The first night the club was to operate was for a private party, due to open the weekend after to the general public. The party in question was the wedding night of former Virgin Prunes front-man (and Bono’s best mate), Gavin Friday. I got to the club in the afternoon before the night time shenanigans commenced. To say I was disappointed with what I saw and heard is an understatement. The ‘Kitchen’ was appropriately named and sat in the basement of the ultra-fashionable, Clarence Hotel (owned as part of the band’s property portfolio). A bog standard red brick dancefloor had pretty much zero in the way of club lighting and the sound system consisted of 4 (check ‘em) amazingly enough, free standing mobile-DJ style speakers on each corner. The underground basement looked ‘grungy’, dark and dingy, with absolutely the most bog-standard of furnishings, bar and decor.

The night came and went with me playing a mixed music ‘wedding’ set to a small, nay intimate crowd of well-wishers, rock-stars [spanning the 'fading' and 'biggest in the world' categories] and the odd drunken super-model trying to crash the booth with her manager insisting that she DJ’d (thank you Naomi!). The next day, I had coffee with the newly ensconced manager, Nodd. ‘The band aren’t happy with the club - it’s not opening next week’ he informed me. No surprise there then. I high-tailed it back to the UK and waited for news. That news came soon as it transpired the band had contacted the guy who designed the stage concept for their ‘Pop’ tour to come and save the day - or night(s).

Study the images that pepper this post. The remit for the new ‘Kitchen’ design was ‘less is more’ - and boy was that nailed. Decor wise the inside of the space was transformed and literally ’smoothed out’, the shell of which appeared to be endless curves sweeping the walls and ceiling. The air-conditioning vents were even rendered invisible been formed out of what looked like giant cheese carvings. Neutral colours prevailed with a ’stone’ theme prevalent, juxtaposing the elegant leather seating with ‘Starck’ styled aluminimum, steel and chrome multi-leveled drinks tables. The main, elongated bar (which hung a right to the entrance area you see in the image above) was faced by a seating area with large (again, sweeping) pillars supporting the structure with luxurious, velvet drapes emphasising the division of tables. A secondary VIP area was accessed via a small, curtain covered doorway, leading to another seated, bar area with a monastic atmosphere (resplendent with a ‘baby Jesus’ looking out on the soon to come gathered hedonists).

But it was the main dancefloor area (image left) that took mine and many others breath away. Still an intimate venue, though capable of holding 600 people, the ‘Kitchen’ had a modestly sized dancefloor and was surrounded by a canal (or, the ‘moat’ as it became known), which weaved around it, disappearing into a pillar and out of sight. The new, then state-of-the-art Coemar MicroScans and Baby Colour lighting system literally bounced a beautiful array of colour into the rippling water, which itself reflected back and onto the back wall (thereafter nicknamed, ‘the Wave’) containing the huge JBL bass bins. The mid and tweeter units were flown around the dancefloor area, all resulting in probably one of the best club systems I’ve ever heard, became a priority attraction and leading to comments by Dublin’s RTE radio station that “people must go there if only to ‘listen’ to the sound”.

The DJ booth was a tiny pod-like unit, front-faced with brown leather and had room for literally one DJ and no hangers-on (yay!). Facing out to the crowd, the light-jock sat on a stool just outside it and to my left, operating a Roland MIDI keyboard to trigger the then version 2, ShowCad system. As you can probably see from very top image of this blog post and partially on the one below, I had two Technics decks, a Formula Sound PM90, Denon DN2000F CD player and a Sony DAT player to entertain the crowd. Behind me as I faced forward were the amp stacks, and on top of that was an Akai S900 sampler that I coaxed out of ‘The Edge’s studio racks. The Akai was used to trigger primarily sound FX, film dialogue and other random sonics over and in-between the tunes to create additional atmospherics.

So, enough of technical specs and design concepts. Within a short space of what seemed just weeks since the false start, ‘rip it up ‘n start again’ debacle, early ‘94 arrived and the ‘Kitchen’ was ready for it’s official opening to an eager Dublin party-crowd. Although I signed on for resident DJ duties (much to the disgust of certain Dublin based jocks I’m afraid), the big opening night was headlined by the bands favourite ‘Paul’, Mr Oakenfold. Paul and I had and have known each other since day dot of this industry, so I was happy to support him that night and together we rocked it! The Kitchen was a huge success in its opening weekend and then quickly settled into its stride, both musically and with the efficient, friendly, cool as f**k staff that worked there. I got used to flying out to Dublin on a Thursday afternoon and returning Sunday for quite a few months after that, and had some amazing nights playing house music all night long (well apart from the again, odd super-model insisting I play ‘No,No, No’ by Dawn Penn, clearing the floor reggae-tastically in the process). As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, the Irish crowd are simply the most incredibly appreciative souls you could ever wish to entertain as a DJ. They totally absorbed and recognised every single ’special’ thing I did, cheering their support and demanding multiple encores - obviously, a discerning bunch as well, lol.

