Crazy (the original Gnarls Barkley version) is in the following movies:
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Horrible Bosses
Kick-Ass
Religulous
I Think I Love My Wife
plus occurrences in several TV series
WARNING: Language Advisory.
Although the Violent Femmes' cover of Crazy (by Gnarls Barkley) was not used in movie soundtracks, I found the style of vocals they had used for their cover to be a better fit with the lyrics, and was more suitable for my purpose in producing the three voices (i.e. three points of view) in my mash-up that I envisioned whenever I heard the vocals.
Unreal Volume
Yello - Unreal
MARRS - Pump Up The Volume
4:26 / 320 kbps
After my summer vacation, and before I was able to get back to producing the next mash-up track for my movie soundtrack series, I was tempted and seduced into producing this mash-up track for Sound-Unsound's 80's Mashed 2 compilation project.
Some of you may recognize pieces of this track from a second version of my very first mash-up production, Thinking About Pumping Up the Volume (Touched by Love Unreal Mix). I was never happy with that version, as it sounded like two different songs mixed like a DJ mix instead of a mash-up, and some vocals just seemed to be slapped in between other vocals.
So this was an opportunity to take an old idea and give it a proper mash-up production. And, unlike my first production, I made use of the original MARRS sample pack to produce this track, which allowed me to do a few different things with those sources, and it provided me with a little more control over the final sound.
It's been a year since I produced a new mash-up. Music/mash-up production is only a hobby for me, so it took a back seat this past year while things got busy for me.
But I'm planning to get back into some serious mash-up production this year. I've purchased a new laptop and new production software, so I'm hoping to work on a few productions this year. And this one is the first mash-up track produced from my new set-up.
In fact, while evaluating the different music production programs I was considering buying, a couple of the test tracks I chose to use for the evaluation process had started to come together while I was evaluating the programs. I made my software selection and then continued to finish off the mash-up track, which was then initially released on The 4th Point of Procrastination compilation mash-up release.
The mash-up track is now available here in this posting, along with an instrumental version, which highlights how well the instrumental sources work together and play off each other.
Earthly Temple of My Bonnie
Imogen Heap - Earth
Janah - Temple of My Body
Cynthia Lynn Douglass - My Bonnie
3:33 / 320 kbps
Earthly Temple of My Bonnie (Voxless Lullaby)
Imogen Heap - Earth
Janah - Temple of My Body
Cynthia Lynn Douglass - My Bonnie
3:33 / 320 kbps
Dark sinister clowns have stolen the country music from Johnny Cash, which has made Johnny very very sad.
But with the energetic help of some old Yello, and a few additional funky loops/stems I found lying around (including some sounds from an old pinball machine), Johnny's Cry Cry Cry can be heard in a whole different funktronic light.
Night Cry (Early Bird Edition) was originally released on Envision's The 3rd World: Annual Genre-Smashed compilation. Unfortunately, the IFPI had the album download removed.
Fortunately, you can still enjoy my funktronic mash-up track here using the Official.fm player below. You can also enjoy the funky mash-up video I put together for this track (available on YouTube and Vimeo for everyone's global viewing pleasure).
Night Cry (Early Bird Edition)
Johnny Cash - Cry, Cry, Cry
Yello - Night Flanger
Qubic - a few sound loops/stems I found lying around
3:07 / 320 kbps / 7.3 MB
BorisB is working on a new-ish video project these days... He's taking his best mash-up videos of all time and reproducing them in stunning HD video. The first video out of the gate, and just in time for Xmas, is the video for the Xmas mash-up I had produced a couple of years ago, Oíche Suaimhneach, Fir Caoin. (Note: You'll have to watch it from the vimeo web site to get the HD quality video.)
Here's the remastered version of the song file in high-quality 320 kbps stereo for your listening and downloading pleasure...
Oíche Suaimhneach, Fir Caoin
Mediaeval Baebes - Umlahi
Loreena McKennitt - God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (Abdelli version)
Loreena McKennitt - God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (Instrumental)
6:05 / 320 kbps / 14.1 MB
Sound Unsound just released an awesome mash-up compilation digital album, World's Greatest Pop Mashups.
