Plan of attack
You’ve got the remix files and you’re ready to go, so now you need to establish a game plan and get to work. Sometimes it’s nice to get stuck in and experiment, but clear and well-thought-out goals can drastically reduce production time and can often lead to the best results.
Begin by having a good listen to the material you’ve been supplied with. Is there a stand-out element for you? Also, it’s critical to think about your intended audience – does this have to work in the clubs? Should you keep the same feel but rework the production? Maybe you need to make the original more DJ-friendly. Or perhaps your goal is to transform one genre into another by bringing a mellow, laid-back track up to speed as a full-on DnB floorshaker.
Perhaps the track has a vocal you love, but it’s just not going to work for an audience in the clubs. A great example of a vocal rework can be heard in Blawan’s Getting Me Down ( bit.ly/BlawanGMD). Here, he’s used the vocal from Brandy’s 1994 track I Wanna Be Down ( bit.ly/BrandyIWBD). The original track is a completely different style to the remix, and certainly wouldn’t seem like an obvious candidate for a techno remix. But when the vocal is taken out of context, it provides the bounce, drive and vibe to Blawan’s remix, to get the dancefloor moving.
This is a great example of knowing your audience and delivering the goods in the studio – at the end of the day, it’s the listeners that decides if your remix is a success or not, so it’s always best to keep them in mind as you write. Think about the remix as a tool that has a specific purpose: who is it for, and what does it need to achieve? If you get your head around these factors before you start, you’re already on your way to remixing success.