successful. You can definitely hear my "lounge" influences on this one.
If I remember correctly, the album art is the same as the original with the subtitle and my logo added. I must have been lazy at the time.
(2009)
I love this song from one of my favorite movies. I tried to get a good mix on the vocals, but I couldn't pull the kids' voices up as much I wanted for some reason. I blame the original mix that is heavily echoed. When I isolated the vocals from the instruments, it made the echo worse. I'm still pretty happy with the final mix.
It was kind of a pain because the original starts about 8 BPM slower than the end. So I had to find a good middle ground, speed up the beginning and slow down the ending. It involved a lot of "micro-slicing", where I literally cut parts of the original song into millisecond-long slices and moved them forward or back to match the drum track.
The artwork was also a little tedious, but I am very happy with the result. In the movie, during part of the song they are running across a field in their green clothes that the character Maria (Julie Andrews) made for them out of old curtains. I re-colored each kid's clothes to make a rainbow effect. This took a long time because I had to basically color them by hand since the green of the grass did not allow me to select by color.
(2010)
I really liked the bass progression in this one. It's pretty basic but very pleasant chord structure. And the song is about dancing! It's not about hooking up or being "naughty". It's about having fun dancing! I love it!
I couldn't do too much to make it better because it has a pretty good structure. It's one of those songs that I really like the way it is. I just added a new percussion track and added another guitar to play up the bass. Moved some sections around to make it a little longer and different from the original.
Simple redo of the original album art. Now that I look at it in a thumbnail version, I think the "Rimex" logo might be too white.
(2011)
Okay song, but kind of boring for me at the original tempo. I realized that it was so slow that if I drove the drums at double speed it could work as a dance track. Again, I added a bass line, 'cuz I dig bass lines, and I included the Kanye rap from the single version.
Album art is a simple redo of the original art. I was lucky enough to find a clean version of the still photo used on the original (thanks, Google Images!), so I flipped it and included the original lettering but in a different shade.
(2011)
Nice song with a positive message, which is pretty rare in pop music. I punched up the drum line because in the original it takes too long to start thumping. I also added a couple synths and sped it up.
The album art uses a production still from the video shoot with some image manipulation, but I don't really like it. I think I should have used one of the trippy images of her that litter the internet, but I didn't want it to look like everything else out there.
(2011)
An extremely talented young man I know played an acoustic version of this song on his Facebook page. He gave it a little Latin spin. It inspired me to try my hand at remixing the original Bruno Mars version with a little (very little?) Latin bend to it. It took me a while to tweak the instruments I added to match the original's chord structure but I think I finally got it. The guitar parts are from a style of music, bachata, that is becoming increasingly popular.
The album art is a version of the original cover for the album Doo-Wop & the Hooligans, from which this song comes. The jet plane from the original has been replaced by a pomegranate. The Spanish word for pomegranate is granada, from which the English word "grenade" comes. See what I did there, with the clever?
(2011)
Here's one of my "lazy" mixes. I call it lazy because all I did was use someone else's remix and fold the original version into it. Well, it was a little more than that. I did do some cutting and a few studio tricks to make it a little more fancy.
This is one of those instances where the remix was so changed that it barely resembled the original. I really like the percussion on the Afrojack remix, but it had very little of the original's melody, which is what I loved about the original. Thus, my version here.
(2003)
This is an "original" song, as much as I can claim that using pre-recorded loops. When I first mixed this, I submitted it to acidplanet.com, writing "I heard this World Pop vocal and thought it sounded so sad but at the same time hypnotic. I think I may change the drums later since I'm not 100% happy widdit."
I created the album art in 2011, after going back and looking for all the different songs I had worked on. I found this pic of an old Cantonese lady. She looked kind of sad, like she could have been the one singing the vocals on the song.
(2009)
This is such a fun song! If you gotta break up, enjoy it! It's a good frat-house jam for a lot of drunk college kids to sing and sway along to. But I wanted to dance to it, so I punched it up and made it a little faster.