After about 6 months, my time at the Kitchen had looked like it had the writing on the wall for two reasons. Number one was that my ‘Tinman’ record was gaining huge momentum back in the UK and I could no longer afford the time to be out of the country and away from the studio for 4 days of my week, plus, in a change of management and a re-shuffle which included Nodd making his departure back to England, I faced a non-too appreciative promoter with a seemingly different agenda to the one we started out with. So after around 8 months of solid ‘Kitchen’ clubbing, my time on the emerald isle was, temporarily at least, over. The Kitchen carried on of course, turning into a primarily underground venue and had a good life thereafter, visited by I believe some great local and international DJ talent, and though closing its doors for good in 2005, remains one of the iconic clubbing ventures in dance music history.

I made some good friends in Dublin and to any of them reading this - Sláinte! For you, them and everyone else I’ll leave you with a few sentimental memories that remain of my time ‘in the Kitchen at parties’.

• Bono - “So tell me Paul, why d’ya wanna play House music in my club?” Followed by yours truly enriching the Irish rocker with the spiritual philosophies, tribal references, origins and relevance behind [and of] h.o.u.s.e. music! Shit, I got the gig and sold the dude the vibes - what can I say.. ha ha
• Bringing my studio sensibilities firmly to the assembled masses playing a DAT tape with a repetitive, rhythmic computer voice, spelling out the individual letters ‘K _I _T _C _H _E _N’ at 120 bpm, whilst I mixed in whatever hot-tune was rockin’ it then.
• Listening to, then watching, the entrance of ten tribal drummers, beating in unison when I dropped the classic ‘20Hz’ by Capricorn (check video below). The crowd went nuts as these bare torsoed Adonis’ banged ‘to the beat of the drum’, exactly duplicating the records distinctive break down - to this day I’ve never seen anything as original, exciting and vibrant in a nightclub.
• Playing the now seminal ‘Acperience’ by Hardfloor for the first time, switching the Technics deck power off as the acid breakdown started, then finger controlling the vinyl manually at slow speed, gradually picking up the tracks tempo nearing it’s original, in time with the snare-fill crescendo - then, powering the deck back up at full speed - hell yeah!
• Watching 3 of the world’s highest paid super-models (place was bloody full of ‘em) saunter onto the dancefloor for just ‘one’ record, flanked by two bodyguards the size of planets, boogie a bit (can’t mess the hair up!), much to the amusement of the surrounding crowd, then just as quietly, saunter off again, never to re-emerge from the confines of the VIP area.

I could go on, but I really should save the rest for a book.. ?

I brought in the Photoshop design talents of my younger brother Neil who, using a ton of images I’d sourced from t’interweb, put together the flyer you see in the image here - a wonderful montage that spoke volumes of the musical and socio-political time it represented. For the night itself (premiered at East Yorkshire’s coolest indie club, The ‘Welly’), main room tunes ranged from the synthetic delights of the Human League, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Yello, O.M.D., Yazoo etc, to the Gothic darkness of bands like the Cramps, Cure, Bunnymen, B52’s and Iggy Pop. A second ‘back-room’ had friends playing some early rap, mutant disco and breakdance style electro.

I had so much faith in this night as a concept, I actually took to the streets with the host club’s promo team to spread the word and seek out like minded, musically appreciative punters (there was no Facebook then and MySpace was still in it’s infancy).

On the launch night, I waited in anticipation for the club’s main ballroom doors from the feeder bar next door, expecting to just perhaps see a decent trickle of bodies walk in with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity. Instead, an absolute mass of bodies spewed into the main hall, ranging from young, pretty indie kids, vari-aged Goths, and a mixture of alternative and cool ‘thirty’ to ‘forty something’s. I dropped the opening synthesizer line (on a loop) from the League’s ‘Love Action’, let it go, and the place went nuts!

