-Global Underground- Remix Contest

[Voy a tratar a incluir traducciones en espanol después del inglés, abajo de esta página].


[Edit, January 25, 2011: Many of the winning entries from this contest can now be found on my SoundCloud page, where you can download them for free].


About a year ago, I wrote a track that I called 'Global Underground,' in homage to the great Global Underground mix series. Read the lyrics, and you'll see exactly why I gave it that title, although I was also considering using 'Alone In New York' as a subtitle (especially so there isn't too much confusion with Global Underground's official mix series).

I'm going to be releasing a couple of different remixes of that track later this Fall, but in the meantime, I'm also going to use the acappellas for a Remix Contest on my website.

The contest will be open to anyone around the world, except in jurisdictions where such a contest is prohibited by law (ie. Quebec). The top prize is $500, and the second and third prizes will be $250 and $100. In addition, several of the best tracks will be featured on my website and fan page.

The lyrics were recorded as a spoken voice story. Therefore, there does not have to be a specific melody associated with the lyrics - I don't have a specific melodic hook that you need to stick to. If you create a remix that features some or all of the full lyrics, my personal opinion would be that it would be best to produce a progressive house track. The full storyline is a bit lengthy though, so I would consider using bits and pieces. Less is probably better. We also recorded a lot of sound bytes for all the city names, and also some other random phrases. If you wanted to produce an entry that is a breaks or drum & bass or trance track, or dub/instrumental, those would also all be easy to create using only the limited city-name vocals, or parts of the "random phrases" file, and you could therefore omit the original storyline altogether. All of the original vocal files are available as audio files at the bottom of the DJ Mix Downloads page.

If you want to hear a sample of what the track could sound like, I've included a version that you can listen to in this blog post. Click on the widget below to listen to a sample of some of the vocals overlaid against a partial track that Jay Vasseur threw together, and provided for me to use. Please note, however, that all submissions to the contest must be your own original work - they can NOT be re-edits of someone else's track, with the Global Underground lyrics added. If the music submitted is not your own original work, your entry will be disqualified.

If you wish to enter two separate tracks into the contest, you may. The only restriction is that multiple entries must be different styles from each other, rather than just small changes.

Whether or not you enter the contest, we would appreciate your assistance in spreading information about this remix contest by posting the link on your favorite production/audio message boards!

Good luck in the contest! Winners will be announced in November. Go to the bottom of this page now, to download the acappella package for the contest. Incidentally, I've written out the lyrics at the bottom of this post, if you're interested in reading them.

- Jonathan Clark (DJ Bolivia)

PS: Check out my fan page on Facebook, www.facebook.com/djbolivia




Listen to one sample idea for this track: you can right-click here to download the sample file).



Hola!

Alrededor de un año atrás, yo escribí una canción la cual llame 'Global Underground.' Lea la letra de la canción, y usted se dará cuenta de porque le di ese nombre a la canción, aunque yo estaba considerando usar 'Alone In New York' como un subtitulo (visite la pagina Global Underground verdadero).

Yo voy a hacer el lanzamiento de un par de diferentes mezclas de esa canción en el otoño, pero por ahora, yo únicamente voy a usar la canción para un concurso de mezclas en mi pagina Web.

El concurso va estar abierto para cualquier persona en el mundo, excepto en las jurisdicciones donde esa clase de concurso es prohibido por la ley (por ejemplo la provincia de Québec, Canadá). El premio mayor será de $500 y el Segundo y tercer premio serán de $250 y $100. Además, la canción puede llegar a ser promocionada en mi pagina Web y en mi Fan Page.

Las letras fueron grabadas como una historia hablada. Entonces, no tiene que haber una melodía específica que esta asociada con la letra de la canción. Si usted crea un re-mix que ofrezca alguna parte o toda la letra de la canción, mi opinión personal seria que es mejor producir una canción de house progresivo. De cualquier forma, nosotros también grabamos muchos sonidos para todos los nombres de las ciudades. Si usted quiere producir un numero de breaks o batería y bajo o pista de trance, o dub/instrumental, esos también serian fáciles de crear usando las canciones vocales con los nombres de las ciudades. Todos los archivos de vocales están disponibles como archivos de sonido.

