Towards a Remix Workflow

The word “remix” carries particular connotations. Most significant of which is the notion of a remix as merely a re-tooling of a static piece of music. That is, a remix is not itself a definitive work. Furthermore, the person constructing a remix is not usually viewed as taking on the role of a composer or songwriter, but rather that of a producer or arranger. Yet, in practice, a remix walks a fine line between orchestration and composition. Within the world of Remixin, each remixer is faced with first identifying how his or her work will be understood as a remix. Will the remix be a subtle manipulation or augmentation of the original material? Or, will the remix be a new piece derived from the original? All avenues are possible and potentially equally fruitful, and any particular remix need not view its source material as authoritative and static, but can instead view all successive sources as malleable.

Know your role (or at least think about it again)

A “remixer” acts both musically and creatively in their pursuit of something new, and achieves newness by how they approach the original material. Where a remixer falls on the continuum between orchestration and composition is ultimately dependent on how they choose to engage the material and how their own listening and musical sensibilities inform the interaction. That is, the remixer must first ask, “what is it about the original work that is interesting?” In the great repertoire of remixes, this is often answered intuitively as being melody, and hence melody is maintained while the accompaniment is re-orchestrated, harmonically simplified, and a new dance/techno drum track is thrown underneath it. This formula works fairly easily for pop songs. But because the Remixin project is open to music beyond any one style or genre, perhaps different kinds of listening and manipulation are required. It may be the case that listening to the source in terms of counterpoint or timbre suggests different ways to approach making a remix.

While Remixin elicits musical divergence through iteration, it also, due its open nature, allows for radical divergence at any given node. In this sense, a remix offers the opportunity for communicating something latent within the source material, or something new, manifested through the source material, in a highly individual and unique way. In listening to a remix tree, rather than following an overarching trajectory of divergence as one traverses the tree, attending to how divergence is achieved at each node provides a window into each remixer’s understanding of what is musically interesting about the source and how best to convey it. Developing an understanding of each remixer’s “voice” becomes fascinating and illustrative. How the composer attends to sound and extends it relative to the source material is the fundamental interplay at work within a remix.

Sounds (old and new)

Beyond what piques any individual’s interest in any particular sound, a remix has sounds; sounds that are hopefully interesting to others too. The remixer is confronted with the question of what sounds are interesting in the musical source, and what imaginary sounds could potentially be derived from them or be used in conjunction with them. Dealing with the source material in terms of its constituent sounds frees the remixer from approaching the remix processes as solely the manipulation of more aggregate musical constructions, such as melody, harmony, and rhythm. In this way, the manipulation of sound can lead to new constructions.

This idea places a strong emphasis on timbre and the layering of sound, and removes emphasis on temporal positioning. After the sounds have been carved out of the source material and used to sculpt new sounds, the remix can be constructed by focusing on how sounds and groups of sounds are positioned in the source material, as well as envisioning new temporal alignments, which might have otherwise gone undiscovered. Ultimately, by focusing on shaping individual sounds and constructing a sound palette first, and then positioning these sounds in time, this process embraces the potential for “newness” by placing greater emphasis on the remixer’s own musical sensibilities. To the extent that the process shapes the material in a divergent manner, the remixer is pulled further into the role of composer.

What software does what well?

There is no one software application which serves all remix needs, in terms of sound editing, digital signal processing (DSP), sequencing, etc. Digital Audio Workstation environments, such as Protools, Logic, Digital Performer and others, are extremely useful in constructing remixes. They are sequencers, which allow for the easy positioning of sound in time, and control over amplitude levels, panning and some postproduction effects (such as reverb, compression, and limiting). In this sense, they are extremely useful tools for dealing with sound in time and mixing.

What sequencers are not so good at is editing, processing, and generating sounds. Most sequencers support VST or AU plug-ins, which allow for software synthesizers and processing units to be incorporated into your sequenced mix. These plug-ins themselves can get very pricey, but can certainly be used to great effect. Apart from using plug-ins, sound editing software such as Bias Peak, Sound Studio, and Audacity offer sound editing environments with more direct control over waveform editing, and more DSP options. These are sufficient for most editing requirements, yet may not be sufficient in terms of DSP techniques. Further down the rabbit hole we go… into the world of more academic software. Both SoundHack and PVC offer a range of FFT-based DSP options including a phase vocoder, spectral extraction, convolution, etc. Realtime audio processing environments such as Max/MSP, Supercollider, RTCmix, and ChucK also provide a system for DSP and sound generation techniques, which are highly extensible.

With all these software applications, plug-ins, and audio environments available, choosing which type of tool to use becomes a decision about how to shape the sound. That is, choosing how and when to use particular software tools becomes a series of creative decisions. The more familiar one is with these tools, the more powerful they become at enabling the realization of desired sounds and shaping the remix according to a unique musical sensibility.

Maybe it’s a remix, but it’s definitely source material

Ultimately, the remixer can reconstruct the material in the same fashion as the source, in a new and interesting way, or they can create something new, perhaps only subtly reflective of the source. In either case it is possible to accomplish a remix that presents the source material in a new light, through a process that is filled with opportunities for the remixer to instill the music with their own sensibilities. At very least, even if the final remix diverges so drastically from its source that it is only understood as a remix due to its positioning in the tree, it presents a unique musical voice; to be listened to and understood as source material.