seven remixes to rate

ok. enough kvetching for a while. back to some fun stuff.

the remix page has been renamed. it is now the "music forum." the change in name is meant to signal a shift in use. originally, it was my intention to create a central space at wayneandwax.org where participants in the digital music project, and assorted friends, could share their music, receive feedback, and attempt online collaborations, such as remixes of each other's work. to call such a place the remix page, however, is a bit misleading and perhaps a bit limiting. i am renaming the page a "forum" because i want to encourage people to use the space in a broader and more engaged manner than has happened so far. i would like to see more music posted and more conversations happening. further, i would like "interesting" threads and "good" music (whose status as such would be decided by users and visitors) to float to the top so that people can check in to hear, for example, the track of the week.

to this end, jared morgenstern, a computer science major at harvard and the designer of the music forum module, has added a rating system that allows people to rate any posts containing an mp3. (he has also made it possible to view threads according to rating, as well as date.) because i didn't want to discourage people with the possibility of negative feedback, the choices run along a positive scale from 1 to 4. note, however, that 0 is a possible rating, and, though not negative, it is not much of an endorsement. since i am fairly imbedded in the jamaican system of rating things these days and since i expect many of the participants on the forum to be jamaican, i came up with a set of jamaican terms--accompanied by translations for our american users--to give people a sense of how to rate a track. they are as follows (from high to low): 4) pull-up! (exceptional); 3) forward (very good); 2) bad (good); and 1) tough (ok).

at this point, one thing is needed to make the forum a success: more participants. in particular, i had envisioned such a forum as a place where young people from kingston could connect with young people from boston. they could upload tracks, offer comments, engage in some transnational remixing, and who knows what else. (i'd love for the thing to grow way beyond my imagination of it.) unfortunately, between vacations, exams, institutional and technical difficulties, and now the encroaching end of the school year, the kingston digital music project has not really gathered the steam i was hoping it would. nevertheless, students at places like camperdown and innswood continue to show enthusiasm and promise, and some have begun building rhythms at home and at friends' houses. just today, jason--aka "fross"--from camperdown handed me a diskette containing his latest rhythm, "sweeper." as you can hear, he's developed quite a voice in just a couple months. over the next few weeks i plan to show him and some of the other enterprising producers at camperdown how to log on and upload their music themselves. they are always interested in feedback, and generally ready for a little competition, so i think they will like the ratings system and discussion threads. once things get going, i plan to keep tabs on the most popular tracks, posting them on the front page of this site and showcasing them in my blogs.

i'd like to test the brand new rating system with a set of remixes i created recently. i decided to see what dami d's "never let go" would sound like with totally different sounds and rhythms against the recognizable melody and harmonic progression. fruityloops makes such an idea fairly easy to realize. i simply plugged-in new samples where i previously had synth-strings, space-age effects, and bass tones. sometimes i picked sounds that fit into the form rather smoothly, giving it a different atmosphere. sometimes i picked sounds that are way out. i find it really satisfying to listen to the remixes in a row and hear the way each one highlights the old melody in new and strange ways. what i'd like to invite people to do is go to the music forum page, click on the thread called "never let remix" and listen to some, if not all, of the seven remixes i have posted there. while you do so, please rate them. and feel free to pan me with a zero if the remix doesn't make the cut. my feelings will not be hurt. to be honest, i am quite curious about which ones will emerge as favorites and which will be a bit beyond the range of most people's tastes. (feel free to rate any tracks from the other threads while you're poking around.)

i also invite any fruityloops-users out there to download the .flp file for "never let go" and plug in your own samples. then add your remix to the thread. the possibilities are endless. the only question is who will get the strongest "pull-up!"