The artwork is the original album art with a little addition. The original is a photo of the title and artist name in front of a brick wall, so I just "painted" on the wall. Hopefully, it looks like the "real thing", other than the Remix logo up in the top left corner.
(2010)
This song really annoyed me the first time I heard it. And the second. And the millionth! But I finally had to admit that it did have energy. I just couldn't stand the part where will.i.am or whoever is trying to sing.
I added samples from Eastern instruments and percussion that had a little Latin flavor. To be really random, I also stuck in an Australian didgeridoo! With a little playing around, I came up with this "World Mix".
For the artwork, I decided to play on the album's green "head". A little looking through my favorite font websites turned up the font they used for the album so I could write the new title to match.
(2003)
This song was already done being super-popular by the time I got around to remixing it. Another song that I mixed only using Cool Edit. I used only portions of the original song to create a more "club" version than the original "rock" song.
I loved the original song and this remains one of the remixes I am most proud of and one that I enjoy listening to frequently.
The album art is just the original album cover with the Rimex logo added. This was designed before I really got into playing with the art.
(2009)
I'm not so much a fan of hip-hop but I really like this song. I tried to do something with it and I'm not real pleased with the results. This was one of the first songs I did in 2009 (after about 5 years of not producing any new mixes) and I think it shows. When I have some more time again, I think I want to redo it. I think I can make it a little more interesting.
(2005)
The husband of an aide working at our school played in a band. The aide found out I was into music and mixing and passed along a CD her husband had been working on. I mentioned that I kind of liked one of the songs but that it needed some punching up. She asked me to try to make it better, so this is what came out.
The aide and her husband were really into the Gypsy Kings and you can tell by listening to this song. I moved some parts around, filled in the percussion, and made it sound a little more professional. I didn't spend too long on it, though, because I thought the original recording was a little wobbly. I mentioned to the aide that I would be willing to mix a re-recording if they ever got around to it but I never heard back. Then she got transferred.
BTW, I forgot the name of the group (if they ever had a real name) so I just credited the artist as "Posada" (their last name).
(2001)
I was not a big *NSYNC fan, but a cousin of mine asked if I could make a mix of this song. I ultimately made two versions.
The version here is what I called the "House" mix. Using only parts of the original song (no loops or external sound files), I made a mix with a more persistent bass drum line. Again, this was pre-Acid (see below) so it involved a LOT of cutting and pasting. I actually had to paste each bass drum "kick" and the synth riff all the way through the song.
I made another version of the song that was basically an old-school extended "12-inch" mix, but for now, it is lost. I may eventually (hopefully) come across it in the stacks of CDs and data backups I have lying around.
(2009)
I was at a club one night and a medley of old rock songs came on. I heard this song and thought, "Cool"! But when I looked for the remix online, I only found one for purchase that used the original vocals, and I didn't like it.
This is a very basic remix. Basically, I just added a consistent drum track to make it danceable and a few techno-type instruments to make it sound a little fancy. I sped it up to 133 BPM (from 126) and saw that it was good (pretty good, anyway).
(2009)
I was out for a walk one evening and this song, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" played on my MP3 player. I had never realized how fast the tempo was. Actually, if you want to get technical, it was slow, about 85 BPM. But I knew that with the right drum track, it could play in double time.
I isolated the vocals and the horn riff right at the end of the original song. Then I made a new version "from scratch". I tried to keep it minimalist, just like the original. I added the horn riff sample to keep that link to the original.
The original album art (from the actual vinyl LP record) is just her reclining on a black background. I put that same picture on a psychadelic background that I thought made it look both retro and new.
(2009)
I am not a huge Coldplay fan, usually. But something about this song...! The chord progression is simple but the strings and atmospherics make it sublime! The tempo makes it a natural for a dance mix (138 BPM).
I pulled the vocals out of the original so I could lay them in without the music always there. I think it makes the music come in even stronger when it does play. I also isolated the music in a few parts to make the song longer. The only sounds I added were a drum, cymbals, and a bass guitar.