If you love pop tunes, there's 18 pop mashups on this album with pop tunes spanning the 80's, 90's, and the last decade. You'll also find a track produced by me containing a little something from the 80's and a little something from this past decade...
You can also visit Sound Unsound to get more details about the album release.
Sound Unsound just released the awesome mash-up compilation digital album, Chillax, Come Down.....
As the title suggests, it's filled with music that you can chill and relax with. Containing 23 chill tunes produced by various mash-up/remix producers, you will also find one chill tune produced by me...
Northern Half Life
Imogen Heap - Half Life
Enigma - Northern Lights Running Time: 5:24
You can preview my track using the Official.fm player above.
If you want to download the track for your music library, you'll have to download the digital albums from the people at Sound Unsound using the links found on the following Chillax release postings (fyi, my track is on Disc One, but you'll want both awesome discs):
Continuum 08 is a collection of remastered mashup singles and mixes that I had originally produced in 2008, plus a collection of mashup videos produced by myself and a few other producers. It commemorates my commitment to continuously trying to improve my production skills as well as my continuously growing interest in music mashup production (and now mashup video production as well).
I spent several months this year learning how to improve my audio extraction and mastering techniques, and what better way to do that than figure it out on pieces I've already completed. Thus, all the music in this collection has been remastered in 320 kbps audio.
My original intent was to have this project completed by April 2009, but a few personal situations delayed the project. My sincere apologies go to the other producers (BorisB, Guv'nor, and The Reborn Identity), who produced videos for this project back in February/March and had to wait until now to see them released. I thank them for their immense patience.
Continuum 08 is contained within 3 albums for your listening, viewing, and downloading pleasure:
Continuum 08: the Music
Continuum 08: the Mixes
Continuum 08: the Videos
Consequently, there are 3 download packages - one for each album. Each album download package includes the music tracks (or video tracks), a digital booklet (in PDF, which can be added to your iTunes library), a paper CD case (in PDF, with printing and folding instructions), and some digital cover art.
As part of this release, all the cover art for each mashup single has been recreated in 3D and only included in the digital booklets contained within the download packages.
You can listen to and download the individual tracks using the Fairtilizer music players below. Or click on the album download links to download the music tracks with all the extra goodies. Note that the Videos album package is not listed below because it will be presented in a separate blog posting.
Last year, I had produced a mashup song for Halloween, but only managed to release it the day before Halloween, so it didn't get much exposure. If you've never heard it, this mashup has a distinct Tim Burton movie style to it - a whimsical, slightly corny, high energy rock sound.
Now it's Halloween time again and I thought I'd promote the mashup once again for those of you who missed it. But I couldn't just offer you the exact same thing as last year, so there's a few little bonuses with this new 2009 release...
First, I've been working on some of my remastering skills, so I remastered this song a bit and offer it to you in 320kbps haunting stereo. Most of the audio was pretty good in the original release, so it basically received a little audio cleanup and a little more compression.
Second, for a little in-your-face Halloween fun, I created a 3D version of the album art (as shown above), so strap on your 3D glasses and bugger up your eyes & brain (click on the image above for a larger version). For best results, use the 3D glasses with the green and magenta (pink) lenses. I got mine from the 3D version of Coraline. You should also get some decent results with blue and red lenses.
And third, everyone's favourite producer, Guv'nor, produced a video to accompany this mashup. I hope you enjoy this healthy little Halloween treat - no sugar added!
BTW, there is a LANGUAGE WARNING - what's a good Halloween song without a li'l cursing?
A Little Piece About Death (A Rockoween Love Story) - remaster
Avenged Sevenfold - A Little Piece of Heaven
Sixx:A.M. - Life After Death
Sixx:A.M. - Intermission
Oingo Boingo - No One Lives Forever
Excerpts from Darwin Chamber's 3D Halloween Sound FX 2006 album
8:21 / 320 kbps / 19.3 MB
A Little Piece About Death (A Rockoween Love Story) [clean]
** CLEAN LYRICS version **
L'Éternel Enfant Roi
Noir Désir - L'Enfant Roi
Yello - Eternal Legs 6:33
UPDATE:
Preview and download now available here...
