who else here modifies their music?

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i also have been known to take thin-sounding recordings, IOW recordings that lacked body due to both technical deficiencies in the recording process as well as poor [or intentionally spare] instrumental arranging, and thicken their textures by copying the soundfile, half-speed converting the copy then subtly mixing it back in with the original sound file.

Interesting idea! I would think EQ adjustment might be easier though, but then I've never tried what you described.

i do this only when i have reached the limits of what EQ is capable of fixing. i also have been known to cut copy and paste parts into other parts to add contrapuntal complexity. a purist i'm not.

Purism is a myth.

I just finished a two year college program in Music Technology. One of our instructors had access to the actual raw studio tracks from some very famous songs. If there's one thing I've learned, no two mixes EVER come out alike, even if the engineer and raw tracks are the same on both.

A LOT of mixing is pure chance. More than practically any professional mixer would like us to believe.

There's really no such thing as a mix that fits the statement, "This is how we wanted you to hear this song."

There are almost always mixes you've never heard, some of which sometimes get released as "remixes." The ones that make it onto the records are simply the ones that "got picked." There's often a "radio" mix, that isn't the same as the one you get on the album.

All you're really doing when you mess with the supposedly "original mix" (another myth!), is the same thing the original mixer would do if he ever revisited the same mix. None of us are ever really satisfied the one that makes it "out there" is either perfect or "pure."

As far as I am concerned, "All is in the ears and eyes of the beholder!"

Muck away with it!! !

a real chancy thing was how john lennon mixed "revolution#9" - fat chance of any remix duplicating the exact original mix.

Last edited by auntblabby on 16 Jun 2010, 4:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well I once went through a phase of using Audacity to play songs backwards and play them fast so they sound like they're being sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks

well, speaking of fast, i have gotten accustomed to altering tempi in recordings to make them suit my taste better. a 5 to 10% adjustment can work wonders in enhancing the groove hidden in a too-slow musical phrase or section.

when i was a kid, i took an alvin and the chipmunks record and played it on an old record player with the 4 speeds, 16&2/3, 33&1/3, 45 and 78, and played the record at the 16&2/3 speed which is half of 33&1/3, just to hear what the chipmunks AKA david seville aka ross bagdasarian, jr. sounded like at "their" actual normal speaking "voices" and was only a bit disappointed to hear it was just a middle-aged man S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G S-L-O-W-L-Y, with overdubbing.

i once took the song "mr. lee" [the bobbettes] and deconstructed the tenor sax solo in the middle of the song, because i thought it was way too short at 8 bars, and extended it to twice its original length by splicing/butting each sax note into a novel solo phrase for 8 bars. i next intend to do the same thing with a ringo starr tune, "you're sixteen."

You sure do know your backtracking. You missed Marilyn Manson though. That guy is hilarious about backtracking, he does it for all the crazy christian parents that are looking to criticize his music for being satanic.

he needs to borrow a page from the playbook of ringo starr, who after the breakup of the beatles, decided to do an old-timey music album for his parents' generation.

i used a cheap sampling keyboard to record the vox humana sound [or a celeste] from a pipe organ recording, then used that sampled sound to enhance several phrases from several pipe organ melodies that i felt were a bit thin in the harmony department, either due to poor recording technique or poor musical arranging.

With midi files I play around with orchestration and tempo and create "ideal" or near ideal performances. But really I don't do anything very major.

hey, it's something. i never was able to figure out how to do anything regarding MIDI, it was a step beyond my tech capabilities.

I tweak my songs, in my own "Alternative" way.

- I blend; intros, outros, interludes and the skits with the song(s) they link up with.
- If I don't like the vocals to the song, I replace it with the (if available) instrumental version. If not, just keep it.
- If "Track XX" blends with "Track YY", but not with "Track ZZ", I sometimes put them together. Depending on the context.
- I also link up parts. As in "Song Part 1" with "Song Part 2" etc.

These vary in somewhat infinite amounts of ways.

If I didn't do this, my music collection would be bigger by about 5 - 10%

It's like my own set of rules.

i am confused as to why your music collection would be smaller rather than larger after making all those alternate versions?