RiP!: A Remix Manifesto

"In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers."
-IMDB

This is the documentary to watch if you into remixing and mashup culture. It's an eye-opening contribution to the ongoing debate about copyright, fair use, sampling and remixing. You will also be introduced to the most popular mashup-artist on the planet, Girl Talk, who is more than willing to share his interesting views on the mashup culture. Brett Gaylor even encourage the viewers to participate in the movie by remixing different parts of it. I wanted to be a part of this project so I made my (tiny) contribution which could be seen in the last version of the movie.

Visit the RiP: A Remix Manifesto website to read more about the film, and you can watch the whole movie on Youtube.

Watch the first part of the movie here:

Pogo: An amazing movie mashup-artist/remixer

Yesterday I was introduced to Pogo. He is a remixer/electronic music-producer who is known for his work recording small sounds from a single film or scene and sequencing them to form a new piece of music. He also makes videoes to complement the audio. The result is a very magical, abstract, surrealistic and psychedelic piece of beautiful art!

His music is truly amazing and his distinct intepretation of sampling, remixing and mashing is so original, creative and well done that it leaves me speechless. I watched all his videoes over and over again until the early hours this morning and went to sleep with so much inspiration that i couldn't stop smiling.

Another aspect that I love about his work is the selection of movies he samples from. It seems that he has a deep facination for topics that surrounds children, innocence, magic and imagination.

You can watch all his videoes on his youtubechannel, listen to his songs on his myspace-profile and download all the tracks on his last.fm profile.

This is "Bangarang", hist newest video, where he samples from from the Spielberg classic, Hook:

Instrumentals & Acapellas

I get freqently questions about instrumentals and acapellas so I want to dedicate this post to answer these questions. Underneath is a list of valuable tips that hopefully will help you to find the acapella or instrumental you're looking for.

• Use torrents! There are hundreds of torrentsfiles containing gigs of acapellas and instrumentals. Use the searchbar on a popular torrentsite and you will be amazed over what you will find.
• Register at http://www.acapellas4u.co.uk and you will gain access to probably the most comprehensive database over available acapellas on the net.
• Type in the wanted artist and song name and type acapella or instrumental in Google.
• Instrumentals and acapellas are often released with the single in a promorelease. These can be found on torrentsites.
  
• With the advent of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band there are now possible to download Stems (seperate tracks for bass, drums, guitars, pads and vocals) ripped from the games. Use google to locate these stems.
  
• More bands are throwing remix-competitions where stems and acapellas are available for downloading. Laptoprockers and Remix Comps are two great sites that keeps track of all the new remix-competitions on the web.
• Exchanging instrumentals and acapellas between online friends is common. Mashupforums like Gybo is great place to meet likeminded people and expand your network.
  
• There are ways to extract and make acapellas by yourself, the end-result will often not hold the same quality as an official acapella but still these methods are worth checking out. For indepth information check out Gybo and the Acapellas4u forum.
• If you still can't find what you're looking for then it probably doesn't exist.

You don't necessarily need instrumentals and acapellas to make mashups. "How Six Songs Collide" and "No Taylor, No Scar" are for instance only made from original songs. Still, the amount of creative control increases when you have more stems to work with.

Good luck=)

Mashup-videoes on Vimeo

I guess most of you have noticed that many of my mashup-vidoes on Youtube are either blocked in some countries or totally disabled. Well, basically this sucks, so I have done something about it! I want all my videoes to be available for everybody, no matter where in the world you live.

I have now uploaded all the concerning videoes to Vimeo, which is also a video-sharing site. It is not as popular as Youtube, but still a very good solution for publishing videoes online. I will be using Vimeo as a back-up solution for videoes that Youtube disables or blocks, and will continue to use it with this purpose in the future.

Situations like this is pretty frustrating, but it is something that i have accepted to live with as a mashup-artist. It is just a part of the game I have chosed to play.

Here is a list over all the videoes that I have uploaded to Vimeo (with direct links to the video):
-Sorry For I Mashed You
-Be Like A Dosed Black Eyed Gary
-All Bad Touches (Comes To An End)
-No Taylor, No Scar
-Timb Raider
-No One Takes A Bow
-Technology Is Right
-How Six Songs Collide
-8 Become 1
-Viva La Viral
-9 Songs To Save The World

If you want to subscribe or visit my Vimeo-channel here it is.

I am constantly working to make my online profile more accessable, more visible and more user-friendly for everybody so don't hesitate contacting me if you have any suggestions, tips or questions. It doesn't matter if it's through facebook, twitter, youtube, myspace, ilike, multiply, vimeo or my blog, all inqueries will be read and considered.

New Mp3 Host

Until now I have used Divshare as the host to my mp3s. Unfortunately Divshare has changed their policy resulting that my mp3s can't be downloaded from several countries in Asia. I'm getting mail everyday from people who are affected by this, so something had to be done! It also seems that my Divshare download limit for this month (500 gigs) has been reached, so no one can download anything.

Because of this I have changed mp3-host to Mediafire so my mp3s can be accessible from all over the world at any time. I will still use divshare along with Mediafire until my paid Platinum account expires Januray 2010.

If you still experience download problems or have any suggestions to how I can improve my sites, don't hesitate contacting me and If you missed out on any of my mashups you can download all of them here.

A Mediafires Pro-account does cost a little bit of money so all donations are highly welcomed:

"Wanna Be Mixin' Somethin'" Michael Jackson Tribute

Norwegian Recycling - Wanna Be Mixin' Somethin'
Year: 2009
BPM: 117

This is my tribute to Michael Jackson. 7 of the songs are Michael Jackson songs and the samples taken from non MJ tracks should make sense lyrically and fit to the theme if you listen closely. For instance, Timbaland remixed lyrics has a totally new meaning in this context.

Download:
Mp3: Wanna Be Mixin' Somethin'
Torrent: Wanna Be Mixin' Somethin'

Musicvideo:


Samples:
1. Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
2. Michael Jackson - Bad
3. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal
4. Michael Jackson - Black Or White
5. Michael Jackson - Thriller
6. Michael Jackson - HIStory
7. Michael Jackson - Dangerous
8. Britney Spears - Gimme More
9. Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
10. Justin Timberlake - Lovestoned
11. Outkast - Ms. Jackson
12. Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
13. Timbaland feat. Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake - Give It To Me

Logo for this awful-looking blog!

Well, there's no secret that this blog needs more updates, but it is so damn unmotivating to write new posts when it looks so plain, boring and grey! I really need to spice things up a notch! I have thought about doing this myself for a long time, but I've realised that I'm better left with giving the job to other people that are way better than me in designing.

So, if you are reading this and have experience with photoshop-editing, have a creative mind and believe that you can help me with a extreme makeover, you are welcome to make an attempt.

I am a fan of strong and bright colours, neon lights, light effects and dark backgrounds.

Here are som links for inspiration:

• http://images.google.no/images?q=neon%20light&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:nb-NO:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=no&tab=wi
• http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/23/gorgeous-examples-of-floral-typography/
• http://www.photoshoplady.com/30-best-photoshop-abstract-effect-tutorials/

Requirements:

• The logo needs to contain the words "Peter Bull Blog"
• With: 800 pxl
• Height: between 140-200 pxl
• Black background
• Save the file as a .PSD
• Send the file to peterbullmusic@gmail.com

Make it simple and consistent. Nothing too fancy
And most importantly, be creative!