Long road

Pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but this is a relatively unorthodox style of music to remix.  I'm finding it difficult to tastefully re-imagine these songs.  I feel that if this were a for-on-the-floor type album, this would be far easier.  For lack of a better term, things would "blend" better.  It also doesn't help that these songs are so intricately composed and arranged.  Instruments come in and out, and not necessarily when you'd expect.  This makes things a challenge, as you can't go by the grid.  Still enjoying the process, though it's tougher than I would have thought.  Minnesota, WI is developing with painstaking effort.

Project prep work

So I've spent a little time over the past couple days setting up folders on my computer for each song.  This is to store the stems as well as intermediate (working) sound files and final project files in various formats.  I also took the time to label the key and tempo for each of the ten songs on the album.  This makes things more efficient as sounds can be added from scratch as well as "borrowed" from song to song as long as I have a reference point with respect to these two elements.  Remixing music involves some math.  Like it or not, this is one of the few parts of the process that isn't purely subjective.  Me, I like it.  One or two absolute truths never bother me.  It gives you something to fall back on if you work through an entire evening and everything you did sounds terrible the next day.

To somewhat complicate things, you also have tracks which change key mid-song.  Others were originally recorded without the aid of a definitive tempo reference or "click track."  There are four of these tracks on the album.  They were likely recorded as a full band, at the same time.  This is reminiscent of most bands who were in the studio more than 20 years ago.  It gives a great "live" feel to the song, but makes it more difficult to take things apart and put them together again.

Next to this list is another point of reference, my piano chord chart.  This is very important as I can't play keys to save my life, but will need to in the coming months.  Now, to begin planning the first remix...