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Thanks, guys.
http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/17493 - That's the link to the final version, in case you missed the link I edited in the original post.
The original work can be heard, here: http://www.indabamusic.com/featured...show/remixsnoop
I definitely hear what you guys are saying about the bass-line. While I made some adjustments, in order to temper some of the fluctuation in volume with the high-notes, I stopped short of major revisions, or even adding another layer, for a number of reasons. The irony is that, if you listen to the original, there really isn't much of a bass-line, at all. Personally, I like it, even for some of the flaws you guys critiqued, so chalk it up to poor taste on my part. Still, I do appreciate the honesty. I hope you don't think I'm blowing it off. If it were a different song to be made for the dance-floor, I definitely would have re-done it based on your critiques.
The cool thing about this track, for me, was exploring a different style altogether apart from my (our) typical fair. The thought had occurred to me to try and pump the tempo up from 101 BPM to at least 130. 130 just didn't sound good, at all. The vocals sounded clearly unnatural and trying to reconfigure the track for an EDM piece wasn't going to happen. The cadence of Snoop's rapping, the fact that the vocal stem provided already included a metric-fuck-ton of processing, and some other factors about them which, for my mix and my goals, felt wrong, I wound up settling for 118 BPM (still danceable but...). Snoop's vocals still sounded natural and doing a bit of an upbeat version was within the realm of the obtainable.
Having listened to the lyrics I just felt like, while the song was lousy for the dance floor, it was a great tune to drive to or just get stoned with and possibly do some Spring cleaning with it playing in the back-ground. The song's focus wasn't so much on the party, but a wholesome vibe which realizes the importance of family. Sure, yeah, I could hear it on the floor - but only in a rare instance with so much of the lyrics being niche, relating to Snoop's life outside his show-biz persona, the song just felt atypical, there. I don't ever think "That Tree" can or even should be made into a floor-filler remix, unless it's being played at a wedding. Maybe someone could do it, but to me, it just felt all kinds of goofy.
I wound up scrapping all of the other stems. The only other music, relating to the original, is the keyboard work, which I basically copied the chords of using a more full organ sound. After that, I used the synth and piano sounds to add inversions of those chords and create that really lush music bed.
The chief criteria for the remix competition was to take the acapella, minus rap verse by Kid Cudi, and replace that with our own contribution, be it rap, singing or instrument. The instrument I chose, before I built up the music-bed, for it, was a Rhodes patch I found on the Dimension Pro, which I wound up mixing in with a Wurlitzer sound from a plug-in I found at KVR. Predominantly, I wanted the focus to be on that.
Anyways. Thanks, all, for the feedback. I'm glad you guys liked what you liked about it and hope you found/find the final version, enjoyable.
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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012
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