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How did you come to Remixing?

Posted: 30/05/2006 - 8:35
by Zzr
Hey.

I dont know if that Topic has been there already, forgive me if so =)

how did you come to remixing?

starting with myself, i had my amiga 500 the old days, getting a soundtracker program. the first song i ever made was a "no limits" remix, including alot action-replay mk3-ripped megalomania-samples (we've nuked them :] )
later on i got the original version of the 8 track music tool ftm, face the music, and thats where my real remixing started... that days i already was working on my turrican 2 - the wall remixes. it took just 10 years or so to finish it on pc then -.- at least, perfect
a pity i have not a single of my old tracks anymore. some of them were really nice and would have been sweet to release even this days.
*sniff*

regards, a "nostalgic in the morning" zzr

Posted: 30/05/2006 - 9:32
by Analog-X64
I started by carefully using my Pause/Record buttons on a Getto Blaster to splice/mix song together. I had heard of RockMonitor on the C64 but a lot of that stuff was heavily guarded and so I could not get my hands on them. I did like using Sound Tracker and eventualy Pro Tracker. But I never got into FTM or Octa-Med by that time I had purchased my Roland W-30 sampling workstation + Atari 1040STE and was generaly doing Midi Stuff.

Was off of any music recording for at least 4-5 years and just recently I've started getting back into it.

Posted: 30/05/2006 - 10:07
by Matrix
Yup, same here, miggy to kick off with using the original soundtracker, then noisetracker, and finally the amazing protracker 3 (never cared much for tijo's octamed thing for some reason.) Rattled a few *terrible* tunes off on that, and now I use a very crude setup of sample overlays in Dance EJ and the synth.

Posted: 30/05/2006 - 18:32
by Sidman 64
I started doing tracks on our beloved C64 using Soundmaster, then DMC5.0, great program that allowed you to get some great filter sounds.
Then I used Protracker 3 on the amiga and did some remixes of chart stuff, they where released as World mix series !!!

Now I use a PC, Midi keyboard and Reason 3.0 :wink:
Did my album The Arrival using both Reason & Acid !!!.
I've just got hold of some great refills for Reason and will now finish the C64 remixes I have wanted to do for sometime !!!!

Posted: 30/05/2006 - 21:00
by Vosla
I started ruining ears on the amiga 500 with some tracker, dunno which one.

For the greater good of all humanity I ceased working on tunes when I got my first PC.

Now I DO know I'm completely and utterly untalented regarding music.

Result: The world is a safer place.

Posted: 31/05/2006 - 6:18
by Analog-X64
Vosla wrote:I started ruining ears on the amiga 500 with some tracker, dunno which one.

For the greater good of all humanity I ceased working on tunes when I got my first PC.

Now I DO know I'm completely and utterly untalented regarding music.

Result: The world is a safer place.
Come on!!! dont say that.

When you get out of the shower, just stand there and look in the mirror and start going "Boing-Boom-Chuck" and than repeat that a few times and there you go. As good as Kraftwerk.

Posted: 31/05/2006 - 12:45
by Rondo
I guess for me the spark was seeing Machinae Supremacy live at Assembly '02. Back then I was only vaguely aware of the band and the remix scene in general, but the idea of possibly scoring a gig at Asm03 got me and a couple of mates really excited. We were already in a band together, so we decided to start a side project with the same players (minus one singer and one guitarist). This project we chose to call Axes Denied.

We got confirmation from Abyss (Assembly main organiser) that there would, indeed, be live music at the '03 event as well, so we quickly rehearsed two tunes (International Karate and Space Debris, an Amiga mod by Captain) and recorded a demo. It was a huge bluff, really - we didn't have anything approaching a full set, and we faded out the demo tracks way before the end to cover up our biggest blunders. The gamble paid handsomely, as we not only got the gig but even succeeded in making something of a hit of ourselves. Of course we had to work pretty hard through the summer in order to come up with half an hour of material that we could play reasonably well, but it was definitely all worth it.

After the Asm03 show it was another year and a half or so before we got around to recording something we were actually comfortable enough with to release, paving way (although we didn't know it at the time, of course) for our "overseas" debut at CRC. Since then we've been on a de-facto break and concentrating on our other band (the one we already had before AD came along), for which we managed to find a new lead guitarist. Now that said guitarist has gone out of town for the summer, however, I expect we're going to dig the retrotunes out of the mothballs again. So just in case anybody was wondering - no, we're not out of business yet. ;)

Posted: 31/05/2006 - 14:40
by trace
Started doing music on the c64 with UBIKS Music and then amiga with Noise/protracker (did a short boulderdash breakbeat thingie, nothing released cause it's short and crappy ;) )
Then a friend got a PC with fasttracker and i was sold, cause it had more than 4 channels (wow :!: :D ) and i did my first remix WOTEF.
Then i tryed different programs like Buzz and AXS and finaly i got Reason and the rest is history ;)

Posted: 31/05/2006 - 15:03
by moog
First of all I've been c64 user since early 90's and from the begining I was fascinated by the music, which this machine could play :D. I've played the piano since I was 7 and naturally i was interested in creating music with c64. When I bought the PC I've forgotten for a while about C64, but some day I found HVSC collection on the internet and one of the first thoughts was to give a new life for these tunes (SIDs). I started with making remixes on my own and give them friends (c64 scenners) to listen. Then i had some break with remixing till the time, when I found RKO and this gave me some additional power to make anew remixes :). Thank You ALL!

Posted: 31/05/2006 - 22:11
by Waz
Well.. although not a C64 remixer in the RKO sense, my initial experience was hacking out C64 tunes for fun, and then sending off stuff to Zzap! 64 which got printed so that users could play back the music themselves.

