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What makes a great remix? It’s hard to give a rule of thumb that works in every case, but it seems that the art of remixing involves creating something that’s enough like the original to be recognisable but also transforming the original into something that’s completely different. 

 

A remixer has to attack the creation (or re-creation) of the song from a new angle, helping people to see elements of the original in a new light. Whether it’s the chords, the lead vocal, the hook or the overall vibe that remain the same, the other elements have to form a completely different song – but one that’s still got the same DNA as the original tune. But how can a producer achieve all of that?

 

To help you on your way to remixing success – and to celebrate 2024's Global Remix Challenge with The Blessed Madonna and Kylie Minogue, we’re going to give you a blueprint to follow that’ll get your first remix under your belt without fuss or long hours in the studio. We’ll also equip you with the necessary skills to ace a tricky remix and mine whatever’s in front of you for musical inspiration. Let’s go!

 

 

Step 1: Dealing with fresh stems

 

Most remixers are given the source stems from the original track in question – IE, the original channels of the project or mix used to create the song. Your first duty, once you have your stems in hand, is to survey them and see what you have to work with. 

 

Ensure you know their tempo before importing them into your DAW, and have the project ready to play them at that original tempo. You can change this later, but stick with the authentic sound of the stems themselves for now.

 

 

You may be familiar with the original song, but that doesn’t mean you’ve heard everything. The stems may hide interesting parts or flourishes that were hidden in a busy arrangement, or you might notice something that was buried or even unused in the original. The point here is to have a real listen through every track in its entirety in isolation, properly survey what’s in front of you and don’t make any assumptions.

 

During this stage, you may get various ideas about the way to approach your remix. Log them down to help with Step 2 of your remixing odyssey.

 

 

Step 2: Making initial decisions

 

Now is a great time to make some decisions and write them down for the future.

 

What will be the focal point in your remix? It could be the same as the one in the original track, or a different element altogether. 

 

Will you keep the tempo of the original track or change it? Depending on the genre you’re remixing into, the answer may be obvious, or it could be a creative decision.

 

 

Similarly to your tempo, what key will you be working in? The original will have an established key, but you could change this a few semitones using timestretching, or even work in the relative minor (for a major song) or relative major (for a minor song) without too much trouble.

 

Many producers get started on a song by nailing the drums and having other elements flow from that. But that’s not always ideal when remixing. Here, it may be wiser to start compiling a track from its focal point. Either way, you should be mining your stems for useful material. Here’s how to go about it…

 

 

Step 3: Getting rid or gathering the best?

 

It’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff. This step might reveal something to you based on how you look at it. Just like a glass of water can be half full or half empty depending on your perspective, this step of remixing can be thought of as either getting rid of the worst and unneeded parts of your stems, or as gathering together the best parts of the material.

 

 

Some producers like to think of this step of a remix as if they’re making their own sample pack – collecting all the interest source material, grinding and slicing it up into smaller parts ready to re-arrange and re-build as inspiration.

 

Either way, the skills you’ll need here include slicing and isolating audio material from a larger whole – be sure to check our remixing skills in the second half of this article for more advice on getting the best out of this step.

 

 

Step 4: Creative processing

 

There’s another necessary stage in sorting through the material in front of you. You could go into this remix the dry way, chopping up exact samples as they appear in the original song and using them to make a collage, but what about transforming some of them?

 

When going through your stems, try pushing some of them through some creative processing. For example, try using distortion, gating, be heavy-handed with reverb, or apply some liberal delay to turn an ordinary chunk of audio into gold. Another tactic is to head for a multi-effects plugin and surf through its presets, which usually do a great job of transforming and mangling any signal into something new.

 

 

Step 5: Arrange your focal point

 

By now, you should have decided what will be the central hook of your remix. That may be the exact same hook that was used in the original, or something that no one realised even existed in that song. We can’t help you much here, given how unique and specific every song will be – but now’s the time to choose what you’re putting front and centre in your remix.

 

 

 

Step 6: Working out the drums

 

You’ve probably received the original drum stems from the original track, but these can easily feel too close to the original to qualify your work as ‘a new spin’. If you’re remixing into a different genre than the original, then you’ll likely want to make your own drums from scratch, but even then, it can be nice to keep a certain vibe from the original drums (if not the kick or snare, then the hi-hats or percussion perhaps).

 

 

Step 7: Producing the rest of the song

 

In many ways, from now on the job of writing your remix follows along with writing any given song. Remember your task to put a new spin on the same song, and to always tow the line between the original and something new. But in general, now that you’ve worked out the essence of your remix and its unique personality, it’s time to take it further under your own steam.

 

 

Skills to master to develop your remixing potential

 

Achieving results in music production might be half about having the inspiration and workflow habits, and half about having the technical ability to make the sounds in your head appear in your DAW. Here are seven skills to enable you to create your best remixes.

 

 

Skill 1: Audio to MIDI

 

One great tactic when working on a remix is to layer some of the original sounds with synthesized or harmonized accompaniment.

 

Almost every DAW has its way of taking an audio file and converting the information contained inside it into MIDI format, for sending through a virtual instrument. This means that you can easily recreate a sound using another plug-in, and flick through presets and make tweaks until it’s completely original but still great in its own right. It’s a great way of spinning stems and track elements into new forms.

