Anyway, here's how the mashup adventure has gone so far.I downloaded a free trial of Acid Pro software. I opened it up, pushed some buttons, made some of my music sound fast and high pitched like Alvin and the chipmunks were singing, laughed, then got scared, then didn't touch the software for about a week.
I started reading up on how to make a mashup online. Most of the "Mashup 101" information out on the inter-web is still way beyond me. One tip I found said to get vocals-only versions of songs, and instrumental versions of songs, and just mix those together. So I looked around and found a vocals-only version of some Korn song. I'm not a Korn fan, but I just wanted something to play around with, and that was pretty much the first thing I found. Now I just needed an instrumental of something. The online experts recommended mixing raps songs. I found an instrumental of "So this is Love" from Disney's Cinderella. That's like rap, right?
Just putting those two together was kinda boring, so I started adding songs from my playlist and clicking on buttons. I took the intro to Puddle of Mudd's "Psycho" and managed to cut it up and play it over and over again. Then I added Cake's cover of "War Pigs", and pretty much just cut up and slid around the 4 songs to create this steaming pile.
Yes, it's terrible, I know. But, there are some things about it that I liked (or, at least, parts of making the mashup I liked) . Looping the Puddle of Mudd intro for the first minute I thought was fun. I need to learn how to fade in and out of songs better. I cut out the middle of the Korn song and put it at the beginning, and put the beginning of the song later. Crazy, I know. That was fun, even though the actual lyrics themselves are pretty gloomy (Yeah, suicide, kill the pain, rock on!). I thought there were okay transitions for "War Pigs" (at 0:38 and 0:50). The Cinderella waltz comes in at 0:54. After that point I didn't really do much except add a few more "Psycho" chords.
By the the time I got that far with the project I was sleepy and went to bed. I'll continue playing with the trial version and maybe improve on my technique, and can post anything else I create/mangle.
Actually, I think you pulled it off. Perhaps the Cake vocals didn't fit in smoothly, but the interspersion of chords from the other song ('psycho'?) were well placed, which required some musicality. I think, with better threads, you'll be able to make some fun stuff.
ReplyDeletewhoa ben, even if it were a steaming pile, i'd give you mad props for doing it-- those programs a pretty intimidating. but, that was really solid. i personally didn't like the korn vocals at all, maybe just 'cause i'm not a korn guy. but i found my head bobbing from about the one minute mark until the end... i would dig a 4 minute version of the cake vocals on top of whatever else was going on there. you hsould post in mp3 next time so we can start passing it around more easily. props.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mad props. I agree, Korn sucks. I wish it was easier to find vocals only stuff. Maybe I'll just make some fun instrument-only songs. That would probably be easier.
ReplyDeleteI looked into purchasing Acid Pro, and it's like 300 bucks! I'll probably make another mash-up or two before the free trial expires, then look into something else.
-DJ Benjamin Button out.