Si usted quiere escuchar una muestra de como la canción podría sonar, yo incluí una versión que puede ser escuchada en este blog post. Haga clic en el widget que esta abajo para escuchar una muestra de algunas de las canciones hechas en relación a la canción Jay Vasseur. Tenga en cuenta, que todas las sumisiones para el concurso deben ser su propio trabajo original, no pueden ser canciones reeditadas de alguna otra persona con las letras de Global Underground añadidas.

Buena suerte en el concurso! Los ganadores serán anunciados en Noviembre mis propias mezclas sean lanzadas. Ahora vaya a esta página a incorporar la competencia. Yo he escrito la letra de la canción en la parte final este post, si usted esta interesado en leerlas.

Muchas gracis a Nic Roldan de Calgary/Colombia por assistarme con las tradducionnes en este poste. La gramática era demasiado dura para mí este vez.

- Jonathan Clark (DJ Bolivia)

PS: Visite mi página en Facebook, www.facebook.com/djbolivia










Full Original Lyrics:

"Bolivia - Global Underground (Alone In New York)"

When I was young, I always wanted to visit a real city. I was born in Virginia, but I didn't grow up there. I grew up outside a small town, where I lived with my quiet family. We didn't travel much.

When I turned seventeen, we finally got the internet at my house, and my whole life changed. I spent almost every night online, reading about places and people that I hoped I could meet someday.

It wasn't too long after I got the internet that I started downloading music. I didn't like the music on the radio station in my own town, but there was a lot of better music that I discovered online. And one night, I discovered some music that would change my life.

I downloaded a CD of music called The Global Underground. I really liked the name. The music was all by a DJ named Danny Teneglia. It was a show that he had played at a club in London. I loved it. I must have listened to that CD about two hundred times.

Eventually, I learned that there were more Global Underground CD's. Dozens of them! There were DJ's playing that kind of music in cities all over the world: San Francisco, Milan, Tokyo, Athens, Moscow, Toronto, and of course, New York.

By the time I turned twenty-two, I knew that I had to get away from home. I couldn't stand the thought of spending the rest of my life there, with the same old boring small-town boys. My family didn't say too much. They said that they didn't want me to leave, but I think that they were secretly glad that I was leaving. So I took a bus and I went to New York. I felt so alone.

New York is a pretty scary place for a small town girl who's never left home before. I didn't understand the bus routes. I was scared to use the subway, even though people said it was safe. I felt like the buildings were closing in on me, and I wanted to go to a park, but I thought that even Central Park was dangerous.

Anyway, I got over some of my fears eventually. I found an apartment right away, although it was pretty dirty. But at least it had four locks on the door. And I found a job at a little variety store with a couple booths for people to eat at. I helped the owner stock the shelves and mop the floors. I got to know the regulars. But I still felt so alone.

One day, a couple of boys came in. We didn't get many young people in our store. One of them was pretty cute. I overheard them talking about this club that they were going to on Saturday night, named Pacha, to see John Digweed. I couldn't believe it. For years, I had dreamed about seeing John Digweed play!

I didn't have much money, and I didn't know much about the clubs yet. I thought I couldn't afford to go out to shows, but I knew then and there that this would be my one treat to myself. This was the whole reason that I had come to New York in the first place – for the music.

When Saturday night came, I was so excited. I got there an hour before the doors even opened, because I didn't want to miss a beat. Once I got inside, the club seemed really dark. As I walked through the club towards the dance floor, I couldn't believe how loud the music was playing. But I kept going, and a minute later I was out on the dance floor, all alone.

That night was one of the best nights of my life. I just couldn't stop smiling the whole time. The bass shook my entire body. The lights left me feeling blind most of the time, but I didn't need to see anything. I just danced the entire night, and got lost in the music. People were smiling and dancing with me. It changed my life. For the first time ever, thanks to the music, I didn't feel alone.

- Lyrics written August 5th, 2008
Copyright (2008, 2009) Jonathan Clark.

Separating Vocals from Songs

I've gotten quite a few inquiries from people recently on how to separate or remove vocals from a song, so they can then remix those vocals into a different track. It's very difficult to do, but it IS possible in some cases, so I'll outline a way to make it happen here.