You won't find a play button or download link here for this mashup track becauseL'Éternel Enfant Roi (aka: The Eternal Child King) was included as an exclusive mashup track in the Ramdom Thoughts podcast show #138 released this weekend.
It's a pre-release track to the upcoming compilation mashup album, Beautiful Boots, which is planned for release at the end of March. The release of this compilation is being coordinated by DJ Useo, and you'll find the release at Groovy Time With DJ Useo when it's ready.
So if you want to hear this track for a sneak peek at Beautiful Boots, head over to Ramdom Thoughts to download podcast show #138 or subscribe to it through iTunes. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until Beautiful Boots is released.
Café del Mash - Volume 1 just took flight via Mashup Industries Airlines... A chillout/lounge mashup album where you can sit back, relax, and let your mind soar.
Just before Christmas, Clivester from Mashup Industries invited me to contribute a track to this chillout/lounge mashup compilation album. Although my own mahsup project plate was a little full, I could not resist this possible gem of an album and forged some time for this project.
Here's the mashup track that I contributed to the album...
Waiting for the Morning Twilight
Achillea - Prelude / Ragnarok (Twilight of the Gods)
BT - Good Morning Kaia
Niyaz - In the Shadow of Life
Jean Michel Jarre - En Attendant Cousteau Running Time: 8:37
I have to admit... with the very long slowly fading ending to my song, I figured that it was destined to be the last song on the album so it wouldn't break up the album in the middle. And sure enough, other than the album outro, it ended up being the last song.
You can preview/download the track using the player above.
I had picked up Loreena McKennitt's album, A Midwinter Night's Dream, back in October and enjoyed her renditions of some of the classic Christmas tunes. In particular, I really enjoyed God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, which was actually based on one of her previous songs, Marco Polo.
The album was also blessed with a few instrumental versions of some of the songs, including God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. The temptation to produce a Christmas mashup with this instrumental was brewing... I just needed something else to go with it.
It wasn't until the end of November when I stumbled upon the Mediaeval Baebes song and I immediately thought that this was the song that I needed. I wasn't able to start working on it until the middle of December, but I had some solid ideas, so the little time I had in front of my music production software between Christmas shopping sprints was very productive.
I felt that using an Irish/Gaelic title seemed more suitable for this multi-cultural sounding mashup. I had to do a little research on Irish/Gaelic phrase/dictionary web sites to figure out an appropriate and (hopefully) correctly phrased title... Google and Babel Fish still don't have an Irish/Gaelic translator.
I determined that one of the words in the song Umlahi was "suaimhneach", which was a difficult task since I couldn't find lyrics for the song and had to rely on what I was hearing and my limited knowledge (i.e. none) of Gaelic. I found out that suaimhneach means peaceful, quiet, or tranquil... which was a good starting point for naming this mashup.
Based on the word peaceful, I thought an appropriate title for this mashup in the English language would be Peaceful Night, Gentlemen. So after a little more research on the Irish/Gaelic phrase/dictionary sites, I determined the rest of the words and phrasing and came up with Oíche Suaimhneach, Fir Caoin.
If anyone reading this has a good understanding of Irish/Gaelic, I'd be interested in hearing your interpretation of my translation as I understand that context, region of influence, etc., can produce different interpretations of phrases.
I hope you enjoy this little Xmashup. And I hope you and your family enjoy a peaceful holiday season. Otherwise, have a satisfactory non-denominational capitalist wintertime gift-giving season.
Oíche Suaimhneach, Fir Caoin
Mediaeval Baebes - Umlahi
Loreena McKennitt - God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (Abdelli version)
Loreena McKennitt - God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (Instrumental)
6:05 / 256 kbps / 11.3 MB
Shortly after completing my second mashup back in March 2008, I was at a shopping mall with a couple of colleagues for lunch, and a Rae Stickly tune was being played over the mall speakers. We chuckled about doing a mashup with this song. But then I actually sat down to try to produce one... trying a few different songs with it, but nothing really seemed to work well enough so I put it aside.
