Isolating instruments from a song

[hello123]

Hi. I am just getting into mixing and DJing, and I am trying to get into remixing. (https://soundcloud.com/djnamixofficial not trying to advertise, but this is where I am right now). I want to remix, but I can't seem to figure out how to isolate different parts of songs. Most remixes out there remove certain instruments such as piano or drums from a song, and add their own synths or beats instead. I can easily add to tracks, but I don't know how to do remove certain elements.. I DJ with Traktor, and I am soon purchasing Logic Pro X.

Thanks!

[ImNotDedYet]

You could do a mashup, and it sounds like that's what you're doing by adding. With Traktor you can't really remove specific instruments, only fairly large frequencies. To do a remix of the song, you typically want to get the stems - the audio wav files of each of the intstruments. You can then add/remove, etc. and make it your own. Much more difficult with a DJ rig.

[tilldrop]

As ImNotDedYet already mentioned you will want to have the individual audio files for each track in order to remix the song. You can also use acapellas and (re)create your own drums/instruments. However doing a remix without either the full stems or the acapella is usually not worth it unless you are remixing a very minimal song and are happy to basically just add stuff.

You could in theory EQ out some instruments from a finished track or use stuff like phase-inversion to get acapellas when you have an instrumental version, but unless you are super experienced, have a ton of time and than are ok with the results still beeing not very satisfying, don't even try - it's not worth it.

To practice I'd recommend downloading some stems from remix competition (eg. play.beatport.com or similar) or use high quality acapellas (eg. from acapellas4u).

[hello123]

You could do a mashup, and it sounds like that's what you're doing by adding. With Traktor you can't really remove specific instruments, only fairly large frequencies. To do a remix of the song, you typically want to get the stems - the audio wav files of each of the intstruments. You can then add/remove, etc. and make it your own. Much more difficult with a DJ rig.

So, how would you suggest I ger those stems of a song? I am mainly looking to isolate tracks. Would GarageBand or Logic Pro X be capable of filtering/EQing out those instruments I don't want? Or is there any way to do this using another software?

[hello123]

As ImNotDedYet already mentioned you will want to have the individual audio files for each track in order to remix the song. You can also use acapellas and (re)create your own drums/instruments. However doing a remix without either the full stems or the acapella is usually not worth it unless you are remixing a very minimal song and are happy to basically just add stuff.

You could in theory EQ out some instruments from a finished track or use stuff like phase-inversion to get acapellas when you have an instrumental version, but unless you are super experienced, have a ton of time and than are ok with the results still beeing not very satisfying, don't even try - it's not worth it.

To practice I'd recommend downloading some stems from remix competition (eg. play.beatport.com or similar) or use high quality acapellas (eg. from acapellas4u).

Most of the songs I aim to remix are already quite upbeat, so I doubt I could satisfactorily remix a song with only adding. By EQing out certain instruments, do you mean just moving the filter, high, mid, low knobs? Or is there more to EQing? and also, would garageband, logic pro x, or traktor be able to do such things? (Which software would be optimal?) Thanks.

[MkxTrax]

Hi. I am just getting into mixing and DJing, and I am trying to get into remixing. (https://soundcloud.com/djnamixofficial not trying to advertise, but this is where I am right now). I want to remix, but I can't seem to figure out how to isolate different parts of songs. Most remixes out there remove certain instruments such as piano or drums from a song, and add their own synths or beats instead. I can easily add to tracks, but I don't know how to do remove certain elements.. I DJ with Traktor, and I am soon purchasing Logic Pro X.

Thanks!

HI The reason why you will here a lot of tracks with isolated parts, its because its something that takes quite a bit of time to master and also to have the right tools. Its expensive and time consuming. With a fancy mixer you can isolate frequencies and channels to a certain degree, how ever Isolating instruments in an track your better of just creating your own. Or just getting better at remixing. Heres a little example of some things which will help

1. its best to have the raw data of an audio track or a wav file or flac or such that a true stereo is lossless otherwise it just gets more difficult there after.
you also need to understand channel isolation and frequency tuning via spectral analysis.

Software you can use which will help for you getting the knowledge and exp.

.Audacity with LSPDA plugin pack and VST Bridge - Free and popular.
.Wavepad by NCH free for personal use
.Creative labs wave studio free.

There are others but these 3 are probs most user friendly with many features

after that your looking at things like Spectral layers by Sony. FL Cakewalk and Sonar.

If your just new to DJ-ing I would say get really familiar with your tracks. there's many a good mix that can be be done with the right tuning of our Lugs. "ears lol" then AS you build on your Exp & Knowledge, then branch out.


.....To perform a RE-mix by using what I mentioned above is time consuming even if you have the ability and software that can do excellent non destructive editing and Isolation.

I really Hope this helps = ) Kind Regards. Mark You may enjoy this History Of Mixing - Analog Vs Digital