Nowadays in electronic music, it is difficult to find a track that doesn’t have some sort of remix associated with it. Remixing has evolved to become a very important part of electronic music and all kinds of related genres!
It is a way for producers, DJs, and other artists to collaborate, network, and cross-market their music and has become essential to many forms of music. In this article, we’re going to take it back to the origins of remixing, which can be traced back to a few places around the same time.
It’s as if remixing was always meant to be a fundamental piece of electronic music, so before we go any further we’re going to define remixing, as it has taken on a few different meanings.
What Makes a Track a Remix?
Any song that uses an unmanipulated portion of another can be defined as a remix. Those of you who are into electronic music may have noticed some different subtypes of remixes.
What is the difference between a remix and a bootleg mix? Technically, these are both forms of remixing and you could even say that electronic music was born from remixing.
When house music pioneer Frankie Knuckles began splicing different beats and melodies of disco tunes together, that can be considered remixing as he wasn’t using a sampler to do it.
In Jamaica, dub music was taking its shape by rerunning roots through spring verbs and tape delays and overdubbing the effects – hence the term dub. In the world of modern bass music, which has roots in dub music, the term dub mix has come to mean an exclusive pre-release version, something different than a remix.
Remixes are used for different reasons. Often it’s simply to take a song, a thought, or an intention from a song and reframe it in a different genre. Alternatively, it is to rethink or re-imagine a portion of a piece altogether.
But where did remixes come from? Let’s have a closer look at the history.
The History of the Remix
As mentioned, remixing surfaced in a few different places, so to break it down we’re going to go by the genres in which this occurred, starting in Jamaica.
Dub / Roots / Reggae
Legends like the late Lee “Scratch” Perry paved the way in the early 70s, carving out these styles which relied heavily on highlighting and re-highlighting certain parts of the tune. Techniques emerged such as putting a slap-back delay on the off-beat, classic reggae guitar.
This and other methods such as re-looping through tape delays and spring reverbs to bring out entirely different rhythms have helped define many genres that are still popular today. Drum’n’bass, Jungle, Dubstep, Breaks, and more all utilize these styles of remixing and resampling original music.
Disco/House
The late and great Frankie Knuckles is credited with being among the first to splice disco tapes together to create longer sections. This music evolved into house music as we know it, and the birth of the modern remix came about as well.
Rather than remixing your tune or using more abstract elements of a tune underneath added synthesizers or other instruments, the full-on remix was born with Patrick Coyle’s extended remix of Donna Summers’ ‘I Feel Love’. This cut went on to be a classic and highly sought-after collectible piece of music.
Hip-Hop
The world of hip-hop was emerging roughly around the same time and also heavily adopted the remix. DJ Cool Herc famously began switching back and forth from turntable to turntable to extended instrumental sections and kept the audience dancing for days. He called this technique the merry-go-round and today a similar turntablism technique has evolved out of this called beat-juggling.
To create and advance on the various forms of music, it is incredibly important to understand the techniques and history that went into creating these genres in the first place. Through learning about fundamental techniques like remixing we gain a better understanding of where the music is going and how to get it there. You can learn more about music at MI College of Contemporary Music’s many courses here, including remixing and producing electronic music.