First, in order to do this, you need to find a radio edit of the song that you like, with vocals. Then, you also need to find the exact same version of the song but as an instrumental, ie. without the vocals. If you can't find both of these two versions, then this trick won't be possible.

Next, you need to import the two audio files into your sequencer. Line them up perfectly in parallel, down to the millisecond (actually, to the exact sample). You need to be able to play them simultaneously so that they sound exactly like just one song (except for the vocals standing out, of course).

Now, convert each track to mono, so the two stereo channels are combined in each track. They need to be panned to the center.

Once you've done the above steps, and you know that they are completely synchronized, then take the instrumental track and invert the phase of the entire track.

Now, play the two tracks together, or bounce them to disk. The phase inverted version in the instrumental will cancel out the waveforms of the music in the vocal version, leaving only the vocals behind.

Now if you cannot find the full song as both a vocal take and an instrumental with the same arrangement, then you're almost out of luck. The only rare exception is that if you have just the vocal version, sometimes (in theory) you can pull tiny snippets of the vocals out from the track by cutting it up and following the steps above (for instance if there is a chorus with vocals and another "chorus" chord arrangement in the song without singing). This wouldn't work with rock songs, because they are recorded live and they won't be exactly the same, even if the musicians tried to play them exactly the same. But in today's studio-heavy world, some pop songs which are computer produced are probably generic enough to make it work. I've never actually tried this, but in theory, you might find some songs that you could do it with.


Let's step back for a while and ask why you're separating the vocals from a song. I presume that you're trying to remix a track that you like. Are you doing it because you like that track specifically, and no other? If you're doing this as a project for an artist, they should be able to provide the vocals for you. If you're doing it for yourself, then you face a bigger challenge.

An audio file that contains only vocals and no instruments at all is called an acappella. This term is actually a contraction of two Latin words, "a cappella," which literally means "from the chapel," or figuratively, "from the choir." You can do internet searches for acappella tracks in all kinds of places: Google, torrent sites, and legitimate music sites. The trick is to remember that many people spell the word incorrectly. To search effectively, you should search for "accappella" and "acappella" and "acapella" (this last one is the most common spelling and yields the best results in searches, although some people argue that the one with two P's is more correct). If I had a preference, I'd like to see things spelled correctly. So if you're a producer who is releasing acappellas, let's see if we can change the world together, and start spelling it with two P's.

Personally, rather than bang my head against a wall trying to find vocals for a specific track that I want to remix, I do it this way: I'll spend half an hour on the net, trying to locate an acappella for that particular song. If I can't find one in that amount of time, I'm probably not ever going to find one. Sometimes, it is better to just admit defeat and look instead for acappellas in general, and then pick one that you like which is already available.

There are a lot of acappellas out there. If you search download or torrent sites, you can find lots of legal ones that you can download very quickly. Some have to be purchased, but many are free, depending on which sources you use. Go to www.beatport.com as an example. Enter "acappella" into the search engine, and you'll find several hundred tracks to choose from. Enter "acapella" and you'll find thousands.

In rare cases, if you are looking for a specific song, you can actually contact the artist and ask if you can have a copy of the vocals. Some artists will give these out, although it's pretty rare on major labels unless you happen to be a very well-known remixer with a lot of previous credits on your resume. Many smart studios/artists will recognize the fact that the more often that their songs are remixed, the more publicity (and therefore royalties) that go to the copyright holders for the songs. The remixer doesn't get any royalties (except in certain uncommon exceptions for top remixers). Usually, all the money is made by the original artist (or I should say, more accurately, by the studio). Of course, you do also have to recognize that a bad remix of a track doesn't help much, because it won't get played and therefore won't drive radio-play or other royalties. Some artists/studios will provide vocals under strict conditions that the artist/studio gets to review the remix first before it is allowed to be released, and they have the right to prevent the remixer from releasing the remix if they don't like his/her version of the song.


So anyway, the moral of the story is that if you have your heart set on remixing one specific song, sometimes there are options. But usually, I find it is best to listen to some of the thousands of vocal recordings that are already out there, and choose one of those readily-available tracks to remix.

Good luck with your remixing projects!


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