RemixGalaxy Blog

Just in time for this years much-hyped Pitchfork Music Festival that will feature LCD Soundsystem closing out Saturday night, dance punk virtuoso James Murphy has revealed that the troupe is scheduled to drop its new album on May 17. Though fans are already going bonkers for its planned debut, James Murphy is only fanning the flames of the fire by revealing tasty tidbits of information on his band’s Facebook page, as well as Twitter. The new album supposedly leans a bit more towards heavy synth, guitar, and a heaping helping of melodies, which may or may not stray from member Nancy Whang’s steadfast house-propelled disco style featured in her other band, The Juan MacLean. Whatever the end result, Murphy always seems to have critics in the palm of his hand. The real question is whether fans will follow suit. Here’s a duo of remixes by Soulwax.

LCD Soundsystem “Get Innocuous (Soulwax remix)”

LCD Soundsystem “Daft Punk is Playing at My House (Soulwax remix)”

Is it the industry standard Pro Tools? Apple’s Logic Studio? Cubase? Cakewalk? Nope. The most popular DAW, at least as voted by visitors to MusicRadar, is Reaper by Cockos.

Never heard of Reaper? It wouldn’t surprise me. Begun mainly as an underground project, Reaper debuted in 2006 with a spartan user interface and basic functionality. Now in Version 3, Reaper has evolved into a much more usable program with features to rival any of the major commercial offerings (although there is still no audio editor so don’t get rid of Audacity just yet). The major draw of Reaper? Definitely the cost. While you might pay hundreds of dollars for the mainstream DAWs, Reaper can be yours for a mere $60. That puts Reaper within reach for nearly any home musician. Other draws include a highly customizable interface and an extremely efficient design that gives Reaper an unusually low system footprint. If you are looking for a new DAW, you can download a free 30 day trial here.

For those who love not only music but the process and technology of making music, there is no one more interesting than the master of the stutter-edit BT (aka Brian Transeau). Sporting an interesting new haircut, he recently gave an interview to EQ Magazine about his newest release These Hopeful Machines. It is obvious that BT loves what he does and loves to share it with anyone. I find it very appealing that he doesn’t treat his skills and techniques are trade secrets. He is more than happy to explain anything to anyone in more detail than they probably wanted to know. I get the sense that if you were sitting next to him on a plane, he would love nothing more than to talk to you for hours about how he time-corrects audio down to 2048th notes.

If you want to get a sense of how BT approaches his art, just have a gander at this exchange:

EQ: [The track] “Every Other Way” has some interesting vocal effects on her voice at one point early in the song. It’s almost disintegrating. What did you do?
BT: That’s a technique called granular synthesis, and it’s mixed in in parts with my stutter edit technique. I’m using exponential logarithmic and Hamming curves applied to the gestural note values in that. So some of the things in there I’ve corrected 1,024th and 2,048th notes. And I’m doing things like applying a Hamming curve from 2,048th notes down to 8th-note triplets and up 1,024th notes. So there’s just a molecular level of detail to the vocal edit in Jes’ vocal in that song.

You did all that on your last track too, right?

Find the whole interview here.

With so many freeware plug-ins out there, quality isn’t always easy to find. Hopefully, we can help you narrow down the choices with periodic recommendations and reviews. Today’s thumbs up goes to Vento, a four-voice chorus effect from Acrobatics. According to the developer, the plug-in is a high-structured 4 voices chorus which filters every voice with a different harmonic modulation, then the tremolo section gives additional shine and sculpting possibilities using the same voicing architecture. Every parameter is fully customizable with dedicated knobs for speed and separation of chorusing, giving maximum flexibility and dramatic, smooth changes to the signal, that varies from monophonic tube-flangers to incredibly rich and detailed stereo smearings.

Chorusing is best when used as a subtle effect. Less is often more, so it is important to get a lot of bang for your buck (figuratively speaking, of course, since this is a free plug-in). Vento delivers the goods and offers a solid alternative to the Kjaerhus Audio Classic Chorus (also a freebie). I used it primarily on guitars, acoustic and electric, and got great results, but I also was quite pleased with the plug-in on lead and backing vocal tracks.

It is available in VST format for Windows PC platforms. Download it HERE.

Kyle Reed, founder and president of RemixGalaxy.com, will be at the Winter Music Conference in Miami, Florida to participate in a panel discussion focusing on alternative revenue sources for artists. The event will take place on Friday, March 25, 2010 at noon. Kyle will address general ways in which the web has changed the way people discover, sell and buy music, and he will of course touch on how RemixGalaxy is providing artists with new ways to promote and sell music. WMC runs from March 23-27, and a representative from RemixGalaxy will be available during that time for one-on-one meetings. If you’ll be attending, please stop by and say hi!

