Mix De-compositions

Sometimes you need to do further work on a piece, but you only have a full stereo mix. This can be the case for remixes or mixtapes, and for creative re-use of your own past creations.

[gdlr_quote align=”center” ]A full stereo mix, although seemingly limited, is a valuable source of musical material, if you take the time to de-compose it creatively.[/gdlr_quote]

And a full mix, although limited, is a valuable source of musical material, if you take the time to de-compose it creatively.

You may have some luck with isolating parts of the mix using M/S (mid-side) techniques. This may provide a reasonably clean vocal track plus a reasonably clean instrumental version in many cases. Some plugins claim to be able to do this, but often a good dedicated M/S processor, such as the Brainworx “bx-digital” is the best choice.

Another way of getting creative with the mix is to process it wildly with one or more plugins.

Mix processing chain # 1

  • Send the mix thru a reverb set to fully wet.
  • Send the reverb output into a distortion unit.
  • And send the output of that into a filter plug with rhythmic (synced) modulation features.
  • Record various permutations of this chain as audio files and let them form the foundation of a new arrangement for the track

This is a flexible source of musical sounds that are automatically lined up to the tonality (since it is the mix being treated)