From that I started making 64 tunes in 1991 and still do occasionally, and I started playing with FastTracker in 1998 and making a few MODs and XMs, some of which were C64 mixes. If anyone wants some of those, let us know..

Posted: 01/06/2006 - 7:32
by Infamous
like most here it seems.. amiga protracker/octamed then on to the pc and a load of crappy old trackers then cubase, soundforge the nigh on impossible build of modplug (thankfully its got better) and then i found my sexy jeskola buzz and been doing it ever since.

Posted: 01/06/2006 - 10:21
by Makke
I kind of started out learning ProTracker on the Amiga by making (horrible) versions of C64 tracks. Then I found The BlueNine Archive, which some of you might remember, and that sort of sparked the flame even more.

Then I moved on to PC and FastTracker, and found sites like c64audio.com and the Triad MP3 thingy, and then RKO was born, and R64...and the whole thing just turned into my main hobby. ;)

Posted: 01/06/2006 - 11:53
by Tonka
Well, my C64 remixing beginnings is a pretty sad tale of fear, loathing and jealousy, actually...

Started with me giving Chris' "Back in Time 1" CD a less than favourable review in Kenz's "Binary Zone" magazine. This was mainly down to 2 things:

1) I was pissed off and jealous that Chris had actually gotten off his ass and done something which I had wanted to do myself for years.

2) The CD really wasn't actually that good, either (sorry Chris - you know I luv ya mate!) ;) My main criticism at the time was the poor production quality and the cheap synth preset sounds that were used in a lot of the remixes.

I remember Kenz commenting about the harshness of some of my comments, but he didn't (from what I recall) edit any of my review. In hindsight and knowing what I know now (with age and wisdom) I probably would have been a little gentler in an attempt to coax out some of the obvious talent Chris had/has. But there it is, I was a wanker back then... ;)

I guess in an attempt to show Kenz how it 'could/should' be done, I knocked up a quick remix of the Wizball title tune, which he rather liked and pestered me to 'finish'. This became Wizball 98.

Sometime later, Chris, who probably should have beat the shit out of me by now, instead got Kenz to ask me if I wanted to put it on BIT2, and so it became "Wizball 2000 Lara and Enya mix" (who the HELL thought that crap name up BTW, 'cos it wasn't bloody ME)!

Then came BIT3 and Chris called me saying there were 2 tracks left to get on the CD - Wizball Hiscore or the Parallax Walkabout music and could I help? I chose Wizball Hiscore and due to not being told about the 'space' theme (bastards) I came up with a stupid All Seeing I/Fatboy Slim style mix :lol:

Talk about a 'Ninja' based BIT 4 was flying about for a while, so I made the Palace Gardens mix, but after nothing happened I just released it on Kwed and haven't finished a C64 mix ever since (not that the other 3 were technically 'finished'! I guess my C64 remixing was born and died with the BIT series :(

I WANT ANOTHER BACK IN TIME - I NEED TO FINISH A REMIX!!!

OK, you can all wake up now ;)

Tonka

Posted: 01/06/2006 - 11:56
by FFRenzy
Tonka wrote:I WANT ANOTHER BACK IN TIME - I NEED TO FINISH A REMIX!!!
Just make them then,we want more of your remixes......regardless of another BIT !!!

Posted: 01/06/2006 - 12:05
by Chris Abbott
Tonka wrote: 2) The CD really wasn't actually that good, either (sorry Chris - you know I luv ya mate!) ;) My main criticism at the time was the poor production quality and the cheap synth preset sounds that were used in a lot of the remixes.
Heh, cheap presets was all I had, really (but Yamaha XG was still way ahead of the pack on sound quality at the time. The world is lucky I didn't use SB AWE32 presets. And I'd yet to find out about compression, EQ or any of these other things :)

I think many people took the product "as-is" without thinking there was an entire saga later to be associated with it, but your comments were actually quite fair, in that what you said was pretty much true. Some of that review directly drove BIT 2, since unlike certain people on this board, I take criticism on board. After despatching trained Ninjas to kill the critic, obviously. That's just common sense.
Tonka wrote: Sometime later, Chris, who probably should have beat the shit out of me by now, instead got Kenz to ask me if I wanted to put it on BIT2, and so it became "Wizball 2000 Lara and Enya mix" (who the HELL thought that crap name up BTW, 'cos it wasn't bloody ME)!
It was me, I'm afraid (who else?? :) Mainly because I was told at the time the end bit was inspired by Tomb Raider, and it sounded at the end like an Enya track. Mostly the mix names were afterthoughts while writing the booklet, and it's only just occurred to me that maybe I should have asked first :)
Tonka wrote: Then came BIT3 and Chris called me saying there were 2 tracks left to get on the CD - Wizball Hiscore or the Parallax Walkabout music and could I help? I chose Wizball Hiscore and due to not being told about the 'space' theme (bastards) I came up with a stupid All Seeing I/Fatboy Slim style mix :lol:
And it was very good too: just what was needed after the intense space stuff. I remember those were never supposed to be the final vocals though...
Tonka wrote: I guess my C64 remixing was born and died with the BIT series :(
Yes, but you were a SID composer before then (in /various) and did some very cool stuff there.
Tonka wrote: I WANT ANOTHER BACK IN TIME - I NEED TO FINISH A REMIX!!!
Well, let's just finish our current album, yes? ;-)
Tonka wrote: OK, you can all wake up now ;)
Tonka
Uh? Wazzat? More cream?

Chris