Zion I Remix Round-Up

Last week marked the end of the Zion I remix contest for the song off their new release The Take Over, “DJ DJ.” The contest was phenomenal, bringing out 35 quality new remixes of the track by fans and artists. At the beginning of the contest we explained the process and rules, and now it’s time for a quick glance at what some of the contributors produced.

The best part of this contest is the incredible range of sounds and styles that were brought to the re-envisioning of the track. Hiright came with a remix that brought in 808s and a drastic slow down on the tempo of the verse for his “808 Remix” while keeping the backing music uptempo. RockG went the opposite direction on his “Parents R Out of Town” remix, opting for a techno heavy delivery. Also on the electronic side of the spectrum, MixMatchMusic’s Gavroche decided on a “drumglitch” remix, subduing the source material under a pervasive layer of drum tricks. If those two don’t tend enough towards house music for you, DJ STINJ-E’s remix turns Zion I out into a serious rave sound. Inflect took the remix into serious video game sound territory, layering it with blips and beeps throughout before going heavy with the scratching.

While most of the remixes chose to slow down the tempo of the song, SliPro went the other way, upping the tempo behind an ascension of a grimy drum and synth march that sounds like a war march. Mike Ponticello stripped down the chorus over funky bass, and then built the chorus up around melodic synth parts and some haunting and airy backgrounds. Then you have the crunchy sound of the chopped up remix from Autobots.

My two favorite remixes were completely different, as one might hope from a remix contest. Hiright’s second offering is deep, relying on an eerie piano melody, descending space keys and a steady head nodding beat, even adding a dense verse of his own regarding his history with the music. This was the only use of an original verse that I heard in the remixes, which made it stand out. The NeoMob’s remix is the most club-ready in my mind, with great ascension and digitized voice samples.

To check out these remixes, you can visit the site here. And with the results not being announced until after March 25th, your votes still matter!

Host your own remix contest with the Remix Wizard

Recently, MixMatchMusic launched the Remix Wizard, a free widget that any artist can use to host remix promotions on their websites, blogs and social network pages.  Artists customize what the widget looks like and provide the stems to a song (the various parts of a song, like the vocals, guitar, drums, etc) for fans to remix, either by using the online MixMaker or by downloading the stems for remixing in any music software. All the remixes are then published to the widget for others to play, vote on, and share. The widget is designed to be flexible, so that artists can sell the stems or give them away for free, set deadlines and give prizes to winners, and set the legal agreement that covers the rights to the stems and remixes made (who owns them?).

I recently recorded a new song, and have embedded the widget on my Myspace page so that y’all can remix it:

The play button next to the left of “A Little Fuzzy” lets you hear the original song. The tracks in the middle of the widget (Dark Sunrise, Now’s the Time) are submitted remixes. When you submit yours, it will be listed there. Then, people can hear it, vote for it, and share it (by making a separate, mini widget).

Click “download stems” to get the stems in your home software, and then be sure to click “upload stems” to publish it. Or, click “MixMaker” to see how the song was made and to create a mix using the online sequencer. You’ll be able to publish it to the widget directly from there. The “wanna remix more tracks” link will take to a gallery full of Remix Wizards deployed around the web!

So, what are you waiting for? Host your own remix promotion today! Or, click here for more info.