This is currently my favorite song (and remix!). It's over seven minutes long(!), but I love every second of it!
The album art comes in two versions. The first version is a take on the original. Without the Rimex logo, it could easily be mistaken for the original. It was kind of a pain to paint out the letters. I had to use a combination of the original MP3 art and a clean copy of the original painting. Reproducing the style of lettering was also difficult. After that much work, I decided one was not enough! The second version of the album art uses a painting similar in style (Romanticism) but by a different artist.
(1996)
I took the studio and the acoustic versions of this song and put them together. This is one of my earlier mixes, and I used Cool Edit single-track sound file editor to mix it. This involved lots of cutting and pasting and lots of "redos" to get it right. I really like the way it came out, especially knowing how much work it ended up being.
The album art is a hand colored version of the original album. It took FOR EH VER to do!
Please do not try to download any of these songs. The original artists went to a lot of work to create their music and it is wrong to "share" (steal) their songs. If you contact me directly and can prove that you own a copy of the original CD or MP3, I can send you a high-quality copy.
I started remixing using computers way back in 1996 with a program called Cool Edit. At the time, it was the most affordable sound processor around ($60). Even though it was mostly for processing like cleaning, amplifying, and editing, I was able to use it to mix songs using a LOT of cutting-and-pasting. Not easy to do!!
In late 2001, I purchased Acid 3.0. Acid was a series of multi-track editors that were made specifically to create music. They came with libraries of "loops", pieces of music that were a beat or a measure long. You could also import whole songs in and "beatmap" them so they would fit perfectly in the program. It made remixing a breeze! The only downside was the limited loops, but more are available for purchase and they are always giving away free loop samples from the various collections. This is a really fun way to waste a lot of time. Check it out at www.acidplanet.com. They have a free version of Acid Express 7. You have to sign-up with acidplanet to use it. Acidplanet is a great place to pick up new "loops" to use in making music. The "Express" version only lets you use 10 tracks, which is plenty. Unfortunately, you have to buy the full version to get beatmapping (essential for remixing) and special effects, but for free, it's a great way to get your feet wet and play with music.
I also recently got into Audacity. This is a free, open source audio processor. It can do everything Cool Edit can, but it's free, and it can hold multiple tracks so sliding things around is easier. Now I use both Audacity and Cool Edit for sound processing like removing or isolating vocals, as well as cleaning and amplifying songs. Sometimes one does a better job than the other depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.
Another great tool I found is this open source deejaying program called Mixxx. It lets you mix songs "live". I made a "Threedy skin for version 1.9 that reminded me of the old-school mixers I used to work on. I also created another skin (Crystal Jelly skin) with different color schemes built in. Here are some tips on how to design schemes for skins, because it can be confusing. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to go back and update it for the latest versions of Mixx, but the tips are still mostly applicable.
The Artwork
To make the album art, I used The Gimp, a free, open source image editing program. Image editing allows you to do things like paint, darken, lighten, and copy photos or images you find on the internet. It's complicated but really powerful! If you want an editor that is as powerful as PhotoShop for FREE, get this one.
The logo I put on all my album art is a play on the word "remix". It looks like it rhymes with "Timex" but you are supposed to read it in Spanish! Say "REE-mex" and it sounds like "remix"! The "Mex" comes from "Mexican", of course! I copy the original into The Gimp then decorate or color it to go with the album art.
I originally created the logo using Serif's DrawPlus. Drawing programs allow you to use shapes to create images. I bought my version (4) a loooooooong time ago, but they now offer "outdated" versions for free! They are plenty powerful, and free!
Along with books, I love music! Before I became a teacher, I was even a mobile DJ. I have tons of CDs and am amassing a large collection of MP3 downloads, as well. Sometimes, I am listening to a song I really like and I think, "I can make that more danceable". So I break out my audio tools, and I make a remix!
