So this turned out to be a lot more difficult than I was expecting, and probably would not have chosen audio were I to do this project again. I quickly learned that one of the things that makes a lot of audio mashups possible is the availability of “stems”. If you, like I, had not tried to do something like this before, a “stem” is simply an isolated track from a finished recording. This way you can combine separate elements from separate songs without it sounding like a mess.

Initially I attempted to do this without the use of stems. I inserted parts of songs into Ableton and started tweaking their key and tempo. This had always worked for me in the past, as the only thing even remotely similar I’ve done was putting “It’s Not Easy Being Green” to a beat for a friend’s comedic project. Here however, incorporating multiple songs, things got messy quickly.

In the end I was pretty happy because I founds stems for a couple different Radiohead songs which I really like online that I could use. So I decided that I was gonna mash up elements of the Radiohead song “Nude” and the  Radiohead song “Reckoner” into one very spacious ambient piece. In the end I like how it turned out, especially the second half after the section featuring the Reckoner piano.

Here it is on soundcloud with some comments:

Ds106 Mashup Project by cliftongibbons