I’ve always been fascinated with mashups. There are some wonderful songs that mix into an equal or better song than the original. There are also mash-ups that mix two already poor songs into a worse song.
I attempted to contribute my remixing cents into the pot and I chose “No One” by Alicia Keys to dub (acapella) into a more driving rock song. This just so happened to be the Walkmen. I thought that I might fit in there on a whim and there was little to reverse engineer. I slowed Alicia Key’s tempo, while retaining the pitch which matched Walkmens’ “The Rat” perfectly. The intro singing was a bit off and I had to juggle a few bits of the singing to get them to fit. It caused no headaches and was loads of fun to produce. And the lyrics have a nice pull at each other. “No One” is infatuation and “The Rat” is more annoyance and getting through to her. Take a listen.
Alicia Keys vs. The Walkmen – “No One/The Rat” [mp3]
Audacity is capable of producing quality mashups. It’s not easy, but if you stumble on the right song combination you can go through a fairly headache-free process. For the most part, I am making sound easier than it is. There is little in the way of DJ-friendly controls or mashup tools, but it’s free as in no more slavery (and costs nothing).
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