dj/mixing question

[Booldawg]

When DJs produce re-mixes of tracks how do they manage to 'isolate' tracks, eg put a bassline from one song with rhythm from another? is there software that does it for you or are you able to purchase the component parts of a song from somewhere?

[pagey]

I have wondered this myself as I would like to produce my own remixes! I beleive unofficial (bootleg) remixes often use parts of the song its entirity, or vocals (acapella) which have been extracted using audio filters and clever processing.

Official remixes will use the component parts of the original track (which remain seperate in thier multitrack or PC sound software format).

Component parts of a song are almost never made available to the public, but some singles and dj-tool compilations have components such as instrumentals, beats and acapellas.

[Booldawg]

thanks pagey, as I thought. Hmmm maybe there are some dj resource sites on the net that may have bits & pieces for downloading.

[pagey]

I used to visit a site called homeofmusic that had a forum where people could share tracks. Some users had 1000+ acapellas which are great for laying over instrumentals. Done D&B remixes of slim shady many times and they sound great. It seems more difficult to get hold of this sort of stuff nowadays.

[gary baldy]

Hi booldawg! Get that Jungle bros mystery sorted yet?
I think you have to separate what you mean by a true remix or when someone just samples an element to produce a new track.
A true remix would involve the remixer getting hold of the component parts of the track from the original artist and playing around with them.
On the other hand what would usually happen if someone wanted to sample a bassline for example is try and find a part of the track where there is only the bass line. That is rare so what you may want to do is just replay the bassline (in dance records they are usually very simple). What you usually find is someone will sample a bar or two of the track where there is a hook and base the track around that . There are very sophisticated filters now that can take certain elements of the 'mix' out so you are left with quite 'clean' vocal or rhythm track.
I would say the most common method is just getting a bit of a track you like (a vocal or a funky break or a good bass line) sampling it, looping it up and playing around with it a bit with filters and then adding your own elements.
What is getting more common though is for dj's to contact the artist themselves (especially if they are washupped has beens like leo sayer for example) and asking for the original tracks and using them - much easier but not as creative IMO.

[Sooper]

You can do simple but effective mixes at home now with todays software and hardware that is available. Most good Mixers have either Kill Switches or Filters that are suprisingly good and will isolate exactly what you want them to. I use them a lot on my mixer and it really is a useful tool to spice up your sets or revitalise old tunes etc . Good Luck!

[Booldawg]

Thanks for all the great advice. I've only just started playing around with it. Gary Baldy - no I havent sorted the Jungle Bros thing yet but will hunt around! I downloaded a free trial of Acoustica, which is an MP3 mixer but not had enough time to get to grips with it.

[jenky]

this is what samplers are for - great old bits of kit like the Akai S1000

[duenorth]

Get yourself adobe audition!

[Johnny Doe]

There's a few ways to skin this particular cat. First off, you need and instrumental record. If you want to use a track that has got vocals on it and want to remove those vocals there is 3 main ways that i can think of

1, Get hold of a promo copy that has instrumental version as a B-side (sometimes they have acappella too)
2, Reassemble a backing track made from various loops of bits of the song without any vocals, intro, mid-8, coda etc
3, A technique involving phase-invert and stereo-flip can remove vocals from some tracks and with a little creative EQing you can get a decent sounding instrumental that way.

I prefer the second option of these as the best sounding one. After that, what you really want is a acappella version of another song. As i said, you can get these off of promo cds and the net. If you bittorrent then try typing acappella into a torrent search and see what comes up. I've got hundreds of acappellas this way. If you like beastie boys check out their website (http://www.beastieboys.com/remixers.php) as they uploaded loads of acappellas on there for anyone to use. As for software, I always use Cubase SX3 for this task then its just a case of making the tempo's of the two tracks match and possibly a little pitchshifting to get the keys in line.