Tips needed on remix techniques - help!

[knewbee]

Greetings all,
I have a chance to do what could potentially be some pretty high profile club remixes of some R&B tracks. The trick is to get the vocal tracks up from about 85 bpm to 120 bpm. When I change the tempo using Serato Pitch 'n Time, it works great, in terms of sound quality. But then the performance clearly sounds speeded up. Not in terms of pitch, just timing, eg. vibrato sounds super fast. The DJ I'm working with (who is not technical), maintains that there are ways to process the vocals so that you effectively change the tempo, but without having it sound like a super sped-up performance. If anyone has any tips I would really appreciate it.

Thanks! - Steve

[Yaro]

Hi knewbee,

In this case, I guess the best solution would be to have them sing it for you at the new tempo...

If that is out of the question, I would rethink my approach to the remix. Don't try to do a sped-up version of the original. Just take little pieces of vocals (key elements, hooks etc.) and have fun with them. Fill your sampler with them, and bring them in here and there, you know, "Prodigy or Moby-style"). Does that sound like a good idea?

Yaro

[knewbee]

Yaro,
Thanks for the response. Getting the artist in to record the vocals again would be well nigh on impossible. I'm not sure there is a way to get a vocal "transparently" from 85 bpm to 120 bpm, especially if there is strong vibrato, and lots of what have become de rigeur r&b trills and curlicues in the singing. I was just wondering if there might be some approach I was missing. The sample idea is a good one. I'll have to load up some of the vocals into SSC and see what I can come up with...
Anyone else...?

[Hardnox]

It might sound wierd, but instead of speeding the vocal up (if you remix @ 120 bpm), try slicing the vocal where it hits off of the beat, slide these splices on beat with your new tempo map. Same trick if you took a voice-over or something that wasn't recorded on any kind of tempo, sliced it up (in strategic places), moved it to a tempo map, and now it sounds like the voice is rapping. Hard to explain.

[SmlTwnGuy]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but doesn't the Melodyne software allow you to draw vibrato in and out?

[Felix]

AutoTune removes vibrato. AT can also create new vibrato.

[snoopy]

If it's any consilation, I hardly ever hear a dance remix that doesn't have that annoying sped up sound which makes me want to vomit (sometimes :-)).

I would be curious to try using recycle to space out the vocal phrases to the new tempo, then maybe process the parts with seratto. Autotune might not be a bad idea either. Just for the record, I have no experience doing any of this, just giving my thoughts.

Oh, wonder if the vp9000 would be useful...

[Robert U]

[taichber]

try beat detector in PT

[PT2GO]

You could slow down the vocal a little, and speed up the track the track a little. in essence cutting the timing in half.

maybe like to 70/140.

The only other way I know, would be to use combinations of Pitch&Time, and hardcore editing_treating each line/word seperately depending what it needs to make it work.

[lukemaniak]

I agree with PT 2 Go.
Last year I did a Remix for a 80 bpm song to 130 bpm. I slowed the vocals instead of spped it up. It worked really fine.

[knewbee]

Wow. Thanks for all the tips. I've tried to stay away from AutoTune for the most part. But maybe if I'm going to start doing remixes it will become a necessary tool. And I did try slowing the vocal down, then doubling the tempo underneath it. Just sounded kind of lethargic, since we had to go from 85 bpm to about 67 bmp, since we didn't want a tempo over 134. I'll try some of these other things. Thanks!

[5down1up]

simply cut all the single words , place the words on different tracks ( to avoid overlays ) and speed the whole session up .
you have to fix the lenghth afterwards by ear ... this is a lot of work , but you´ll make sure you keep the vox like they are used to be . if you didnt like the results with serato , it will not sound that different the way i am trying to describe . maybe that helps ???

[8bit]

Check out a program called melodyne, i heard it today.... Amazing!!http://www.celemony.com/melodyne/