WATMM Monthly Remix Competition

  ten fingers ten toes said:

So pick the song and have people start remixing while you work out the coding, although you could easily code this with 48 hours worth of work ;)

not when you already code other sites for 9 hours a day... ;)

but yes, this will be reasonably simple to do, and slightly less simple to do right.

just waiting for jr to assign me work.

But wait... how can we remix something if we haven't got each track? It's balls remixing a track where you can't pick out the vocals, drums, synths etc.

I do believe it's called artistic interpretation.

it should be sample packs, if we do just random songs that we don't have separate parts of, every one will just be doing cut ups of it, and that's lame

i wouldnt do a cut up. i would use no source material and fucking own it.

if you want sample packs go join acid planet

er, yeah, im no hot mixer, but i cant see why it would matter you dont have seperate tracking, you dont neccassarily even have to use the source track, you can recreate melodies, harmonies, textures, forms, moods from scratch with your own sound creation shit, just remixing/transcribing the ideas in the mix tune into your own format. the possibilitys are endless.

im in, but no money im afraid.

yea well don't call it a fucking remix completion then.

  Fred McGriff said:

if you want sample packs go join acid planet

are you joking? otherwise: that's a very stupid thing to say.

we should do this like every month man.

  tauboo said:

yea well don't call it a fucking remix completion then.

  Fred McGriff said:

if you want sample packs go join acid planet

are you joking? otherwise: that's a very stupid thing to say.

yes i'm joking but the underlying question is where are we here on watmm going to come across any decent sample packs of songs other than ekt type tracks?

i think you're being too rigid with your studio definition of remix. remixes of electronic music tracks have historically come to mean anything from covers, reconstructions, reinterpretations, or works having absolutely fuck all to do with the original other than the word "remix" in parentheses

i guess it would have to be something like that. otherwise it'll get too complicated, or rather, involve too much effort or thought. like voting on submitted ekt tracks to remix (the chosen artist would then not participate that month, but have the privilege of having their track remixed instead). that would be a hassle if it's large scale (although i'm not sure it will be large scale, or if it'll even happen at all, or more than once (is it noticeable that i'm in a bad mood?)). that idea would probably not appeal to most people i suppose.

I have done a few remix contests in the past and have a few Zip files of the raw audio. It's nothing crazy but just a Team Sleep track called Ever Foreign Flag and a NIN track. All separate files. I would be willing to contribute them to the cause but I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in them. Also, I have a ton of tracks that could easily be bounced into separate files to be remixed by anyone although it is tough to remix something you've never heard in it's entirety, and this kind of defeats the purpose of remixing something that everyone's heard. Just a thought. Maybe there's an artist on here that everyone approves of that would open their tracks up to some remixie goodness?

Remixing from the mixed stereo track is challenging but rewarding at times. A lot of EQ is needed to isolate parts such as vocals or a kick drum hit. It is possible though to re-interpret a song from the raw stereo track.

I think this would be a great idea but I'm assuming this competition would only be open to paying members? I'm on a lot but don't post much because I just like laughing at you silly watmmers.

Also, in my opinion, no cash prize but maybe some promotional boobie prize type shit? Stickers/shirt/swift kick in the ass?

Anonymous submissions = level playing field. I think that's a swell idea.

No ratings shown until a final decision has been made on the winner by the powers that be. Now whether these powers that be will consist of a handful of judges or votes by watmmers ourselves is a tough decision to make.

Maybe the winner of the competition would sit out the next month but be a judge instead? Another way of evening things up a bit. Nobody likes a show-off you know.

JR, maybe you could contact some of your peeps and just get us some raw mu-ziq tracks to breathe some life into his music.

*Remix competition* Winner takes over making tracks for Mike Paradinis under his famous moniker µ-Ziq... just kidding. I love his musix.

tonymb

Blicero: I'll send you a PM later - was busy with work and Halloween, just letting you know I haven't forgotten!

sounds good. i've also been quite busy.

i'm with blicero on the anonymity and the unrevealed votes - those are the 2 biggest factors in skewing genuine results. people almost always vote for the one they've heard of or the one that has already been listened to most. if there are to be a lot of tracks it'd perhaps be best if there's a way for people to rate each one they've heard rather than pick a top selection in case they've not listened to all.

as for ideas for what to remix i'd like to see a huge range of different things, and perhaps a choice of 3 each time or something if that doesn't get too complicated. you don't want to have a situation where no-one wants to remix something they don't like but you also don't want to miss out on the few nutty people attempting the mad ones like throat singing mixes etc. a mix between individual parts, whole songs and instrumental/acapella would be nice too for variety. for sources of parts there are an awful lot of very old remix packs for songs sitting on peoples hard drives and there are a lot of hip hop and 80s pop records that have A side then instrumental and acapella on the B.