It’s ’80s’ season here in the UK on BBC2 right now, and it was this that partly prompted my scribblings today. I was also reminded of some text I wrote for an 80s remix compilation CD inner sleeve, the extract below kinda sums up this whole musical decade for me as a DJ and burgeoning record producer.

Retro-Active Vol. 2 (HiBias Recs - Canada)

“.. I honestly now feel honored to have been there. It WAS magical, it WAS inspirational, it WAS wondrous. Of course, none of us realised that at the time.. we were too busy enjoying ourselves”

And if you’re a DJ, club owner, promoter or party organiser and you’d like a slice of ‘Eight-Zero’, drop me a comment below. Big 80s love comin’ atchya!

Firstly, the ‘..Bumper’ remix was done during my last few days of involvement with the DMC organisation, where I was renting space in the form of my old ‘Studio 1′ environment. This room was equipped with a fair few hardware toys and a large Sountracs mixing desk but by this time I was already pretty much working ‘in the box’ with no external processing/mixing involved. ‘..Bumper’ originally had a tempo of 109 and I took it to quite an extreme house territory of 128 bpm. Within this I programmed some Propellerheads ReCycle‘d percussion loops, originally courtesy of Sly and Robbie - I can’t tell you what a pleasure it was to get my hands on those individual samples..

Some cool (for their day) sound design tools were also used: Pro Tools Digi Pack (extreme flanges and metal/lo-fi FX processing): Arboretum Hyperprism for the crazy cut up sequence on the acapella drop on Grace’s ‘Pull up..’ vocal: Metasynth, for the mutated percussion loop punctuating the track. Yeah, it was fun to do, and especially when it got to, shall we say, emphasizing Grace’s rather risque` lyrics

‘PULL UP TO THE BUMPER’ REMIX - PLAY!

Nightclubbin’ for 2006

So from ‘99, we move to ‘06 and a commissioned session I did for a leading events management company who were providing models and choreography for a high profile Hair & Fashion show. The remit was to provide a modern interpretation on Miss Jones’ ‘Nightclubbin’ track. No parts were available to accomplish this, I only had the original stereo CD track to use as source material. It was to be used for a models catwalk routine (which on the day was very theatrical and a credit to their Creative Director) and subsequently had a very strict timing and ‘arrangement’ factor to adhere to.

Sticking with the original (s-l-o-w-w-w..) tempo of 77 bpm, I made AIFF audio files of different and relevant (1, 2 and 4 bar) sections which were then processed in the ‘Apple Loop’ utility (which I think was very underrated at the time and allowed complete tempo manipulation at a darn fine quality). The visual direction from the event’s Creative team suggested a very sensuous, flowing modulated rhythm with electronic undertones. This lead me to utilise and reprogramme 2 very heavily processed loops from Spectrasonic’s amazing groove machine, Stylus RMX. With some luscious bass emulation of the main hook and a series of very specific timeline positioned delays, the vocal was remapped and sits as you’ll hear it below.

So aside from a couple of hundred fashionistas back in 2007, my remix here remains un-heard and ‘unreleased’. As short as this version is (for the show), I can’t help listening to it over and over again.. So what do you reckon, extend it and get it ‘out there’?

PLAY NIGHTCLUBBIN’ REMIX

The Breakfast show was transmitted today from BBC Radio Humberside’s studios by a rather ‘delicate’ Chris Moyles team, but the big fun was had last night, at the Hull University’s ‘Asylum’ venue. With a live band, Chris, Dave, Dom, Carrie, Rachel, Aled and other guests banged out one of the funniest karaoke night’s you could imagine. All songs were well received but none more so than Dave’s brilliant re-working of the Atomic Kitten track, ‘Make Me Whole Again’.. re-mixed and re-lyricised by Dave to be, ‘We Can Go To Hull Again’ -Genius!

Post gig, myself, the lovely Debz, and good friends Stuart, Dan and Ian, had a few bevvies and chatted with the Moyles team back at their hotel. We all had a great time and it was cool to finally meet Chris face to face - jeez he’s a scream and as friendly as you’d expect. Catching up with Dave is always a pleasure - so, yeah, fabulous end to a kick arse night!

Just ahead of this time, I made the acquaintance of the clubs cloakroom attendant.. his name was Marc Almond. Prior to Soft Cell being a name on anyone’s lips, Marc would constantly hurry round the club, gossiping with anyone who’d listen and complaining that all and sundry were bringing their problems to him like some form of gothic agony aunt. The vision of him shooting out of the hat-check box to shimmy his skinny frame under the smoke cloud hanging a few feet off the dancefloor is etched firmly in my memory. Of course, his life was soon about to change completely..