Eight months later, an opportunity presented itself that allowed me to resurrect that old project. Actually, I scrapped the original project file and started fresh... I decided to try a different approach to this one, and I think it worked out well... well enough to create a second mix. The first original version has a pop-folk flavor to it and became part of a compilation album for Audio Porn Central, while the second mix has more of a rock-folk flavor and is only available as part of this EP release.
As a special treat (from my usual offerings), the zip file download features 320 kbps MP3 files and a special instrumental bonus track.
01 - The Jig is Never Up String Cheese Incident - Valley of the Jig
Rae Stickly - (Something's) Never Up
02 - The Jig is Never Up (Drunken Sailor Mix) String Cheese Incident - Valley of the Jig
Tears for Beers - Drunken Sailor
Rae Stickly - (Something's) Never Up
03 - The Jig is Never Up (Drunken Instrumental) [Bonus Track] String Cheese Incident - Valley of the Jig
Tears for Beers - Drunken Sailor
Zip File Details:
31.3 MB zip file.
320 kbps MP3 files.
Bonus track - The Jig is Never Up (Drunken Instrumental).
Album artwork in two popular resolutions.
Track notes.
Or listen to the not-as-good-quality-as-the-zip-file versions below...
The Jig is Never Up
4:28 / 192 kbps / 6.2 MB
The Jig is Never Up (Drunken Sailor Mix)
4:42 / 192 kbps / 6.5 MB
Note: The instrumental version is only available in the zip file download.
I originally had no intention of producing a Halloween mashup this year... But yet, here's one now.
I often drive my son to school on my way to work in the morning if he's ready to leave when I am. And I often let him play his tunes from his iPod on the way to his school. After all, it's a good way to hear what he's listening to, and to hear what teenagers like to listen to these days.
It was the 2nd week into October, and my son was listening to tunes from the Sixx:A.M. album, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack (he read the book this past summer). It had some songs with good instrumentals and guitar work, but in some of those songs, instead of singing in between, it was quiet instrumentals with monologue-style speaking. There was another long song that my son played, which I originally thought was part of the Sixx:A.M. album, but turned out to be by Avenged Sevenfold. It had some interesting change-ups and time changes, but had singing throughout with pretty much no instrumental break from the singing.
After listening to these songs almost every weekday morning for 1-1/2 weeks, it suddenly hit me that some of these songs need to be merged together into a Halloween style mashup, with a touch of Oingo Boingo for good measure. And using the magical mashup technologies available to producers today, the Sixx:A.M. guitar riffs could now be accompanied by singing, and the Avenged Sevenfold song could now be accompanied by some instrumental breaks... in the same song.
By the time I realized this, there was only 2 weeks until Halloween... I had a lot of work ahead in order to pull this off in time for Halloween, but the ideas had obviously already been stewing and it was just a matter of getting those ideas working for me.
A Little Piece About Death (A Rockoween Love Story)
Avenged Sevenfold - A Little Piece of Heaven
Sixx:A.M. - Life After Death
Sixx:A.M. - Intermission
Oingo Boingo - No One Lives Forever
Excerpts from Darwin Chamber's 3D Halloween Sound FX 2006 album
8:21 / 192 kbps / 11.7 MB
Back in August, Clivester from Mashup Industries approached me about contributing a song to a Dean Martin mashup tribute album they were putting together. How could I say no? Dino was a cool entertainer extraordinaire... he sang, he danced, he acted, he was funny, he had swagger, and much much more.
My contribution to the album is a track called Swing 'Till Somebody Loves You, which is a mashup of Dean Martin - You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You and Thomas Dolby - The Ability to Swing.
King of the Road - A Bastard Pop Tribute to Dean Martin was just released by Mashup Industries this past weekend, with 14 unique mashup tracks that are very reminiscent of a variety show.
I had a couple of bad-weather days during my vacation, so I thought I'd pick a small mashup project to work on... Create a new mix of a mashup that I previously produced.