I like this idea, but I could see there being problems with copyright unless we're submitting our own tracks to be remixed with consent. Otherwise... I'm pretty sure there's some legal issues that would need to be sorted out. It's unlikely that someone would put up a big stink about it, but you never know.

there shouldnt be any legal issues as long as we dont make any money off the remixes...

still waiting for marching orders.

jr, you might want to look into using an mvc framework like codeigniter to get this off the ground quickly. also might make it easier to build upon later. i've only recently begun researching frameworks (cakePHP, Zend, Symfony, etc) but CodeIgniter seems to be the best match for me.

  blicero said:

still waiting for marching orders.

 

jr, you might want to look into using an mvc framework like codeigniter to get this off the ground quickly. also might make it easier to build upon later. i've only recently begun researching frameworks (cakePHP, Zend, Symfony, etc) but CodeIgniter seems to be the best match for me.

Go man - sorry I didn't ever PM you - do what you think is best, let me know what you need. I fully endorse CodeIgniter, as it's made by the same guys who did the CMS that runs WATMM (or will run WATMM, once I get moving). Just let me know what you need from me to get what you need done.

I'm with Zephyr Nova on this. There must be some copyright issues that needs to be taken care of - unless we're given an old Mozart tune of course.

  Squee said:

I'm with Zephyr Nova on this. There must be some copyright issues that needs to be taken care of - unless we're given an old Mozart tune of course.

it's fair use so long as you aren't making money off of it, and aren't just redistrubting someone's track unedited without changing anytihng. DJ mixes are legal to distribute freely as well!

  Zephyr_Nova said:

I like this idea, but I could see there being problems with copyright unless we're submitting our own tracks to be remixed with consent. Otherwise... I'm pretty sure there's some legal issues that would need to be sorted out. It's unlikely that someone would put up a big stink about it, but you never know.

No, there's no issue there. We will essentially be making cover versions, which anyone can create at any time, for commercial gain or not, without the express permission of the composer. Those who employ samples of the originals won't need clearance as they won't be selling the tracks.

The only potential issue would be if we posted the original track.

  analogue wings said:

  Zephyr_Nova said:

I like this idea, but I could see there being problems with copyright unless we're submitting our own tracks to be remixed with consent. Otherwise... I'm pretty sure there's some legal issues that would need to be sorted out. It's unlikely that someone would put up a big stink about it, but you never know.

 

No, there's no issue there. We will essentially be making cover versions, which anyone can create at any time, for commercial gain or not, without the express permission of the composer.

Er, you can't do this legally where I live. People do it all the time for live shows and there's never a problem because the original artist almost never hears about it, but if they did the performer would be obliged to pay royalties. If you're recording the songs and sharing them over the internet it gets even more complicated. It's possible I've become mixed up about different copyright rules I've heard over the years through industry seminars, internet reading, my dad's rants and what-not... but yeah I'm pretty sure you can't just cover someone's work and then post/release it without their permission. Even with remix contests there's usually a rule that states you may not under any circumstances post, perform or release the mix anywhere else.

Music broadcasters and venues pay a license fee to performers' rights agencies. They in turn distribute royalties to the composers of the songs based on how much they are performed/broadcast - it doesn't matter whose version, the composer of the work still gets paid. The only time you have to ask permission is if you want to change the words.

The only time an artist pays royalties directly to another artist is when they use part of a recording.

This standard applies throughout the Western world (I assume yr in Victoria, Canada) dues to reciprocal agreements between the agencies.

Let's see here:

• No decision about what track to remix, what type of track to remix
• Waiting for Joyrex to give clear go ahead on code changes
• Waiting for 3rd party to code something
• Paranoid people worried that the FBI will raid the thread for fair use violations

Folks there is no chance in hell that we are ever going to actually have a remix competition. I'm going to finish up my cover of SAW 2 Track 1 and post it in EKT.

Fuck the special coding. All you need to have a remix contest is:

• Bulletin board
• PMs
• Embedded URLS
• Polls

Let's go!