Fast forward to 2006, and I get a call from the DMC guys asking if I’d like to remix that electro-pop masterpiece, ‘Tainted Love’. I agreed (erm, obviously) but with one condition: that the vocals were Marc’s original 1981 performance, and not the inferior, early 90’s re-vocal session. Result- it was the original I got! The vocal parts were emailed to me, and that was it: none of Dave Ball’s synth percussion sounds or those luscious keyboard parts were present. Not to worry I thought as here I had not only the chance but now the necessity to rebuild one of the biggest selling records of all time.

I’m gonna skip now to the next development in this story and then take you through the production notes: Reason? Well, about a year after I’d done the DMC remix, Soft Cell’s label decided to commission a full remix album, offering the bands back catalogue to receptive and eager pro fan/remixers. With my Tainted Love remix already well received by DMC’s DJ members, the label asked me to ‘re-tweak’ that mix and also do a full radio edit, club mix and ‘dub’ package for promo and eventual release. This is how that final remix was moulded and fine-tuned..

The Tainted Love Re-Build:

From the off, I knew the fundamental issue I wanted to address for the remix. Firstly, the 1981 track runs at 144 bpm, and I wanted to make the remix around 130 bpm which obviously involved using time stretch algorithms. Easy enough, but.. the original is sung by Marc in accordance with the song’s time signature of 6/8 (not the 4/4 area I needed). Throwing a very basic 4/4 house groove into Logic, I then processed Marc’s acapella from 144 to the new 130 tempo. This obviously kept the 6/8 time signature vocal delivery intact - and that of course needed to change, otherwise, Marc would be singing 6/8 over a 4/4 track - wrong!

To get Marc’s microphone performance sitting correctly within the new 4/4 rhythm, I had to cut up most of his vocal phrases and ‘re-position’ them by manually sliding the audio files left or right until I ‘felt’ it was the right delivery (and yes, a degree of paranoia did creep in as I debated the accuracy of my positioning choices - I was messing with a classic after all). After an intense few hours, I was eventually happy with the BIG change I’d already made - and I hadn’t even started on the rest of the remix!

The basic house groove was programmed up with a combination of my stock EXS samples and Battery. From herein, what to do about the bass - oh yes, that ol’ chestnut! In this case I’d already managed to get a really funky element into the rhythm track, so I thought I’d plum for straight eighth notes for the bassline and let the two elements work together and not sound overly cluttered once everything else was added. The bassline itself has different bass sounds on alternate eighths: not initially noticeable but a subtlety that nonetheless works (adding a certain ‘lift’ to the ‘up’ note).

Of the various synth elements, those of note are: A 16th note [Giorgio] Moroder style arpeggio to bed under each simplistic 1 phrase chorus, leading back into the verse: A layer of vintage Mellotron string/vocal pads, under the song’s bridge section: A distorted, legato guitar shredding at full power, but low level in the mix which is introduced in the album version’s breakdown: Various subliminal ‘pop’ synths to punctuate the chord movements as the timeline moved on. The observant amongst you will also notice the original Dave Ball ’stabs’ in this remix. As the parts for this remix were only the vocal, this fantastic and iconic stab was missing - so, I sampled it from a vinyl version. I did however, layer this with another sound and added a cool slap back Elvis delay to make a retro-contemporary version - well, that’s my justification for nicking the original!

On a final ‘how pleased was I when I stumbled across this..?’ moment.. Whilst looping up a vocal section and working on a synth part, I chanced upon a Marc vocal loop making a phrase that doesn’t appear on the original track, but is evident and really quite ‘hooky’ on the remix breakdown. This is a loop of.. “..please, I cannot stand the way you tease..” but, what is happening here is that the ‘T’ of ‘tease’ is latching onto the word ‘please’ but minus the ‘P’, therefore creating a very cool new phrase, and [luckily] then unlocking the loop to give that ‘tension/release’ moment and bringing the track back in, to its full on glory - it’s taking advantage and expanding upon lucky accidents like this that can make the world of difference to a remix!

Check out the full extended mix in the link below.. It appears on ‘Soft Cell - Heat: The Remixes’ album.. which is a highly recommended 2 CD package for fans of the electronica genre, old and new style!

PLAY ME!!