When I first released Feedback Inside the Robots back in March, I had received some good constructive feedback from some of my peers on the mashup forums. But I was a bit "done" with working on this particular mashup for the time being and I needed a break from it, so I put it aside for a rainy day.
I started thinking about it again when I heard it on the Ramdom Thoughts #114 show at the end of July, and I thought about some of the feedback I had received. I then got the idea for a new mix instead of tweaking the original since my ideas would significantly change the sound of the mashup.
You'll find the new mix a bit punchier, faster, much shorter, and there's a bit more Kraftwerk vocals injected. The album art was also slightly altered for the new mix.
The new mix still includes the few subtle excerpts from Robot Rock by Daft Punk and Robot Girl by Was (Not Was), but it also includes an excerpt from Computer World by Kraftwerk (robots... computers... I couldn't resist).
For your listening convenience, both the new mix and the original mashup are included in the divShare music players below.
For your download convenience, I've packaged up the original mashup and the new mix into a zip file that you can download (the link is below the music players).
Please let me know what you think about the new mix by leaving a comment.
Feedback Inside the Robots (Morekraft-Lessewerk Mix)
The Thompson Twins - Come Inside (Feedback Max Remix)
Kraftwerk - The Robots
5:11 / 192 kbps / 7.3 MB
Feedback Inside the Robots (Original)
The Thompson Twins - Come Inside (Feedback Max Remix)
Kraftwerk - The Robots
6:54 / 192 kbps / 9.6 MB
Whew! This mashup project is finally done. I have to admit... it was quite the undertaking. It was 3 months in the making, if you include the date when I first started working on the Working Class Stigmata mashup, which was April 25, 2008.
The Working Class Stigmata mashup had spawned the idea of this opus-style mashup album, and after completing that mashup I had immediately continued to expand from it to create over 36 minutes of mashup music that flows from one song into the next. It's a collection of 10 tracks that are a culmination of 26 songs, which have been deconstructed, reconstructed, mixed, and mashed with each other, and the overall sound and style was governed by a very specific theme throughout.
Selection of the source songs for this project was fairly specific. I wanted songs where the lyrics or combined lyrics included some form of religious reference or connotation, and/or the combined names from the songs would create song titles meaningful to the progression of the album. I also wanted to include songs from artists that have had an influence on my musical interests.
Much of the music I really enjoy tends to have a lot of subtle backing instrumentals as it seems to add a lot of depth and layers to a song. If you change your focus within a song, you can hear a different rhythm, melody, or tone, and you end up hearing the song in a different way or it adds additional meaning or emotion to the song. One of my main focuses for this mashup album project was to try to incorporate those type of subtle backing instrumentals throughout the album, and hopefully introduce the same type of depth and layering that some of my favourite artists are so good at doing. After listening to this album, if you have any comments about my level of success in this attempt, please leave a comment for me.
There were some technical challenges to overcome. I did manage to hone a few skills (and then some). In particular, I improved my techniques for extracting vocals and other instrumental segments, and I think I've improved my musical arrangement and remixing abilities, which is more of an art than a skill. I certainly dealt with a lot of work around changing the keys of source songs to put them in the right key, as well as work with harmonizing keys.
Please, give it a listen and send me your comments. Comments let me know whether I'm going in the right direction with my work, or let me know what I can try to improve on, and can just simply affirm the goals and attempts of my work.
I'd like to thank a few people at GDJN and a couple of my colleagues and friends who acted as a sounding board for some of my draft segments, and whose feedback helped to keep my mashup work and goals in focus... you guys know who you are... Thanks guys, I really appreciate the time and effort you put towards it! Even my son got into the action and reluctantly provided some (apologetically) honest and useful feedback.
You can listen to the full album as a single continuous mix via the divShare player below, or download the single continuous mix as an MP3 file via the appropriate link below.