We’ve teased you with it for a while, but it’s finally here! Our biggest remix contest yet! “The Greatest Dancer” featuring none other than Snoop Dogg is the title track to an upcoming television pilot for a new urban dance competition show. Executive producer DCat wants you to remix it to see if he can find a version that’s better than the original. If you’re the winner, you get more than bragging rights. We’ve put together (courtesy of our good friends at AUDIOLINES.COM) a complete studio package for our grand prize winner. Check out everything you’ll take home if you are the Chosen One:

M-Audio Axiom 49 MIDI keyboard controller
M-Audio B8XA Deluxe Studio Monitors
Alesis IO14 Firewire Audio Interface
Universal Audio UAD-1e Expert Pak DSP Processor and Plug-in Bundle
Native Instruments Komplete 6
Roland SPD-S Sampling Pad
Plus…you’re remix will be a featured digital release by DCat Music!

All in all that’s nearly $4000 of kit that is going to the winner of this contest! With that kind of gear up for grabs, we know we’re going to hear some seriously good remixes, and we can’t wait! Just click the banner to check it out and enter!

Remixing a classic is a touchy proposition. There’s just something that irks people about messing with a song that they were weaned on, or at least had propelled them through an extremely boring and sudorific backseat road trip with the help of a Walkman. Either way, it’s a tough call. Still, it’s pretty impressive that youngsters nowadays still keep these jams in mind when looking to cut a new remix. Over at the Mybandsbetterthanyourband blog, a couple of excellent old school gems got the remix treatment. Check out two classics for yourself.

A-Ha - “Take on Me (The Twelves remix)”

The Police - “Roxeanne (Discotech remix)”

I’m back from a great time in LA at the New Music Seminar. We met a lot of great new artists and spread our message of remixing to the masses. While we were out on the West Coast, we also met with many labels, large and small, about adding new content and contests to RemixGalaxy, so be on the lookout for those. Here are a couple of quick snapshots from the NMS (Just click to enlarge):

The RemixGalaxy table at the New Music Seminar - A busy place to be that day!

The Famous Capitol Records Building - Just outside the NMS.

Chicago’s Nikki Lynette. She won Second Place in the OurStage.com/NMS Artist on the Verge Contest! (And she has stems for remixing at RemixGalaxy!)

There’s no doubt that the music industry has changed immensely in the past decade or so, but sometimes it’s difficult to grasp the gravity of the situation. For example, three years ago Vampire Weekend was merely an internet buzz band without a debut album. Their Afro-pop tinged east coast snob-rock caught on, blogs fanned the flames, they toured the summer circuit extensively, and today it’s a much much different story. Not only did Contra, their sophomore effort, sell about 124,000 copies in its first week (an eyebrow-raising effort this day and age), but it apparently became only the fourth time in the 21st century that an independently-released album hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. “Indie” used to have a completely different meaning, one that did not signify whiplash-quick ascension of Billboard charts. Yet, this just adds some more interesting variables to the landscape. It just shows that, with a bit of luck, any band that’s very good can go at it alone without major label fat cats dipping into their pockets. Anyways, here are some recent remixes of the NYC-based quartet’s new album tracks

Vampire Weekend - “Cousins (Toy Selectah remix)”

Vampire Weekend - “Horchata (GMGN remix)”

Vampire Weekend - “Horchata “Christian TV remix)”

The folks behind summer’s biggest music geek mecca began selling tickets earlier today for Pitchfork Music Festival 2010. Focusing on manageable crowds, reasonable prices, and uniformly good (rather than big-named) acts has garnered this festival much praise from fans and critics. This year, the buzz is all about recently reunited group Pavement, who will be closing out the fest on Sunday night to hordes of die-hard fans who have waited for years to see them perform. However, of the seven participating artists that have been revealed so far, we’re most excited for James Murphy’s dance-punk project LCD Soundsystem, which will undoubtedly turn Union Park into one big party. Since July is still a long time away, we’ve dug up some remixes of this year’s artists to hold you over.

LCD Soundsystem - “Tribulations (Lindstrom remix)”

Sleigh Bells - “Crown On The Ground (Jane Bang remix)”

St. Vincent - “Marry Me (Etherea remix)”

Raekwon & Ghostface vs. Caribou - “Apollo Narrows (The Hood Internet remix)”