I am mixing the new K-OS album - and you can too!

A new and exciting trend for home studios has arrived in music: Multi-track Fan remixes. Bands are giving away multi-track versions of their songs (also called stems) that the average home studio user can mix into something new. The first I had heard of this was Nine Inch Nails giving away their song "The Hand that Feeds" in a Garageband format back in 2005. Now at their site http://remix.nin.com they are allowing amatuer and professional engineers to remix their entire new album and upload the new creations for the world to hear. Radiohead had a similar contest going on with their song Reckoner earlier this year, although you had to purchase the stems through itunes. http://www.radioheadremix.com This is a great opportunity for any of us to get better at the art of mixing and producing. Now there is a site dedicated to the art. And right now until Feb 3 2009 you can download all the stems (mulitrack files) for the upcoming K-OS album for remixing. The cool part is, once you remix you can submit the final file for judging and for a potential place on the next K-OS album being distributed by Universal in the Spring of 2009. Click below for more info: http://www.indabamusic.com/studio_access/kos Here's how to do it: Once you sign up and enter the contest, you can then download all the stems for remixing. I would suggest looking for the "Advanced Audio Packs" which is a zip file containing all the tracks. Then load them into your software of choice (like Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, LIVE, etc.). Each package has a BPM number which you will want to set up as the tempo of your project for easy editing. The timing may not be perfectly on, so make sure you use your ears too. I did a test load into Pro Tools of one of the packages and it sounded almost dead on. Once in the new project, you can mix and remix until you have your finished product for uploading. I hope to have some fun remixing a couple of K-OS tunes in Pro Tools over the holidays. And, I have to say, I wouldn't mind a track credit on the next K-OS album. How about you?