OR, you can download the zip file, which contains a folder with the 10 MP3 tracks from the album, the cover art in a couple of convenient sizes, and a text file with detailed track info. If you have an MP3 player that supports gapless album playback (such as iTunes and the iPod), ensure that you enable gapless album playback for this album if it doesn't pick it up from the ID3 tags... otherwise you'll get some undesirable results.
deConstruction of a Stigmata (Continuous Mix) 36:39 / 192 kbps / 50.6 MB
God's on the Horn (1:25)
OMD - Dazzle Ships
Revolting Cocks - No Devotion
The Sisters of Mercy - Ribbons
O Lord, No Devotion? (Ain't No Heaven = Heaven) (5:37)
Revolting Cocks - No Devotion
Champion - No Heaven
The Angel Divine (5:17)
Massive Attack - Angel
Yello - The Rhythm Divine
Art of Noise - The Vacuum Divine
Art of Noise - What Have You Done With My Body, God?
Arrivée (2:45)
Peter Gabriel - Passion
Wooloomooloo - Jean Michel Jarre
Sarah Brightman - Gothica
Fleurs Soutenues du Mal (4:50)
Sarah Brightman - Fleurs du Mal
Laurie Anderson - Born, Never Asked
Alan Parsons Project - The Fall of the House of Usher: ii Arrival
Haven't We Met Your Soul Before (2:54)
Peter Gabriel - Stigmata
Timo Maas - Haven't We Met Before
Massive Attack - What Your Soul Sings
Ministry & Co Conspirators - Willie Stigmata
Marianne Faithfull - Working Class Hero
Working Class Stigmata (2:48)
Ministry & Co Conspirators - Willie Stigmata
Marianne Faithfull - Working Class Hero
God's on the Horn... again (1:22)
OMD - Dazzle Ships
Peter Gabriel - Disturbed
Timo Maas - Enter My World
Sowing the Hopes and Prayers of God (3:44)
Timo Maas - Enter My World
Peter Gabriel - Of These, Hope
Champion - The Plow
Massive Attack - A Prayer for England
OMD - Dazzle Ships
Peter Gabriel - Disturbed
You and Me, Eternally (5:57)
Skinny Puppy - Haze
OMD - 4-Neu
Total Running Time: 36:39
All song files are 192 kbps MP3 files.
Cover Art - Front: Elements humbly borrowed from the "Tooth and Nail" movie poster and Peter Gabriel's "Passion - The Last Temptation of Christ" soundtrack album.
Cover Art - Back: Elements humbly borrowed from Peter Gabriel's "Passion - The Last Temptation of Christ" soundtrack album, plus original photo of a butterfly.
It's been a while since I've posted anything here, again... But I've actually been working on that "grander idea" mashup I had mentioned in my last post. It's turned into a bit of an opus, as someone else has pointed out to me, and I'm making decently good progress. I should hopefully have it ready for release within the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, DJ Useo from the Global DJ Network (of which I am an active member), approached me about providing a new mashup that would be released exclusively on the Ramdom Thoughts podcast, episode #111 on July 5, 2008. He was kindly producing a guest show for the podcast because dateable Scotty has been busy with his studies lately.
DJ Useo had given me fairly short notice, and I was currently in the middle of working on my opus. So instead of scrambling to produce a new mashup in a really short time, I thought I'd extract an excerpt from my opus, turn it into a single, and have that released exclusively on the Ramdom Thoughts podcast, as well as give you a little teaser of what's to be expected in the upcoming opus.
Here's the details for the mashup, and a link to the Ramdom Thoughts post where you can download the podcast as an MP3 or Ogg Vorbis file, or subscribe to the iTunes podcast...
The Angel Divine
Massive Attack - Angel
Yello - The Rhythm Divine
Art of Noise - The Vacuum Divine
Art of Noise - excerpt from "And What Have You Done With My Body, God?"
5:57 / 192 kbps / 8.3 MB
All media files posted on this blog were created for entertainment and experimentation purposes only and are intended to be a demonstration of audio extraction, mixing, and production techniques. No personal profit related to the resulting media files is intended nor implied. The copyright of the original media remains with the original artist. If you like the mixes I have produced, please support the original artists by purchasing the original songs. If you are a representative of one of the artists or publishing companies and would like a mixed track removed, please contact me directly and I will remove the track. If you are a representative of an artist and like what I have produced, please contact me directly and offer me some proper original audio tracks for remix purposes and/or collaboration on the remix.
