Commodore Remix

Hello,

i"ve done a very rough recreation of the Song "Ice Queen". It took me hours of reverse engeniering the structure and notes.
i havent used any tools like sid2midi or similiar, just my ears. Instruments are provided by Arturia Analog Lab 5 and rendered down to nomrmal samples.
The DAW Im using is renoise. Well, since the basic structure and melody line has been created im running a little bit out of ideas how to procced now, since it is obvious very short. The speed of the song is quiete high (150 bpm) and not easy though. Do you have an idea how to lenght this a bit and spice it up with some more content? Its not yet balanced very well and the mastering steps are missing, but i believe you get the point

https://soundcloud.com/m4rzl/where-is-t ... 8hayl91Yxw

Greetings,
Marzl

There are so many great SIDs I haven’t heard, this is one of them, cool! Went to take a few listens to the SID before I listened to yours.

First of all, you’ve done the hard work of getting those notes down which can, at times, feel like a grind. I always timestretch each SID channel separately and learn the notes and record them. You’re right it can take ages.

This is where the fun begins, do you play keyboards or are you using renoise like a tracker? Can’t speak for anyone else, but I think having physical keys in front of me is super important to trying things out and often accidentally stumbling on something cool.

You may not know what direction to take things in, I usually don’t, I find that all it takes is to find a sound or a preset that steers your brain in a particular direction. What you should keep looking for is a way to define the roadmap of the song. Where you start, where you’re going and where you end up. I don’t think anyone has a clear idea of this at the start of making a remix, it keeps changing as you discover new ideas.

Play with sections of the song. The first 8 bars don’t need to lead to the next 4 or 8, they can repeat and you can layer in other sounds to give the song a sense of evolving.

Think about your transitions, in this song, you start with opening slow arpeggio (the opening lead could be a springboard to give you something to add in for interest), the bass gets an introduction, next the bass line with arpeggios then the lead. Each of these sections could do with some way to give the transition some interest, I was going to say impact, don’t mean that literally, just way to help the listener navigate through the song. This is hard to get right, maybe change the bass sound on the initial long note and play with the filter/drive. Make it unique from the bass line.

Try everything… Flesh the mix out for the sake of adding texture to give it some body, or maybe change the drum patterns, add some pads, some rhythmic ticks or literally anything to keep your brain from getting stuck looping the same passage over and over.

Jam! Keep iterating, adding whatever you can think, if you don’t like what you’ve added, throw it away immediately, don’t get stuck trying to just make something work, if it doesn’t fit, drop it.

Go and listen to some of your favourite songs, random stuff whatever, walk away, get some inspiration, copy it if necessary come back and try something out. You’d be surprised where this can take you.

Try all these things and record variations of the same minute and a half you’ve built. I sometimes throw it all away and start again with different instruments, build it as a set of rounds, start slow and introduce new elements of the song for each round, just keep experimenting.

Ok, so I hope that’s of some help. what you’ve built sounds like a solid foundation for a great remix. Finally I would say that experimenting with ambient sounds can help a lot and give you another aha moment when you accidentally stumble upon an idea to spruce up your miix.

It’s a fine balancing act between figuring out the roadmap and discovering new sounds, usually finding a new sound expands the roadmap or changing the roadmap leads to thinking about new sounds.

Don’t give up, Just try some of these things to keep that brain from thinking, I’m stuck!

Hey, wow. i really appreciate your in depth answer which is very valuable to me. Many thanks.
The recreation was indeed very painful but a joy at the end that it all worked out.
I want to give that song a "royskop" direction at the end, even though i enjoy remixed stuff in techno/dance style.
The looping is a very good point, and i will keep that in mind trying to spice it up here and there.

I will keep you posted and now I am motivated again

Thinking of royksopp, although this isn’t a perfect fit for your track, you just made me think of Andromeda off their lost tapes, in my opinion an outstanding example (like many their tracks) of how to build something from an initial hook to something wonderful. Has a good Sid vibe at the end of that track.

oh yeah, that is a very good example. Nice, just listening to it.

alright, today i revisited my song. Main focus was the intro part and some finetuning with frequency, automations (to keek it rolling) and streching a tiny bit.
Still a few miles to go but every end has ists start

what do you think? Is this the right direction?

https://soundcloud.com/m4rzl/ice-queen-v2/s-sK2Bwwn0t4Q