RACHELLE ARMSTEAD
FILM COMPOSER // SONGWRITER
Project & Portfolio IV
For this course, we were asked to choose a song to remix from the Cambridge Music Technology Library. I chose "If You Say" by James May. There was no special reason. The song simply touched me with its sweetness, and I though it might be fun to work with. The following is the original mix of the song:
Our first milestone in the remixing process was to use the project's raw files in order to duplicate and analyze the original mix. The aim was to understand the original feelings of the music so that we could better work with it. This task was much more difficult that I thought that it would be. I had a lot of trouble getting everything in phase and isolating each individual drum's sound in its own track. However, I got it done, and I think that I made a fair approximation of the original sound:
Our next task was to create a few stems that we could use to add content to the mix. My stems were drums, guitar + clarinet, conga + vocals, conga + clarinet, guitar + clarinet, and drums + vocals. After we created our stems, we were asked to add content using live musicians. I chose to record myself singing harmonies (which I ended up changing completely in the final product).
Then we were tasked with creating content through a function called ReWire. This was very difficult for me at first. I couldn't get ReWire to launch and ended up needing to reinstall ProTools and Ableton in order to get ReWire working. This attempt actually wasn't created in ReWire because I was unable to figure out how to work ReWire on my computer before the deadline. However, I eventually got ReWire working and ended up scrapping this attempt.
After we made our content through ReWire, we were asked to use sound design to add content to the remix. I found an interesting reverse piano sound effect in Ableton Live's Grand Piano pack, and added it to the mix.
After making many changes and filtering out my many ideas, I finally came up with a remix with which I was somewhat pleased. The only task left was to master it and upload the whole journey here. Without further ado, I present to you my remix of "If You Say" by James May.