
This flips the instrumental’s phase, where peaks in the audio become troughs and troughs become peaks.

I apply the Phase module to it, and rotate the phase for the left and right channels 180 degrees each. Many DAW’s have a way to do this, but we’ll use the Phase module in RX to do so.įirst, I bring one of the two files into RX. Thankfully, Fytch provided me with these files for the sake of this article.Īll you need to perform this phase cancelation is some way to flip the phase of an audio file. What we’ll need is the original track and an instrumental, both of which need to be at the same sample rate. One way we can do this is using phase cancellation and an instrumental version of the song. Theoretically, if we can find a way to eliminate the instruments, we should be left with just the vocals. We also covered constructive and deconstructive interference a bit in our article on chorus, flangers, and phasers, and the same concept applies here. The next method involves the idea of phase cancellation, which we briefly cover here. We’ll use the track “ Saltwater” by Fytch, released on Heroic, for demonstration: But considering most remixes build off the vocal, and considering the sounds you add will likely mask any artifacts in the acapella, a DIY stem like this is usually enough to work with. Generally, these DIY options don’t yield studio-quality stems. In the following examples, we’ll be isolating a vocal ourselves to create an acapella. If you don’t have the stems, that’s ok-there are still options available for remixers. While doing so doesn’t impact the sound, it will help you easily find specific elements in the project quickly, and will reveal the original track’s song structure.

It’s also a good idea to delete any silences in the stems, separating each stem into multiple regions in your DAW. The time it’ll save you will be worth the 20–30 minutes it takes to organize at the outset Even if you don’t normally do this, try it out. Do whatever color-coding and naming you need to do to feel like this is your track. If you normally group instruments or send them to submasters, this is a good time to do that. This makes sure that nothing from the original track gets lost in the shuffle of creating a new project, and allows you to easily consider including anything from the original track. The basic idea is to organize your project as if it’s an original track, and exchange some original parts for your own.

If you’re doing an official remix or a remix contest, you should be given a folder of stems.ĭon’t have stems? No problem, you can easily create your own. For example, all the drums could be given as one stem. Sometimes stems are separated so that each channel in the original project is exported as its own file, other times stems are grouped. Stems are audio files, each of which representing a musical element-drums, instrument, vocal, etc.-from the original. Ideally, you should have the stems of the original song. But when you remix there are a few organizational steps you can take to make the process a little easier and speedier. Some like to be super organized while others just like to get ideas into their DAW without a thought of organization. Workflow is a very personal aspect of production.
WEDDING REMIX SONG HOW TO
We’ll also outline how to set up your project efficiently, how to figure out which parts of the original track to include or reference, and how to put your own unique spin on a track.ĭon’t have vocal stems? No problem-try your hand at creating them with a free month-long trial of RX, and click here to learn how to create them. Today we’ll cover tips on how to remix a song and isolate vocals when you don’t have vocal stems available. So you want to learn how to remix a song? Great! It’s one of the best ways to get into music production.
