I have been told by my friends that they listen to this with the music down and honestly I'm not insulted. This Bulgarian beauty brings it on every front. She's a singer, model, actress and a really nice person.
I turned the track into a more global electro house vibe. Hoping to do more with her in the future. Easy now...
Norah Jones - Strange Transmission [DJ Strobe Bossatronica Mix] Turned this into a Bossanova feeling chillout vibe. Really proud of the background "Bah" vocals which are actually a few sample library patches I pieced together to make a nice performance.
DJ Krush feat Esthero - Final Home [DJ Strobe Lounge Mix] Still like to listen to this mix. Love that Esthero was the vocalist. I met DJ Krush at a party where we got to perform with Kodo, the Japanese Tiako drummers celebrating the remixes we did for them.
Had to turn in this mix to Sony, which was not the final mix because the drive I had my samples on died and after having a nervous breakdown couldn't even remember where half the sounds originated from since they were collected over the years, but the label loved it so int he end it was OK.
Eliane Elias - Running [DJ Strobe Full Mix] Used for a boatload of TV shows and chill comps. Listening to it again now after a year or so it's still got a nice soundtrack vibe to it.
Eliane Elias - Running [Noumenon House Mix] A mix done by myself and DJ 7up that they never ended up using becasue the A & R said it wasn't really club friendly or "house" enough. I understand though, when you're a New York A & R guy you get sucked into the whole tribal NYC sound (which this wasn't and wasn't meant to be) anything else becomes foreign. If this had been Om Records....
I had been toying around with this idea since 1998 and in various unreleased incarnations it never seemed to be where I wanted it to be. In 2007 I finally got it to where I liked it. A duo named Berkhouse Snyder provided the vocals for this release. In addition to the lyrics from the original track which was actually the verse I ended up using for the chorus, my writing partner Tom Barnishin and myself wrote additional lyrics. I have been wanting to remix this for a few years, but the original vocals didn't fit where I wanted to go so I am going to have them recut for a fresher feel and release newer remixes in 2009 or early 2010. (In case you were wondering the idea stemmed from the Alan Parsons Project song "Games People Play")
PRODUCTION NOTES // The hardest part was recreating the sound of the little 3 note arpeggio sound the original used and went through every analog synth and retro synth plugin I had. I don't think I was ever truly happy and refused to settle for sampling it but I ended up layering 5 synths and bouncing it. It was my Roland Juno 106, 2 instances of the NI Pro-53, NI Massive and the Arturia Arp2600 VSTi. I automated the filters of them throughout the song. The piano was Steinbergs Hypersonic "Brite Piano" and "Valve Wurli" super compressed using Waves RComp. The bass was one of the Electric Bass sounds I tweaked from Specrasonics Trilogy (which is always my go to bass for anything funky or real sounding). The vocal synth in the break is a sample of a Fairlight choir layerd with an airy choir sound from Hypersonic. There are various other little synth blips and rifs which I bounced in the beginning and don't remember what was used but most likely any of the above synth and reFX Vanguard.
This came along when I was doing a bunch of remixes for Koch Records. The original was a huuuuuuge record at the time and I did an electro club remix that made sure to use the vocals and a dub for those that didn't want the UNK experience.
Funny story. When I was living in New York, I was part owner of a place called Crocodile Computers. We sold used computers and music gear. In comes a young guy looking to sell some gear and after shooting the breeze, got into discussing music production. Later on I went to his place and we talked gear, music, Cindi Lauper and the future. This was the young Kevin Rudolf, then called Binocular. One of the most talented musicians and songwriters around. I used to have him play guitar on my tracks when he was just starting to get into the business. We have remained good friends over the years and we discussed the whole process of his album from what seems like years. When he was ready to release the first singe "Let It Rock" he hit me up and asked if I wanted to do a remix. Of course I said yes and the rest is history. Now he's a superstar and the best part, he still takes my calls...LOL
I loved this track the second I heard it and it was pretty much made for a funky disco-ish remix. It was a really fun record to work on and the finished mix seems less like a remix and more like it could have been an alternative original mix. It doesn't suck that it was so well received and went to #1 on several charts including Billboard and was played around the globe on dance radio and satellite.
PRODUCTION NOTES// The bass was done with Spectrasonics Trilogy run through tube saturation and Waves RBass and RComp. NI Massive was used for the blippy synth sound. AAS Lounge Lizard was used for the Rhoades sound and Steinberg's The Grand and Hypersonic Brite Piano were layered for the Piano sound. Hypersonic was also used for the string sounds. The summery portamento synth was from my Roland Juno 106. Most of the drums are sampled from records or from my library, but I also added a disco drum break from an old Salsoul record from the '70's that I cut up to make it work with the track.
I didn't stray too far from the original and just wanted to kick it up a notch for the clubs and that's really what the label wanted. That's the problem with some of the more uptempo hip hop tracks, they put a 4/4 kick but fail to kick the beats up into something usable outside mainstream clubs.
Production notes // The main melody synth was the Lennar Digital Sylenth1. The bass was a combination of Native Instruments Massive, my Access Virus Ti, and a pizzicato cello from reFX Nexus. The 8th note side-chained bass is GForce Minimonsta. The arpeggio is Rob Papen's Albino. The stringy synth lead is my Roland Juno 106 layered with the Native Instruments Pro53 VSTi.
This song, love it or hate it, is #1 in the country. I got the call, I remixed it. More like slapped it up, flipped it, & rubbed it down into a funky club track. Stretched the vocals to 124 in Abelton Live and bounced them into Cubase to do the mix.
Production notes //The bass is a Spectrasonics Trilogy Electric Bass patch I made and processed it through a Antares Tube & Waves RBass and added a small amount of side-chain compression from the kick to give the kick a little room to breathe. I used reFX Nexus for the piano. The strings were a combination of Steinberg's own Hypersonic 2 and Garritan Personal Orchestra's string ensemble. The guitar is from the original song parts, amazing how at the original tempo it's country rock sounding, stretched 24 BPMs and it's funky. I obviously had to take the Fedde Le Grand "Put Your Hands Up" vocal snippet out because of legal reasons if the label released it with them, but the posted mixes have them in it.
Been loving the original for a bit now so it was great when I got the call to remix it. The original was at 90 BPM so I used Abelton Live to stretch the vocals to 120 and then imported them into Cubase to get my groove on.
The original was a very chill electronica vibe so after about 9 sketches I realized that it wasn't gonna be funky or electro house and most importantly needed to leave room for the vocals which could get lost real quick. In the end this is what I went with and I am pretty happy how it turned out, and the label was as well. Should be out next month. I was waiting until I got the video to post this... enjoy and go catch some fireflies.
Production notes // The plug-ins I used for this mix were: reFX Nexus & Vanguard, GForce Minimonsta, Lennar Digital Sylenth1, and Native Instruments Massive. The bass sounds were side-chained with OtiumFX Compadre Beatpuncher. The drums and FX were various samples and Spectrasonics Stylus RMX.
