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.
About six weeks ago, Paul Stix, the fine proprietor and operator of MashStix.com, approached me about writing an article regarding the proper labeling of MP3 mashup files. Little did he know that I'm a software developer by profession, and I've reviewed and created my share of programming guidelines, so this was right up my alley. The only difference was that I now had the opportunity to add a little creative flair to this somewhat dry subject matter.
Every good article requires research, so I turned to Internet articles, blogs, and other ramblings for some initial insight to the dilemma. Besides the huge collection of MP3 mashup files I've come across in the past few years, which provided a good range of poor examples and excellent examples, I reviewed the music filenames found in P2P or torrent downloads to get a good idea of how other people were naming their music files. I also looked into how a few active DJ's named and organized their own digital music files for some insight into how other industry professionals, who needed to access their music quickly on a regular basis, were naming their music files.
The approach to the article was not to create a standard in an already established industry, but to provide a guideline that shows music/mashup producers the benefits of intelligently naming their music MP3 files and completing the ID3 tags, and conversely, showing the downfalls if they don't spend a little extra time doing so.
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
deConstruction of a Stigmata on GDJN Radio...
one night. two time zones.
My first mashup album, deConstruction of a Stigmata, will be aired on the Global DJ Network (GDJN) Internet radio on Thursday, July 31, 2008.
It will be played at 2 different times to accommodate evening listeners in Europe/UK, and evening listeners in North America.
Here's the play times...
1. Thurs July 31 at 10:00 PM BST (that's British Summer Time if you're wondering)
2. Thurs July 31 at 11:00 PM EDT
TO LISTEN TO THE RADIO:
Simply go to the GDJN Community site at http://www.globaldjnetwork.com/community/ about 5 minutes before the appropriate play time. You will find the on-line radio box near the top. Click on the appropriate music player icon to launch the music stream in your favourite streaming music player.
No registration is required to listen to the radio, and there's a convenient shoutbox available to chat with members and guests.
Note: If you join the radio 2 hours before the first play time, you can enjoy The Smash Up (airs every Thursday from 8-10 PM BST [3-5 PM EDT]), which is 2 hours of mashup music from various other mashup producers.
TO DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN FREE COPY:
You can also download your own free copy of the album on the deConstruction of a Stigmata blog page, as well as get details about the song tracks and a little background about the making of the album.
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?
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
It's been a while since my last mashup. I had been working on a little vocal extraction project for someone else for a little bit. Then I had started working on a remix and a mashup project, but put those aside for another time in the future since they weren't quite working out as intended.
As I worked on this mashup, I was hit by a nifty idea that I could build around this mashup in the form of a 4 or 5 song gapless mini-album, or more like a long song that can be segmented into 4 or 5 shorter segments/songs... similar to the song The Fall of the House of Usher by The Alan Parsons Project on the Tales of Mystery and Imagination album.
Keeping this idea in mind, I proceeded to create this mashup as a single or (internet) radio edit, and left out certain elements that are more suited for the grander idea. Releasing this [iRadio Edit] version of the song may be a bit premature since I haven't actually started working on the grander idea yet, although the ideas and elements have been stewing in my head for a little while now, so I hope I can pull this off.
As a bit of technical insight into this song... The main instrumental mix is constructed of reversed audio samples of the deconstructed/reconstructed snippets and loops that I extracted from Working Class Hero, giving the mashup a more alternative and slightly industrial sound. You can't have a religious stigmata-like experience without having something going backwards, right?! But I won't be held responsible for any hidden images that you mind find in the album artwork for this mashup. ;)
Working Class Stigmata [iRadio Edit] v2
Ministry & Co Conspirators - Willie Stigmata
Marianne Faithfull - Working Class Hero
2:48 / 192 kbps / 3.9 MB
NOTE: This is version 2 of the mashup, which has been tweaked with compression filters to reduce clipping effects on larger speakers or more powerful speaker systems (such as car stereo systems), and consequently, levels have been tweaked as well.
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.
