Free Software For Making Audio Mashups

December 23, 2013 1:27 PM

My 12-year-old son hit me with an awesome idea for an audio mashup; take the vocal track from Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" and lay it over the music from Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" (working title: "A Wrecking Ball I Used To Know"). I need help finding the right software.

So, I assume I need to be able to accomplish the following tasks:

1. Beat-match the tracks in question.
2. Drop all but the vocal track from "Wrecking Ball".
3. Drop the vocal track from "Somebody".
4. Adjust the pitch/key in one track to match the other.

I've got a MacBook with Garage Band; can this sort of thing be done in Garage Band?

Failing that, are there free software tools for Windows that will do the job?

Is this out of the reach of someone who doesn't want to pay for Pro Tools?

posted by DWRoelands to Technology (8 answers total)

You can find vocal tracks for both of those songs on google / soundcloud (unless part of the question is wanting to do it yourself).
posted by dilaudid at 1:35 PM on December 23, 2013

Audacity is supposed to be very capable in terms of sound editing, and it's free. However, I have no experience in what you are trying to do so I can't be sure that it would fit your needs.
posted by aroberge at 1:39 PM on December 23, 2013

You probably don't want to use Audacity, because its interface is not really good for remixing. If you or your son has an iPhone or iPad, the vjay app is free at the moment. There's also djay 2 for straight-up mixing, but that's a fiver. Both apps have beat matching and pitch shifting, I think, and the interface is very straightforward, as far as mixes/mashups go. You can follow dilaudid's advice for vocal and instrumental tracks.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:45 PM on December 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Don't want to sour your son's enthusiasm to learn software/ audio remixing, but I thought I should mention there have been a couple versions of this:

Some Ball That I Used To Wreck (Smija Mashup)
Somebody's Wrecking Ball" (Gotye, feat. Kimbra + Miley Cyrus)

Still, it seems like a great learning opportunity for him to get the hang of the software, work on his version, then compare and contrast them later to see the different directions each of you took.

There are some resources for learning how to remix on /r/mashup.
posted by bluecore at 2:04 PM on December 23, 2013

Best answer: Seconding /r/mashup.

Removing vocals is doable but first I would advise your offspring to bone up on Google queries: "wrecking ball acapella" and "somebody that i used to know instrumental." Finding likeminded folks on /r/songstems will also be of use.

(Back in my day, we did it all with parametric eq and careful loop editing! And we liked it!)
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 2:48 PM on December 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Ah, well. I'll point him in the direction of the other work already done. Also, the software recommended by r/mashups is $600 US. Ouch.

Thanks all.
posted by DWRoelands at 7:03 PM on December 23, 2013

If you already have the isolated tracks, you should be able to use Reaper to edit them together. It has a free trial.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:12 AM on December 24, 2013

$600 us

Ableton? Don't bother. All other software suggestions in this thread are superior, for a beginner.
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 9:39 AM on December 24, 2013