James Brown - Cold Sweat Quantized
mr.brett
678 Posts
I quantized Cold Sweat and stuck a nice intro section at the beginning for easier mixing. http://www.divshare.com/download/3940120-193
Comments
And equally important: why?
Ableton or Acid are good for doing this. In ableton you set "warp markers" that you can set to a grid which makes the audio elastic. So you can fix up timing issues easily.
whole article about warp markers
http://www.ableton.com/pages/tips/2004_05
I hear you. I was worried that quantizing this song would take away from the rawness that originates from a "imperfect" rhythm, but I think it turned out okay. Can anyone really tell that this has been modified (apart from the intro)?
when i read this post i thought it was an exercise on how wrong it would make the song sound not someone trying to make a more usable DJ edit...if you really are paying attention quantizing kinda sucks out the natural grove to the track and soudns slowed down at parts to me...if you need to make an edit of this one i'd stick to looping key parts or just try to cut doubles of it live.
I definitely understand this. But, these imprecisions in the groove are only a part of what makes a track funky. When imperfections are nudged into place you still have the syncopation and dynamics that account for a greater amount of the funk. Do you think that anything is lost when you listen to the mp3? I'm not asking this to be snarky or prove that I'm right- because I don't know if I am... rather, I want to see if others can tell a difference in the feeling of the song. It's not worth my time to quantize a song if it diminishes the feeling of the the track.
I made this edit because I like mixing and this edit makes that possible. I know that all songs don't need to be mixed and I should probably do more to change up my transitions. That said, I thought this edit would be nice if you're playing a midtempo "dancefloor funk" set with music that is produced electronically, because it allows you to play a song in the format which I believe sounds best for electronic "funk". (aka all good funk alliance, first floor brothers, dj regal et al.)
Not trying to hijack, but I'll add the mash-up here. It's only my second such attempt ever:
ugk feat outkast versus willie "the mack" hutch - players choose you.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/j2lmj3
i was talking to Hank Shocklee about production techniques and he basically said the same thing... it really stuck with me, since i produce on a computer... he said a lot of PE stuff was def not "perfect" and that was intentional, that they wanted to make it breathe to make it funky... stuff like having the snares not exactly on 2 and 4, or not having the snares hit the same place every time is indeed what makes something funky...
since the environment i make beats in is not grid-based, my beats rarely keep within a strict BPM range. i like this.
I can definitely hear it in the bass. There's that weird "wobbly" sound you get when you time-stretch something. Some of those drum fills don't sound quite right either.
this is useful. i don't get why djs are mad at this. if you want to be authentic than play the og, but if are using Microwave to its fullest and taking advantage of looping, then having this song stay at a consistent bpm is
of course you can still nudge and pull the record back to keep it on beat, but if the only reason is to be authentic, then you probably shouldn't be using Microwave.
No one's "mad at this."
In any case, it's really not that hard to mix a non-quantized song. It's called "knowing the song" b/w "having basic mixing skills." Given that, why mess with perfection? Personally, I like the intro he threw on here but I don't think it was necessary to quantize the actual song itself.
Minimally Quantized Edit: I deleted a bunch of the markers, allowing the song to breathe a little bit more. With the exception of the first 8 bar intro, the song averages about 1 marker every two measures. I kept more markers later in the song during the section which I grabbed the intro from. I think it's a good place to mix out, so I figured more markers would be helpful.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3949685-218
Intro Edit: This one is not quantized. Spanky said he liked the intro, so this file has the intro and the remainder of the track with no other changes.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3949513-e9e
Thanks! This is really cool that you're doing this.
Keep 'em coming!
how do you go about lining things up , all manually to fit the new parts? that sounds like a very tedious way of working.... it must take a while to put a track together.
really, cause you sound mad - but thanks for dropping that incredible knowledge jewel about the possibility of mixing in a non-quantized song with "basic mixing skills".
http://www.divshare.com/download/3950579-cd5
- spidey
No problem. Your patronizing post about how people who use Microwave shouldn't complain about artificially quantized funk tunes made it appear that you were disconnected from the ability to mix without the benefit of quantization.