So, into the studio and first thing was to put the straight audio file of the ‘Low’ track into Logic’s arrange page. Putting a simple click track up, I was pleasantly surprised that lengthy sections of the track stayed constantly in time at the bpm of 128 - result there then, no time stretching necessary. Having not at that time delved that deeply into Logic’s Ultrabeat instrument, for a change I thought I’d put ‘Battery‘ aside and have a crack with this. Assembling a fitting 4/4 House rhythm and additional percussion parts, that was then mapped through the basic arrangement.

With the lower frequencies of the Flo Rida track delicately cut with some EQ adjustment, I set about making the basic bassline befitting a standard House track.. But, having the opportunity to make a different ’side-step’ expression as the tracks time-line moved on, I made a completely different bass sound and pattern to fit the relevant vocal part. As the work on the remix continued, some repeated vocal sections were fed through various effects to create the ‘rhythmic filtered delay’ sections that periodically occur in the finished version.

As with a lot of commercial dance remixes [especially in the 'extended' versions], the inclusion of a cool breakdown section is well received on the dancefloor. Usually it’s a newly introduced riff or sound sequence with an accompanying cut of the main drums. For this part of the ‘Low’ remix I programmed up a rather tasty synth line, almost ‘ravey-Belgian’ style’ (whatever that is?!), made that kick into the section with various other parts gradually leveled up and filtered in.. and the result, with the main beat kicking back in, was more than satisfying (it rocks on a club floor too!)

Once finished, arranged and self-mastered, I dispatched an MP3 version around to various DJ friends around the world via MySpace and Facebook etc. The reactions back were amazing - but, I couldn’t do much more with the track as it wasn’t an official version and had to remain ‘promo only’. Somehow, at a later date, a YouTube’r got hold of the MP3 and uploaded the audio to a makeshift video of rotating images from the original Flo Rida video. At least they had the decency to credit me and put that it was a promo version etc.. As the weeks progressed, it was amazing to see the YouTube plays increase drastically. After a few months of ever increasing plays and decent comments, at 36,000 views it was eventually ‘removed’ at the demand of Warner Brother’s records - To this day I wonder why they focused on my remix to remove from YouTube and left the plethora of others alone? And, I’m still waiting for a black stretch-limo to pull up outside my house so Mr Rida can “have words”

Anyway, here’s the MP3 for your listening pleasure..

PLAY ME!!

Back in the UK a week or so later, whilst just browsing through Facebook feeds, I saw someone had posted a link to an Erick Morillo set at Ministry of Sound showing him drop a bootleg mash up of Ministers De La Funk’s ‘Believe’ with the acapella of the Red Carpet classic, ‘Alright’. Even more goosebumps..

Despite plugging into the ol’ boys network, I was unable to find out much about the Morillo spun bootleg.. So, why not, I thought, make my own? The Obama speech still ringing in my ear, it became apparent that the whole content of these two musical and one oratory tracks were all based around subjects of ‘belief’, ‘inspiration’ and ‘positivity’. From there on,  it was simple to put the pieces together and the mash up almost made itself.

I really love this production, most particularly for the structuring of Obama’s speech and the way it interplays with Jocelyn Brown’s amazing, gospel style vocal.. “especially.. If you believe..” it’s almost a duet.. Ace!! No major studio techniques to reveal here other than to say the tempo and key matching were applied within Traktor Pro to the Red Carpet acapella to make it musically and bpm correct to the ‘Ministers..’ track. Mr President’s speech was arranged, eq‘d and effected in Logic 8 which carried the edited, filtered and remastered bed of ‘Believe’.

At the end of March ‘09, Hed Kandi radio jock David Dunne played the track on his Galaxy Weekend show and since then there’s been a fair few requests to get it ‘out there’.. et voila.. MP3 below..

PLAY ME!!

1> A Basic Drum pattern - Most of my studio output is dance music related with electronic/synthetic rhythms (programmed not ‘acoustic’ so to speak) - and is produced first for a dancefloor, secondly for radio, and thirdly, and hopefully, TV. The track I get to remix usually has a vocal, whether it’s a hook line, basic lead and bv’s or full on layers of harmonies etc. Also available may be the original song’s instrumental parts (it may for example have a killer synth riff which most listeners would associate as the ‘hook’ ). The aforementioned vocal may need to be time stretched from a faster tempo to a lower one, or of course the reverse - it depends on what ’style/flavour’ I need to give the remix.

