How to Remix a Song: A step-by-step guide
Learning how to remix a song can be one of the most useful skills any producer can have, as bagging a big remix can showcase your skills, and open doors for other opportunities, from labels looking to release your tracks, or promoters looking to book you for gigs.
A remix allows you to put your unique spin on an existing track, transforming it into something fresh. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the essential steps of remixing, from choosing the right song and working with stems to adding your creative touches and finalizing your mix.
By the end, you’ll have the confidence and knowledge to create remixes that showcase your personal style and stand out in the music scene. We’ll also cover how to make a remix of a song and even how to make a remix of multiple songs.
This comprehensive guide ensures you know how to remix music effectively.
In this article
- What is a remix?
- Is it legal to remix a song?
- How does remixing songs work?
- How to remix a song in 8 steps
- What can you do with your own remix?
- Take part in our remix competitions!
- Conclusion
What is a remix?
A remix is a new version of a song that has been altered or reimagined by adding, removing, or changing elements of the original track. Understanding how to remix a song can help you learn how to remix music effectively.
Remixes often involve altering the tempo, changing the instrumentation, or adding new parts. They can be subtle tweaks on the original, or take the track in a whole new direction, making it appealing to different audiences and fitting various contexts, such as clubs, radio, or playlists.
Think of something like Armand Van Helden’s classic remix of Tori Amos’ Professional Widow, he took only a small snippet of the vocal, but created a massive club anthem, that propelled him into the A-list and he remains one of the most sought after remixers almost 30 years later!
Learning how to remix a song can give you the skills to create your own memorable tracks. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced producer, understanding how to remix a song is essential for expanding your creative horizons.
Check out this video where our very own Phil Johnson walks you through his recent remix of Trance Wax’s tune Distance, a remix that earned him the tune of the week slot on A State of Trance.
Is it legal to remix a song?
Before learning how to make your own remix, it’s crucial to understand the legalities. Technically taking a sample of someone else’s music and creating your own track or remix, isn’t legal, as it infringes their copyright.
So to stay on the right side of the law you should only do official remixes that you are asked to do by the original artist. That said there’s literally tons of producers that create their own bootleg edits of remixes of tracks to include in their live shows or DJ sets, so it is a little bit of a gray area.
Basically no one’s going to come after you for dropping your own cheeky bootleg remix in your DJ set, but if you try to release it and make some money from it, without permission, you could be in trouble. Always seek permission from the original artist or record label to avoid potential lawsuits.
By doing so, you respect the original creators and ensure your remix can be shared legally. Understanding how to remix a song while staying within legal boundaries is essential to protect yourself and respect the original artists.
How does remixing songs work?
To understand how to create a remix, it’s essential to grasp the basic process. Remixing involves taking an original song and altering its components to produce a new version. This can include changing the tempo, rearranging sections, adding new instruments, or incorporating different beats.
You’ll typically start by obtaining the song’s stems (individual track elements), then use digital audio workstations (DAWs) to manipulate these elements. Learning how to make a song remix can open up new creative possibilities and help you develop your unique sound.
Before we jump into our step by step guide to how to remix a song, don’t forget to check out all the tutorials we have on the website, where some of the best producers in the game breakdown how to produce your own massive remix.
Check out Protoculture dropping four hours of first class advice on how he approached remixing Coast 2 Coast’s classic anthem Home.
How to remix a song in 8 steps
So here we go, this is our 8 steps to remixing a track. Of course different producers may take different approaches but this is our general ballpark steps that you should consider before loading up that DAW and getting stuck in.
These steps will guide you on how to make remixes of songs effectively, ensuring you have a solid foundation to build your creative remixes.
Start with good audio editing software
At the core of any remix project is your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), this is your main music remix software. This is the software that you will use to create our own remix.
Which DAW you use is subjective, as you can effectively use any of the major DAWs to create a remix, so Cubase, Ableton Live, Logic and FL Studio are all great starting points for creating your own remix.
Recent developments in some DAWs may sway you towards picking them. For example Logic’s most recent update includes their Stem Splitter technology that means you can take any stereo audio file and split it into its component parts, ready to be remixed.
Select a track to remix
This next step is possibly the most important one, what track are you going to remix. Whether you are a beginner or an established producer, you’re going to want to remix a track that resonates with you. But that could mean different things.
Maybe it’s a vocal line that connects with you, maybe it’s in a genre that you haven’t worked with before and you feel it’s going to stretch you creatively, or maybe its a track that you think just hasn’t hit its potential and you could really give it the creative kick up the arse that it needs, there’s tons of factors when choosing a track.
Just remember that you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the company of this track, so picking something annoying isn’t going to work. Also maybe avoid picking tracks that have been remixed a million times already.
Does anyone really need another For An Angel remix? So unless you’ve got a wildly creative way to approach the classics, maybe leave them alone. Understanding how to make remixes of songs involves careful selection to ensure you are inspired and motivated throughout the process.
Dissect the track
Now it’s time to rip that original track apart and see what you are going to use. Some remixers will take a small element of a track, and build a whole new track around it, like Fatboy Slim’s classic remix of Renegade Master, or some will keep lots of the original track intact and just recreate it for a different audience.
What you do need to have is something that links it back to that original track, some kind of hook, be that a bassline, a melody or a vocal. Finally it’s good practice to then chop the parts up into usable loops in your DAW so you are ready to start creating.
