Ok.. so this is my first attempt to actually document one of my remixes. The goal is to accomplish using the Rainbow concept. What we know of a rainbow to be… it is light that is bent when it passes through water.. I don’t know too much about the physics of the rainbow.. but conceptually I understand it to be symbolic for something to possess qualities that find a good way to accomplish a good foundation for this rainbow remix.
The rainbow became symbolic to me when my brother passed away.. we would see “sun spots” in the sky .. which seem to find it’s way to have us see it. Anywho, it piqued my curiosity because the Bible also spoke about the Rainbow.. it was a covenant and a reminder. When God and Noah saw the rainbow.. they were reminded of the covenant. Key word “saw”… To see something like the rainbow must possess the same type of ethical meaning for it involving the colors that are used together to make a “rainbow”.
Anywho, usually I would remix songs by cutting them up into small segments because I would perform to usually a mix that was about 4 minutes long. By cutting up the song, I would achieve the mixes I wanted.
So, with the remix, because the colors are “colors” and not segmented, but make the “rainbow” because with these colors make the rainbow.
Although this is more of a principal thing to use the entire song, fading the song in and out is still crucial for a dynamic mix. All the songs together can cause a big jumble of noise, however, from knowing the progression in the music you can achieve a directional remix.
The remixes that I perform too are often very prominent in my mixes because they are like mini songs.. Often times I find that using the entire song to portray an expression comes with combining different songs.
Understanding FIRST … Know your tools!.. if you have songs that you absolutely think can mix together well.. try not to use those till you actually have to mix something with ease…
Usually I find myself to remix on the fly, I start with an “idea”.. then I just add on to it. By doing this, your expectations are that of the current state of emotion you are in. Sometimes.. the mix works, sometimes they don’t.. but sampling different songs together starts the project.
From these first songs, ideally you can feel what direction you are going with the mix. If you want unsyncapated beats.. or something more blending. Knowing your tools though, what you have to work with music and production wise. It sux if you have a good song that would work perfect, but you don’t have it.. or the means to get it.
Layering in a Rainbow Remix is probably the most important thing. Just like the rainbow layers in colors, it’s good to find yourself like the colors. You might mix a few songs then come back to it later.. and that is perfectly fine. I find myself remixing something together, to standards that sound like a remix. And then I come back and not have that remix in my head, because I usually want to just keep remixing different things. But I have also found myself returning to that remix later on and then have a total different perception about it.
So, I might remix it with something else that I remixed and come up with something.. or I might add more layers to it. But keeping your own satisfactory is crucial to knowing that it’s a remix.
This rainbow remix actually started off with the Rainbow Connection song. All the songs that I added to it, were significant to what I was actually trying to say about the rainbow connection.
Hard knock life came next because it represented life in general.. mostly because all of our interpretations have either a positive or negative result to it. But the hardest thing to do is communicate in all levels where people can understand what you are trying to accomplish. But when you understand who you are, then knowing how to communicate comes when you are able to perform in a manner that doesn’t require either a negative or positive reaction. The hardest part though comes when you have to communicate in a way that other people are not custom too… so trying to sample teaching methods, becomes a responsibility.
My Memphis Mix came next.. I wanted to use it because I really like the emotional progression in the mix. I mixed it for Memphis University to compete with. I used my extended mix because it had more accents in it.. with horns and stuff. It actually worked perfect with the first two songs because the accents worked well with hard knock like.
So with these 3 songs together, I was able to find a progressive direction. Although I was able to conquer the ability to remix and find within it the basics of understanding layers, I began to see my life in a perspective to what I was creating.
The next song was “I will survive”. I worked with Gloria Gaynor on a gig, so it was significant to me in this nature of the song. Knowing that I could move forward with mixing philosophy, I knew that I had the tools already to accomplish new things. This song was just acted as a step forward for me to move with layers.
Although, “like a Prayer” wasn’t in the original mix, I added it later to fit over i will survive. I needed something with more affection to move past after the Memphis mix because it was very progressive and to just utilize I will survive I felt wasn’t strong enough. So adding rock music kept up the pace better.
Keeping to the spiritual endeavor of how the music was going, I needed an equal to the song Like a Prayer, because I used most of it over the Memphis mix and I will survive. So “Trading Sorrows” caught my attention when I searched my music library, it had the some “movement”.
I didn’t want the entire mix to be of the same genre, so to add more flavor to it, I added some Hawaiian music to it. It had a strong hook and good beat that could be used as a good transition into another genre. For this I used Mark Ho Omalu. Basic chant, with good strength.
To add some flavor and accentual music, I used “like I never knew”.. This was a good beat that I could two step, with the beat. It was unsynvopated, and fit the theme.
To tie the two previous songs, Angel seemed to be a road block but also a blessing because the beats didn’t match to the hawaiian song, but when these 3 songs combined together, they worked well.
Moving from rock to staccato beats in Angel, finding a song like Pull up the People would act like the “I will Survive” song.. a directional way. At this point, listening to the hawaiian and tribal beats gave me a good opportunity to tribute a homage to my cultural background in hula dancing.
Again, I used a song by Mark Ho Omalu because of the strength that it had. This brought pull up the people into a workable mix.
The two songs together worked well, so I wanted to add some ol school stuff in there. One More Chance had a good a memorable hook to it, and remixed well with it’s hook in the beginning.
I wanted to use Lilo and Stitch earlier, but it wasn’t as strong as the Mark HO Omalu songs, so ending with it played well with One More Chance.
The significance in understanding this Remix in terms of a rainbow, is that the entirety of the remix is represented as a whole. Although, fading out some songs, to have certain hits and accents stand out is crucial, using each song benefits because layering the songs each come up with something cool. The songs each have their own meaning, but when they work in conjunction they produce amazing audio effects. Knowing how to equalize the songs to produce accents takes practice. Knowing how to equalize the entire song comes with understanding how you want the entire song to sound (airy, sharp, different key etc.) this also comes with practicing.
When I remix in “rainbow” style, I like to have the blend of each song very prominent. I like the songs because of how the sound separately, so I would still like to hear the actual song. Equalizing the layers accomplishes hearing the songs mix well by blending the timbre of the instruments. When the instruments are blended to sound the same from song to song, the blend by digitally enhancing the quality.
Knowing the songs that you use, are important because, they mean something to you. Without knowing which direction you want to move the mix, you find your remix to not last in the production of it. I usually hear the song, the drive that it has, mainly because I am not usually good at hearing the subtext in the lyrics. The musicality of the song is what helps me determine which song to use… not the lyrics.
