Making a slow song sound fast?

[sargentpilcher]

I'm working on a remix, and it's at 78 BPM. The song is slow, and for my remix I'd like to make it fast paced. The problem is that doubling the speed makes it far too fast. There's the option of changing the tempo of the original to 70 BPM, and then doubling that, but i've never had much luck at timestretching.

What has worked for you guys in the past?

[mitchAUS]

Teah you could time stretch down to 70bpm and have the track at 140 no problem. What DAW are you using? They all can timestrecth but do it in different ways.

[wub]

I'm working on a remix, and it's at 78 BPM. The song is slow, and for my remix I'd like to make it fast paced. The problem is that doubling the speed makes it far too fast. There's the option of changing the tempo of the original to 70 BPM, and then doubling that, but i've never had much luck at timestretching.

What has worked for you guys in the past?

When you say faster...do you mean speed or tempo?

[freakquency]

If youre using logic 9, i believe you can use flex view to easily change the tempo of samples

[Karoshi]

to make it faster, just double the frequenzy of the drums

EG:

K---S----K-S

To

K-S--KSK-S--KS

(K is kick, S is snare) Probs a bad way of explaining it but yer. here you are keeping the instruments and Vox etc at 78 but speeding the tempo of the song to 156bpm.

[grooki]

As Wub said, there is a big difference between speed and tempo. If you want to change the tempo then you will most likely have to timestretch the samples or something similar. But if you want the track to sound more upbeat and energetic, then it will be more in the composition of the track, particularly the drums. If you listen to some liquid dnb (Netsky is a really good example), the chord progressions and bass lines they are really quite slow, but the drums being the way they are make the track sound very energetic. I think that is a big part of the appeal of that kind of music, the juxtaposition.

[the dub lemon]

You can get more pace from hats & percussion and also programming synth/melodic lines with some pass to them. Even with the a simple kick snare kick snare at 78bpm, if you have shakes, hats, etc on 16th notes and/or notes being played rapidly or like trance gate type effect you can make the track feel fast.

Check out videos like the Sub Focus and Chase & Status masterclasses, maybe also the Dodgy & Fuski drum tutorial they put up. It's all the same thing, get some shuffle and pace up in the higher frequencies to give it some energy.

[sargentpilcher]

I'm not just talking about tempo, although I was thinking about using it as an option. I use ableton live, and have failed at every attempt to stretch the tempo. I am happy to try other options, like using different rythyms to make it feel faster even when it's not. Can you guys recomend me some tracks that do this so I can get an idea of how it sounds?

[grooki]

I'm not just talking about tempo, although I was thinking about using it as an option. I use ableton live, and have failed at every attempt to stretch the tempo. I am happy to try other options, like using different rythyms to make it feel faster even when it's not. Can you guys recomend me some tracks that do this so I can get an idea of how it sounds?

as I said, anything by Netsky, you can really hear the technique clearly. Shattered, and also tortured, by Coki have really nice shakers in them that give the tracks a lot of energy while the bass is not particularly fast.

[slothrop]

Wot they said, although it's worth being a bit careful about trying to make tracks sound more energetic sometimes - I've wasted loads of time sticking swung hihat patterns and congas and so on over tracks when the core of the beat and the drums are basically lethargic - eventually it starts to get like putting a spoiler on a lawnmower...