Do look out for stems being available online for you to use, this could be through the likes of a remix competition, of which there are plenty, or through a website like Tracklib that gives you access to legit stems from lots of music across many genres.
Understanding how to remix a song involves knowing which parts of the original track to focus on and how to manipulate them creatively. By mastering these techniques, you can effectively learn how to remix a song and produce a compelling new version that stands out.
Add your own sounds
Now it’s time to get creative. All depending on what stems you’ve picked out to use, you might be subtly adding extra things to pretty full track, or editing sections to extend an intro for example, but taking some key samples from stems and building your own rack around them, really gives you the greatest opportunity to ut your own stamp on things.
So why not try taking a loop from the track you’ve chosen, something that gives you space to create, so a vocal or melody perhaps, then create some brand new beats, basslines and fx that you think will work with that sample.
So many of the greatest remixes have started that way. Ever heard the original mix of Energy 52’s Cafe Del Mar? The famous Three in One remix, the version everyone knows, lifts a basic four bar melody and chord progression that plays throughout the whole of the original mix, but in their remix, those loops don’t even make an appearance until over 5 minutes into the track.
So adding your own unique sounds to a remix remains absolutely vital when thinking about how to remix a song. Your personality needs to shine though.
Experiment!
Now it’s time to get weird! One of the most important lessons to learn when finding out how to remix a song, is that nothing is off the table, you can push the remix in whatever way you want.
Think about the purpose of the remix, is it to get you noticed so you can get more gigs? More remixes? Get labels to take notice of your original productions? Then your track needs to reflect that.
If you want to get more gigs playing trance at large events, then a wild out there remix that mashes time signatures and tempos, is probably not what you should do, but if you are an artist who works in more experimental fields, then go wild, really deconstruct that track, rip it apart and make it your own thing.
Take the recent Special Request remix of Eliza Rose’s Body Moving, which takes a huge tempo shift in the middle, moving from broken beat to 180 bpm jungle, all in the same track. So understanding how to make a song remix allows you to explore these wilder avenues..
Reconstruct the track
Our next tip on how to make a remix of a song takes us into a slightly different world, something that sits neatly alongside the world of remixing, and that is the craft of the re-edit. This is where you take the core elements of a track and basically reconstruct them into something new.
Re-edits have been around for decades with legends like Larry Levan and Danny Krivit effectively laying the foundations of house music, with their disco re-edits.
A re-edit does tend to not have any new elements included, it’s usually a pure reconstruction of the component parts, but sometimes a little extra is added, like a little bit of extra lower end, or an extra kick, just so it sits alongside contemporary tracks in a DJ set.
The absolute master of the modern re-edit is The Reflex, who uses only the stems of the original tracks, but is able to make them seem like completely new versions of the tracks he edits. So sometimes learning how to remix a song gives you some fresh ideas for re-edits too.
Export your creation (mastering)
So you’ve learned how to remix a song, the next stage is to get that bad boy ready to release into the world. That’s where mastering comes in.
Mastering is a bit of a dark art, and way too long a subject to get into here, but never fear, our expert tutors are on hand to get you up to speed on all things mastering.
Distribute your remix
Distributing your own tracks has never been easier, with sites like Tnecore and Distrokid that offer paid packages for distributing your tracks to all the major outlets like Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer.
If you have created a remix for a label or artist’s release then they’ll usually handle all the distribution at their end, so just sit back and watch your DMs fill with messages from your adoring fans, while someone else does all the work.
Check out this recent music industry course by our very own absolute legend, the man the myth, Graham Ginty, where he chatted to Beatport about how to distribute your tracks.
What can you do with your own remix?
Well once you’ve learned how to remix music, what you do with that final product depends on a few things. Firstly, was it a legit remix that was approved, or even requested, by the original artist or label? If so, just hand it over and they’ll do all the rest.
It’s worth asking them whether or not you can post it on your own socials, as they’ll probably want exclusive first posting of anything, then you’ll be able to post after that, but check in with them and see what their plans are, as they’ll definitely want to get you involved in promoting the release to your fans.
Knowing how to remix a song legally and understanding the appropriate steps for distribution will help you navigate these challenges effectively.
Secondly, if it’s a cheeky wee bootleg remix that you’ve created yourself from a stereo file of the original, just be careful, play it out in clubs all you like, but posting it up online may draw some unwanted attention.
Definitely don’t try and sell the thing through legit platforms like Apple Music or Beatport. Learning how to remix a song properly ensures that you stay within legal boundaries while sharing your creative ideas.
Take part in our remix competitions!
One of the most popular things we do on the site for our subscribers are our regular remix competitions. In the past we’ve had competitions to remix Dirty Secretz, JayTech and many more, plus we always have a remix comp during any of our hugely popular Takeover series.
We always do a live show too, that will pick out the most interesting remixes and give live feedback on them. So keep an eye out on the main site for our next remix comp, coming soon! Participating in these competitions is a great way to learn how to remix a song.
By seeing other entries and receiving feedback, you can better understand how to remix a song effectively and creatively.
Conclusion
Remixing a song can be one of the most rewarding ways to hone your production ability, drawing on creativity and technical skill. By understanding how to remix a song, download the music remix software, selecting the right track, and ensuring legal compliance, you can create unique versions that resonate with listeners.
But how do you remix a song effectively? Remember, the key to a successful remix lies in balancing originality with respect for the original work.
Whether you’re remixing for fun or aiming for a professional release, following these steps will help you craft compelling remixes that showcases your own unique style.
Happy remixing!
