remixing/ blending with acapellas

[C.Scott]

Hey all. Due in part to a lack of decent MCs around (or at least any that would rap over my shit) I've been flirting with the idea of doing remixes using acapellas that I find on wax. Any tips for a beginner looking to start doing blends?

[springwater]

ive never done any remixes using accapellas of other peoples shit but back when i used to record rhymes with my homies, we'd start with a basic beat that i had but didnt like. They seemed to like all of the beats i had that were constant 4 bar loops. After the audio was recorded id chop out like 4 bars of the rhyme, a part that i knew was exactly 4 bars then make a beat around that, turning it on and off and keeping the tempo in mind. This was back when i had a shitty computer and was using fruityloops and cubase. once i had a beat, id lay both tracks, the audio and the beat in cubase and line up those 4 bars that i chopped out to the track, once that was right, everything else would fall in place. So if your using accapellas, might help to find the tempo and get something solid going.
Just thought id chime in.

[yo-yo crunch]

not sure what kind of tips you're looking for... the thing i needed to know when first doing this was, 'what is the tempo of the acapella so i can make my beat the same bpm?'... in garageband i set the loop point for 2 bars. then dragged the bpm slider until 2 bars of the track was looping perfectly. this is how i did it w/o using a tap tempo button...
if you're a super noob then you need to know where the 1 is in the rap so you can line it up w the beat. you usually don't want to have the acapella hitting on the upbeat when your instr is on the downbeat...

1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-1-and...

the 'and' is the upbeat--the #s are the downbeat

[C.Scott]

Thanks for the advice, all. I was hoping not to get the computer involved, but I suppose that it's time to face the inevitable :p

Just for anyone posting in this thread, I have an elementary understanding of how to beatmatch. I guess I should make it clear that I'm looking more for advice on how to go about remix or what kind of workflow any of y'all use when remixing a track.

[lodger]

if you're looking to blend tracks, look into software like mixed in key....it makes a world of difference and will let you know ideas for track elements you can combine

[KOMSAT]

Having the original track is key, if you are able to find the key and bpm of the original you're halfway there. Key is important if there's any sung (or even slightly melodic) parts to the rhyme.

There's some Pharcyde remix that irks the crap out of me because it's obviously in a clashingly wrong key.

[ghost ghost ghost]

Thanks for the advice, all. I was hoping not to get the computer involved, but I suppose that it's time to face the inevitable :p

Just for anyone posting in this thread, I have an elementary understanding of how to beatmatch. I guess I should make it clear that I'm looking more for advice on how to go about remix or what kind of workflow any of y'all use when remixing a track.

You don't need a computer at all. I used to do something similar to what yo yo said only with an MPC and s series samplers and with 4 bars instead of 2. I sampled 4 bars of an acapella from the record, figured out a good tempo, then just built the basic loop around the 4 bars. Then when I was satisfied with what I had I would start making the beat more complex with change ups for different vocal parts. Lastly then delete the acapella samples, and record the whole thing live to tape through a mixer, the beat coming from the samplers, and the acapella from the turntables. At this point DJing was my main thing so I had doubles of almost all my Hip Hop records, meaning I could do all kinds of tricks with the acapellas. It would be easy to do this even with just a 404 if you loaded the whole acapella to your card and resampled, you lose the turntables and mixer but it's a worthwhile trade off for all those dope effects.

[IIIII]

back when i used to mess with acapellas i would just do tap tempo on my sp to find the bpm of the vocals, then make a beat while triggering the accapella to see what fits. sometimes chop up the verses so i could restructure or remove choruses or add extra space. but i never had to use any outside software or anything. just once satisfied track out beat to my tascam and manually record the acapella over it