How To Make A Mashup
Hey everyone!
This week, believe it or not, I am on time! It's been ages since I actually posted consistently so hopefully this will carry on and I won't be lazy again. Anyways, this week I really got into "Kill Em With Kindness" by Selena Gomez because why not, and whilst singing, I started singing bits of other songs by her that I previously liked. I then realised that they worked so well together so on Friday, I set myself the challenge to make a mashup of the songs. Here are the steps:
1. Brainstorm.
Firstly, you need to think of ideas. I usually get my favourite song and try and sing other stuff over it. If nothing comes to mind, I google the key that the song is in (also found by googling it) and then find similar songs. Then you have to find the songs with the same chord progression (or relatively same). This can be lengthy but it is vital to having a good quality mashup. Once I have a few songs in mind and where they might go, I find the karaoke version to a few songs and test my ideas. I also try out beats to see if they work better but they make the song sound too different, which I don't like.
2. Get all your media.
Having the normal version of a song isn't good enough. You need to have the instrumental and a cappella versions of it (the voice only and the music only). For me, this is just a quick google search to find good quality, official versions. Sometimes, like this one for example, the quality is not it's best. This could be because there isn't a proper version out or that the upload file is corrupt. Either way, you can decide to download it anyway and try to fix it during editing or you can try and find it another time.
3. Open an editing software.
This could be a very expensive, good quality editor like Logic Pro X, or it could simply be the pre-installed software like Garageband. For my mashup, I used Garageband because I knew it the best and also because I'm broke AF. Once you've opened the editor, you need to import all the media and sort it out so it's easy for use. I usually re-label mine so they make sense and then put them into an order so a cappellas are first and then the instrumentals and then any FX.
4. Edit the mashup.
For me, I usually use one instrumental track through the whole song to keep a continuity, but this could also be transitioned with multiple tracks or you could use a simple beat. Then I begin to add vocal tracks. I trim and place them to my desire and then make sure they don't cut off artificially. Sometimes, if it does sound weird, I add a white fading white noise or some other effect to normalise it. Also, I might change the balance or edit the EQ of it, it all depends on what you can do.
5. Publish your music.
After editing, I publish the song and listen to it using good headphones and speakers. Sometimes, I have to make adjustments to it and change things and I have to repeat the process. But sometimes, it is perfect and you can then put it onto iTunes and enjoy it there.
6. Make a cover art. [OPTIONAL]
This step is completely unnecessary but it is fun to do. I like to make a cover art for the song because it makes it feel a bit more authentic. I use PowerPoint or Keynote to make mine because Photoshop, being amazing, it's still difficult and expensive. I first draw out a square so I know the boundaries as the album art is always square. I import images and add text to finalise it. After that, I save the slide as an image and then crop it to make it properly square. Then I just drag it into the 'Album Artwork' section on 'Get Info' in iTunes and it's then saved.
I wanted to post this mashup as a video, so I took the music videos and edited them using iMovie. This step is usually not needed but I decided to post it so it could be seen on this post. So here it is, my mashup of Selena Gomez. Enjoy.
SO, what did you think??? Let me know in the comments on your views of this mashup. Sorry about the 'Hands To Myself' quality, I JUST COULDN'T FIND AN OFFICIAL A CAPPELLA FOR IT. But nevertheless, that is my mashup. Until next time...
Bye!
Zain