So.. Having time-stretched the vocal to the required tempo (let’s say: 127bpm), I’ll keep that file to one side, create a 4 or 8 bar cycle area, and start to work on a basic groove. I’d start with a kick drum I like which has the flavour, intensity, and clarity I want and lay down a basic 4/4 rhythm. Then I’d add some simple eighths hi-hats just to get a bit more movement followed by some sort of snare or clap to emphasise the 2 and the 4 or just pick up the groove.. At this point, I’d add maybe a snatch of the lead vocal, either verse or chorus hook which will provide more of a foundation to start, metaphorically speaking, hanging the branches on.

2> The ‘killer’ bassline and additional percussion.
The remix may be based on a simple vocal hook, OR, a complex song and musical work with chord and bassline changes necessary. I’d start by bedding underneath the above elements, a bass preset that has the right sound, ADSR content, dynamic feel, power and presence (or if necessity dictates, programming my own sound from a raw sine, square or sawtooth shape) . This, in priorities, needs to be ‘felt and heard’ in a club, and ‘heard and felt’ on the radio, if that makes sense? With the vocal running and the basic groove, I can then get a clearer initial indication of how busy, or not, the bassline should be, and whether it should be of a ‘normal’ representation or utilise some sort of (currently in-vogue) side-chaining effect. I’d call this basic simple bassline, a ‘carrier’ line which will be the one that the track ‘returns’ to after the more musical content has passed (of course, 1, 2 or maybe 3 other bass parts may be written later on if the track musically demands it).

As the track will have an arrangement content where parts (whether musical or percussive) will develop and increase or decrease in intensity during the tracks ’start to finish’ development. This is where the programming of additional rhythm parts will come in. At this point I’d copy the entire midi and/or audio parts to another 4/8 bar cycle area where I would inject other ‘groove’ samples, loops or flavours to be used as enhancement to either the general rhythm track or as ‘lifts’ or sectional dividers whilst the remix moves through the timeline. Also, thereafter, I’d write the bass parts for say a chorus or middle 8 here, maybe copying the 4/8 bar sections so I’d see maybe three or four ‘chunks’ of parts which I can see (or label) as eg: groove 1, groove 2, verse, chorus, break etc - this way you start to get a visual as well as audio indication of a developing structure (albeit not ‘glued together’ yet).

3> Musical part and full vocal placement

As mentioned earlier, if I have a musical hook/performance on which to hang this whole remix, then that’s a great help.. If, however, I had a song that in its original version, is good but has nothing that could be called a killer riff, then perhaps this is where I’d look to create one, alongside other supporting parts, which will ‘bed’ underneath or suggest sections of a ‘departure’ flavour. These new parts could be for example, stacatto chords, dreamy pads, gated synth beds, percussive piano stabs, guitar riffs, anything that I feel will be beneficial to the track. Great care must be taken though to try and learn to KNOW WHEN TO STOP - that is, not to layer line after line, riff after riff, layer after layer.. usually, less is indeed more - the simple general rule of thumb recognised by many is, “..when it sounds right, it IS right!”

4> The Arrangement
With an armory of ‘what does what’.. I would then look at ‘what goes where’. I could have some great parts programmed, which, when looped/cycled are sounding great, but most of this effort could be in vain if the actual laid out ‘arrangement’ isn’t doin’ it! Although most dance tracks would kick off with some sort of gradually intensifying percussion/rhythm vibe, let’s put that to one side and look at ‘the meat’ of the track. Here’s a standard example (and not definitive nor ‘the rule’ by any means) of sections within a contemporary dance/pop track (and this I reckon could apply to R&B too..).

• INSTRUMENTAL (chorus flavoured) INTRO
• VERSE 1
• CHORUS 1
• BREAK (for a few bars perhaps)
• VERSE 2
• CHORUS 2
• REFRAIN or DEPARTURE BREAK
• MIDDLE 8/INST.BREAKDOWN

..then

• CHORUS REPEAT X 2/3 to DEAD STOP OR FADE

..or

• VERSE 2 Repeat (or VERSE 3)
• CHORUS REPEATS TO DEAD STOP OR FADE

5> FX, Hits, Bleeps ‘n Sweeps
Now I’d have the full arrangement on the Logic 8 arrange page, here I would look at the ‘fairy dusting’ which could be such things as crash cymbals or FX to ‘punch-in’ new sections or indicate the end of a previous one plus maybe flitered effects sweeps or periodic percussive elements such as ‘fill’s or ‘hits’ - I’m sure you follow my drift here - this sort of stuff just adds subliminal content sprinkled throughout the piece…

