[STEP BY STEP] Remix Tutorial For Acid Pro 5

Acapellas4u Exclusive Remix Tutorial For Acid Pro 5

[size size=150:2zsiu6xi]Section One – Starting out.[/size:2zsiu6xi]

Once Acid Pro 5 has fully opened and your project is ready to begin. The easiest way to get your files in the program is to drag and drop them from the folder where they can be found on your computer. You’ll be asked if you’d like to “beatmatch” the file, say no. Upload the instrumental for the remix first. Once this is done, you’re ready to find the bpm (beats per minute). I’d recommend downloading the trial version of “Mixmeister 6”, you only need the trial version since all you do with this, is drop your instrumental in and the bpm will calculate automatically. But if you wish to do this yourself (which will become second nature after plenty of practice) you can do it like this.

So, you have your instrumental added to the project, what you want to do firstly is make sure “snapping” is enabled (see picture 1) and then zoom into the “downbeat” of your beat. The downbeat is the very first beat of the first bar (also see picture 1). Please note that the default project tempo on acid is 120bpm and is labelled also in picture 1.

Pic 1:

Once you’ve cut away everything before the downbeat using the “draw” tool (found on the top toolbar as a pencil icon) by clicking the vertical edge of the file and dragging to the downbeat or alternatively, zooming into the downbeat and pressing “S“ on your keyboard to make a split where your cursor is, you want to move your instrumental to the very start of the project so we can begin changing the project tempo until we find the correct one (see picture 2).

Pic 2:

As you can see, I changed the project tempo to 106.5. (see picture 2A)

Pic 2a:

This is the correct tempo which you can tell by looking at the numbers above the file. You can see that each beat is hitting bang on the numbers… 1.1.…1.2.…1.3.…1.4 and so on. The first number in these represents the ”bar” and the second number the beat of the bar. If your tempo is set correctly, the kicks and snares in a standard 4/4 drum pattern will sit perfectly on these numbers from the start to the end of the beat. (See picture 2)

[size size=150:2zsiu6xi]Section 2 – Adding and matching your acapella.[/size:2zsiu6xi]

There’s some basic rules to remixing. One of them, and the most important by far is, never mix tracks to far apart in speed, it just doesn’t work. For example, don’t try and put Lets Go by Lil Jon, Trick Daddy & Twista over the top of My Boo. Theoretically it can be stretched to fit, but it wont work.

So anyway, do the same with you’re acapella as you did with the instrumental and drop it into acid. You’ll be asked if you want to beatmatch it again, select no and at this point, you want to lower the volume of your instrumental. I’d recommend -6.0 for a fully mastered beat. (See Picture 3) You also want to lower the volume of the acapella slightly but this will vary depending on the levels of the file.

Pic 3:

The next thing you want to do is look at the workspace you have at the bottom. If you click the acapella file a section should appear called “track properties” and say the file name which will be your acapella if selected right.

There is a drop-down menu with “track type” written to the left of it. Click the menu and select the track as “beatmapped”. A check-box will then appear with “preserve pitch while stretching” written beside it, check the box. (See picture 4 below)

Pic 4:

You’ll have noticed there’s two tabs at the top of this box. Click the one saying “stretch” and you’re now ready to begin stretching the acapella to fit the new beat. This is where it gets tricky for beginners.

The first thing you want to do is select the draw tool on the toolbar again, and zoom into the beginning of the acapella. Using the left mouse button and dragging, you can move the file around a little until you find the right word for the first beat of the bar. Once you have this positioned right, push the space bar to play the track and have a listen to work out if the file needs to be faster or slower before it will match your new beat. For the example in this tutorial I will need to speed the acapella up in order for the track to become “on beat”.

You now want to go back to the stretch tab in the properties section. Ignore the section saying “downbeat offset” I’ve never once in 300 remixes used this. But above here you’ll see a part saying “original bpm” and the number in the box will be your project tempo, which we gathered was 106.5 earlier on. What you want to do now, is work out what the original tempo of the chosen acapella was. To make the acapella faster, lower the tempo / number in the original bpm box and vice versa. Things can also get even more tricky at this point. If you change the acapella tempo by for example, 10bpm then the vocals you put on the first beat of the bar earlier on will move so you have to go back and rearrange them accordingly. Don’t worry, this is only a time consuming job for the first while of your remixing career. Just like anything else, it’ll become second nature. So, if you keep adjusting the tempo of the acapella and going back to stick the same line at the same point on the beat, eventually through trial and error, you’ll have a perfectly matched remix on your hands. (See Picture 5)

Pic 5:

[size size=150:2zsiu6xi]Section 3 – Mixing Your Acapella[/size:2zsiu6xi]

Mixing your audio is just as important as having it on beat. Check out picture 6 to see how to access your audio plug-in section.

Pic 6:

Once you’ve clicked on the green button next to your volume bar the menu shown in picture 7 will show up.

Pic 7:

After clicking the green button shown in the last picture. A final menu will pop up looking very similar to the following picture, picture 8.

Pic 8:

As you can see, there’s a wide variety of plug-in’s to choose from. The choice is yours. Experiment with them, find out what does what, what makes your vocals more clear and what gives you the sound you’re looking for.

The 3 main plugins used when mixing vocals are as follows. “Reverb” “Compression” and “Eq”

Try working with the three of these to start with and see how you can make a change to the acapella, you’ll pick up a lot as you go along and you can only get better.

Once you’ve got the right settings for your plug-ins you have a fully mixed remix ready to be mastered and released, well done.
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– Tutorial written by Antix, put together lovingly by acapella. $50 your way mate.

http://WWW.MC-ANTIX.CO.UK
(International Remix & Urban Artist)[/size:2zsiu6xi]