Making a tune from an accapella

Cubicle · Post by **Cubicle** » Mon May 30, 2011 4:57 pm

So I've been listening to Adele's Someone Like You lately.

Now my question is, if I get that accapella from Youtube, would it be easy to make some kind of 'remix' of it? (not sure if you can call it a remix then)
And how to do this? Her singing won't be on 140 I'm guessing does this need some changing or how should I approach this?

I thought of cutting the accapella in pieces and pasting it back together but how to go about with the BPM?

I have no clue how to start out this project and I'm really motivated for this one. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

skwiggo · Post by **skwiggo** » Mon May 30, 2011 5:22 pm

If you get the acapella from youtube it'll probably be shit quality and pretty unusable. A better source is acapellas4u.com which has loads of acapellas which are downloadable. Since it's a pretty popular song it's probably on there.

Then you'll probably have to warp the tempo of the acapella to 140 in your DAW and cut the sample into different sections and manually move them at the places the vocal goes out of time since there will be natural time fluctuation in the vocals. It's time consuming but if you don't do this the vocal probably will fall out of time. Remember to fade the very beginning and end of the cut up vocal sections to avoid the horrible glitch noises you get when cutting samples. Some DAW's do this for you (Ableton) others however don't.

Another talking point is the legal ramifications of making a song out of a copyrighted vocal, especially one thats so popular. Many producers have found that they are unable to use their tracks commercially if they have taken copyrighted samples without permission or have even got into trouble. It may be a good idea to manipulate the vocal so it's less recognisable (use effects, pitchshift it, cut it up into gibberish, whatever lol) if your intending on releasing the finished result although it might not be as much of a problem if you're not releasing it. Still you should be cautious. Even putting it up onto youtube, soundcloud or whatever, theres a tiny chance of legal problems.

Hopefully some of this is helpful

hudson · Post by **hudson** » Mon May 30, 2011 5:54 pm

I love making tunes from accapellas! Here's what I usually start with:

I usually download the accapella and the actual song, load them both into my DAW and match the vocals up to that. Then I'll either make a cut every 2/4/6/8 bars or whatever and timestretch them to the new tempo, or just stretch the whole thing if the timing is solid. Then just go about writing as you normally would, paying attention to the key of the vocals.

Cubicle · Post by **Cubicle** » Mon May 30, 2011 7:19 pm

Cheers for the swift reply!

Should I try to contact someone before diving into this project? (her label/and such?)
I'm pretty amateur and this will be my first acapella project so I highly doubt it'll be releasable material tho.

Also working with Reason 5. I guess cutting it up and putting it all into an instance of NN-XT?
Thanks!

Exert · Post by **Exert** » Mon May 30, 2011 7:33 pm

Unless you're going to use the track commercially, I don't think you have to worry about legality. You're not making money off of if, and it'll be good practice.

Can someone else shed some light on this? I can't see the artist going after someone for copyright infringement for an amateur track.

anotherday · Post by **anotherday** » Mon May 30, 2011 8:07 pm

hudson wrote:I love making tunes from accapellas! Here's what I usually start with:

I usually download the accapella and the actual song, load them both into my DAW and match the vocals up to that. Then I'll either make a cut every 2/4/6/8 bars or whatever and timestretch them to the new tempo, or just stretch the whole thing if the timing is solid. Then just go about writing as you normally would, paying attention to the key of the vocals.

Yea this is what I do too. Chop up stuff into smaller bars so it is easier to work with when you are changing tempo and small things. It is time consuming but if you don't do this it will just sound off.

Pedro Sánchez · Post by **Pedro Sánchez** » Mon May 30, 2011 8:10 pm

skwiggo wrote:If you get the acapella from youtube it'll probably be shit quality and pretty unusable.

Tell that to Burial, he made an album using them, and a successful one at that. HQ? no, but it depends how you wanna use vocals.

VirtualMark · Post by **VirtualMark** » Mon May 30, 2011 8:14 pm

how can you tell what key the vocals are in? this is something i always struggle with

Cubicle · Post by **Cubicle** » Mon May 30, 2011 8:27 pm

And how do you adjust the vocal to the tempo while using Reason 5?

Seems like I'll have to do some studying before I get to this project.

hudson · Post by **hudson** » Mon May 30, 2011 9:08 pm

Cubicle wrote:And how do you adjust the vocal to the tempo while using Reason 5?

Seems like I'll have to do some studying before I get to this project.

I'd suggest you grab Audacity or Reaper for the stretching and stuff, cuz working with audio in Reason is quite the chore.

dubesteppe · Post by **dubesteppe** » Tue May 31, 2011 3:10 am

what is the bpm of ur track going to be? if you get a good acapella i can time stretch it in ableton for you to get to the new tempo. i really like warping stuff

RandoRando · Post by **RandoRando** » Tue May 31, 2011 3:25 am

I started to work on "the time" black eyed peas remix. And I jut cut the Parts out from he accaPellagra that I wanted to use and it worked at 140 and applied different effects and I don't know the key of it or whatever, i just played along with it and recorded what sounded good

Cubicle · Post by **Cubicle** » Tue May 31, 2011 6:48 am

dubesteppe wrote:what is the bpm of ur track going to be? if you get a good acapella i can time stretch it in ableton for you to get to the new tempo. i really like warping stuff

Pretty sure I'll do something in 140 mate.
Would be sweet if you could time stretch it. I'll look for a decent acapella later today then!

talizman · Post by **talizman** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:05 am

dubesteppe wrote:what is the bpm of ur track going to be? if you get a good acapella i can time stretch it in ableton for you to get to the new tempo. i really like warping stuff

Man please please please i would loove if you could stretch it for me! I need it in 128 bpm, been searching the net on how to do this the entire night, and havn't got any wiser...... I really want to make a remix of this song but my lack of knowledge stops me from doing this

jrisreal · Post by **jrisreal** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:24 am

Try not working in 140, but in whatever bpm that tracks at.

Iorek · Post by **Iorek** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:26 am

off topic but I would slaughter a small village for an acapella of set fire to the rain.

Cubicle · Post by **Cubicle** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 11:02 am

Pretty old thread, don't know why it got bumped.

Anyway, Reason 6 so I am not having any problems anymore

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