What makes a great remix?

It seems almost inevitable these days – when an album is released, it comes loaded with (or accompanied by) a collection of remixes. It’s an opportunity for new producers to gain exposure, and some producers have made it a career opportunity in itself, with veteran remixers casting their own light on projects they pick and choose.

So what makes a good remix? Of course, it would be easy to simply receive stems of the track at hand and then practically discard them and create something completely new, as if you were building a track on any other day. On the other side of the coin, you could create the same arrangement, leave the vocal, and just put a new synth behind it – not a great technique either.

Naturally, a great remix brings those two approaches together, keeping enough of the original track to keep it recognisable, yet introducing enough new elements and themes to make something new and to put the stamp of the remixer onto the work.

In the end, both the original artists and the remixer have to coexist in a track that’s a little of one, a little of the other, and at the same time something completely separate as well. It’s a huge musical balancing act.

A good remix – or a good cover in a different genre – brings you even closer to a track you know intimately already by shining a light on it from a different angle. The focal point of the original track may be changed, and supporting elements that were previously ‘hidden’ may be brought out centre-stage to play the leading role. For a broader example of this, check out cover albums by the Easy Star All-Stars, who put a reggae spin on all-time classic albums, casting them from a new angle.

How are we going to help you with that? Well, we can’t give you the musical talent, but we can give you some technical skills, and the right attitudes and approaches. Over the next few pages, we’ll be taking you through the essential skills of top-quality remixers. First we’ll take you through some critical listening stages, helping you go through stems and mine them for gold, salvaging the best bits from an existing tune.

We’ll also cover the necessary production techniques that you’ll need to avail yourself of if you want to stitch it all together into something completely new. There’s not only isolation, phase inversion and deconstruction techniques to cover, but also the requisite music theory knowledge that’ll be instrumental in changing a song’s character through its key signature.

Then there’s the workflow: every project can be made better with extra organisation, but remixing requires specific steps to be taken to get it right. There are also specialist tools that both amateur and master remixer can use to give themselves an easier time, putting their effort into what counts – making music – instead of getting bogged down with what doesn’t.

Both the original artists and the remixer have to coexist in a track