6> The Mix!
With all of the above accomplished, the penultimate step is to mix the track to sound dynamically as good as possible. I will tell you that I’m an advocate of pretty much getting the balance right from ‘the off’. I will take the time to effect, process and manipulate every element to ‘work’ within the overall balance of the mix as it progresses and grows, so, I have the dynamics of everything more or less right at the end of the session. This philosophy developed the more I got used to mixing ‘in the box’, and moving away from ‘flattening’ the faders of a physical mixing desk after days of programming to then put my ‘mixing’ head on. At this point, I will engage Logic’s powerful automation functionality to add any additional delay, reverb, and other effects hits where necessary, and also to do any form of volume ride or filter manipulation perhaps.

7> Mastering
Simple, if the track is going to be commercially available, it will go to a professional mastering engineer so I would just delicately EQ the two track output, dialing in some gentle compression, and that would be it. If it’s destined for performance on radio, in clubs or on peoples CD players and is not going to get a commercial release, I will most likely use the mastering plug-ins I have available to do the best job that my ears can be satisfied with (I try and take a compromise of maintaining dynamic range, allowing the track to ‘breathe’ properly, but also recognising the need for it to stand proud next to all the ‘overly squashed, loudness war’ victims out there…)

The above just represents the basic and major steps of how I approach a remix - the intricacies of detailed programming, sound design, automation, mixing and creative expression are all individual topics in themselves, but that’s my domain just as much as how you express/perform them, will be uniquely yours!

The remit from the compilation album’s label (Stylus Records) was 2 sides of ‘Love Songs’ and 2 sides of ‘Dance Mix’. This work was commissioned prior to my access to samplers, multi-track recording and computer sequencing so all of the segue’s between tracks was done primarily with tape ‘bullet editing’ and secondly, good ol’ fashioned DJ crossfading with vinyl. I’ll be honest, doing a satisfactory mix between ‘Love Songs’ using this method occasionally left something to be desired. The ‘Dance Mix’es were of course more dynamic a beat ‘n tempo and therefore more conducive to the style I used.

So, this album has some production ‘highs’, ‘mediums’ and ‘lows’.. But, nonetheless, I got to mix up some M.J. tracks for a general public release, and in the process, discovered a Jackson era I’d totally missed in my early teens. Again.. RIP Michael xx ..

The theme for my live set I decided would be a Kraftwerk megamix. As pioneers to all forms of electronic and urban music, it seemed appropriate. The mix, in my typical style, would be a smooth ‘production’ number: but I had to fill a 12 minute time slot and keep the audience entertained for that length of time without so much of a hint of ‘turntablism’. Ok… In the week before the gig, I had the 2 DZ’s and the SH-MZ1200 mixer set up in my studio for working the set out and practising. Now if I’d have just played one Kraftwerk track after another, after another, then that would have been a little obvious and not too innovative. The answer? - Create bespoke remix CD’s, with loop and sample sections to intersperse throughout the live mix, so adding the special production element I needed.

These special sections were:

• Vocal loop of a radio DJ saying “..and the Kraftwerk classic The Model” (sequenced to 129 bpm)
• The German language countdown looped from the live version of ‘Numbers’
• The ‘Boing Boom Tschack’ loop over a new electro rhythm
• Percussion loop again from ‘Numbers’
• Vocoder ‘Planet Rock’ vocal from remixes of Afrika Bambaatta’s B-Boy classic
• Filtered and modulated ‘Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie’ loop (no coincidence I wore a ‘Bowie’ style T-Shirt that night too folks!)
• Section of the BackTrax original [demo] remix of ‘The Model’
• Loop from Trans-Europe Express
• Kraftwerks own live vocoder intro from their 2004 tour - just don’t ask me how I got it ok! lol

The mix on the night went quite well, but me being the self-critical beggar I am, was not convinced it bettered my practice sessions at home. Still, it seemed well received and a video of the set floated around the web for a while. The set itself although videoed was not recorded in a decent quality audio stream on the night, but fortunately, I did record one of my practice sessions and have added the MP3 to this post for your enjoyment. Remember, it was performed ‘Live’, no editing, no nuffink.. Just three days of preparation for a 10+ minute mix. Hope you like it..

PLAY - Kraftwerk Live Dakeyne Mix