 

 

Although there are different algorithms and workflows, most DAWs offer ways to change drums, melodics, and sometimes even polyphonic audio into MIDI form. In Ableton Live, for example, simply dragging an audio clip onto an instrument channel will let you choose one of three definitions to make sense of it for replaying. You could use Audio-to-MIDI for creating harmonies, replacing sounds, or even happy accidents…

 

Sometimes, the algorithms behind Audio to MIDI conversion can get things wrong. Whether they’re dealing with a long string of notes that they can’t understand, audio that’s too quick and changing, or polyphonic material through a melodic algorithm, there’s a lot that can go wrong. Or is it right? Depending on the instrument you put it through, the results can be intriguing.

 

 

Skill 2: Timestretching and Pitchshifting

 

Another function of your DAW’s that you’ve got to get to grips with for ultimate remixing is its timestretching and pitchshifting functions. These are essential remix tools because they’ll help shift the original track’s elements in tempo, in tuning or into a different musical key altogether. Audio warping algorithms like these usually come in a few flavours, so make sure you test out all the timestretch and pitchshift types that are on offer in your DAW.

 

 

 

Skill 3: Groove Templates

 

Most DAWs these days have timestretching and warping functions, and out of these, a lot have created groove functions as well. Functions like Ableton Live’s Groove Pool, Logic’s Groove Track, and Tracktion Waveform’s Groove Doctor let you take the feel of one element in your track and apply its sense of ‘groove’ to another.

This is an obvious win for taking an audio part from one track and making other elements sound like they’re in-keeping with it. When you’ve grabbed a human-played beat from the original and want to fit in, say, a guitar loop from a sample pack, your DAW’s groove functions will help you to make them work together, in-time like a couple of Swiss clocks.

 

 

So what’s this special ‘feel’ that’s lurking under the sound of human-played instrumental tracks? Groove is all about the slight timing deviations for hits placed on specific beats in the bar. Perhaps every other 16th-note is slightly delayed, leading to a lazier, swung feel; or maybe the snares are hitting slightly quicker than they should each time, leading to a more urgent feel. Even with a consistent tempo, keeping each bar itself the same length, groove still exists because of the timing fluctuations of particular notes within.

 

 

Skill 4: Harmonic Mixing and Getting In Key

 

Do you know the key the original track is in? If so, it’ll be easy for you to find new samples that fit in perfectly with it – you can just search for samples in the same key and the same tempo, and it’s very likely the two will work together musically. Whether they work together sonically is a different matter altogether.

 

Of course, if you’re using Loopcloud, it’s possible to filter millions of samples by key and tempo, making sure that everything you get will easily fit into your current project. Loopcloud can also audition all samples at a tempo that matches your project’s, so you can hear it in context before paying points or downloading it. Check out Loopcloud, including its free options, on the Pricing Page.

 

 

 

Skill 5: Audio Isolation and Extraction

 

This one’s a golden skill to learn if you’ve not got perfect stems or perhaps if you’re ignoring copyright and creating a bootleg (for your ears only, of course!) Taking a stereo mixdown of multiple audio sources and separating the individual parts is a bit like unbaking a cake – it’s almost impossible… although you can get closer with a few techniques.

Tools like iZotope RX and even the AI-powered online stem separator lalal.ai can be very useful for this, but you’ll need to pay some money to get access to their talents.

 

 

Skill 6: Sample Slicing

 

Some audio extraction doesn’t need as much firepower as you’d think. In drum loops, for example, it’s often possible to isolate a snare or kick hit by simply slicing it out. Choose wisely which hit you’ll take, being careful to avoid other kit elements playing at the same time, or their reverb tails. You can truncate the reverb of the hit you’re taking using a fade.

For extra separation, you can try filtering or notching out other instruments’ frequencies. This is a balance between being so heavy-handed that you take out what was good about the hit you wanted in the first place, and leaving too much of the unwanted hit in.

 

 

Remember, with Loopcloud’s Pattern Editor, you can slice a hit from a loop on a certain beat/bar, and audition the same pattern with other loops, seeing what else you can extract from them. You can drag the original loop or the ‘processed’ single slice out into your DAW to use later, too.

 

 

Skill 7: Mid/Side Techniques

 

Elements that have been left centrally panned in a mix will remain if you mute the entire mix’s Sides signal, allowing you more room to chop them out. A keyboard part that was panned centre-left might disappear when you do this, but a vocal might well stay audible if it was left centrally – and the reverb may be lessened as well. Kicks and snares are also possible to grab this way sometimes – it all depends on the original mix.

 

This is sometimes possible using your DAW’s Utility plugin, but you’ll have to make sure this literally mutes the stereo information, and doesn’t just collapse that stereo information all down to mono. A third-party option like Voxengo’s free MSED lets you mute and change the gain for either mid or side channels.

 

 

Put your skills and habits to the test in the Global Remix Challenge

 

 

Think you've got what it takes to remix? The 2024 edition of our Global Remix Challenge, is a perfect way to put your remix chops to the test and be in the running for the studio prize package worth $10,000.

 

This year, you get the chance to remix The Blessed Madonna and Kylie Minogue. Discover more about the Global Remix Challenge!