How To Remix Any Song (2024)

Learning how to remix a song is one of the most rewarding projects you can take on as a music producer - it builds your technical skills, helps you understand professional arrangements, and gives you a creative outlet when inspiration for original tracks is low. In this tutorial, Niek walks through the complete remix process from start to finish: vocal extraction using AI tools, tempo matching, chord finding, and building up a full e-house remix from scratch using a downloaded song as the source material.

What Is an Acappella and Why Do You Need One?

An acappella is the vocal-only version of a song - the raw vocals stripped of all instrumentation. Having a clean acappella is the single most important starting point for any remix, because it lets you build entirely new music underneath the original vocals without any bleed from the original production. Your first step should always be a Google search: type the song name followed by "acappella" to check if one has been officially released. Some artists upload official acappellas directly to their channel, which gives you the cleanest possible version to work with. If no official acappella exists, you will need to extract the vocals yourself using an AI stem separator. A good option is the website vocal remover.org, which uses artificial intelligence to separate the music and vocals from any uploaded audio file. There are also several other free AI vocal extractors available online, each with slightly different quality results - try a few and compare. If you are working in FL Studio 2024, there is now a built-in stem separator that handles this directly inside the software without needing any external tools.

How Do You Use FL Studio 2024's Built-In Stem Separator?

FL Studio 2024 introduced a built-in stem separator that makes vocal extraction much more convenient. To use it, load your original track into the playlist, then click the small icon in the corner of the sample. Look for the option that says "Extract stems from sample." Once you click it, FL Studio gives you several options - you can extract drums, bass, instruments, or vocals independently. For a remix, you typically want the instrumental stem and the vocal stem. After clicking Extract, the software takes a moment to process the full track and then returns two separate audio clips: one instrumental and one vocal. These become your building blocks for the remix. This built-in approach saves time compared to uploading your file to an external website, and because it stays inside your DAW, the workflow stays clean. Keep in mind that copyright considerations still apply - even with AI-extracted vocals, you are working with someone else's recorded performance.

How to Find the BPM and Match the Tempo of a Song

Once you have your stems, the next step is getting the tempo right. In FL Studio, select the original sample, click the same corner icon, and choose "Detect Tempo." The software will ask you to specify a BPM range - for most popular music, setting it to 75 to 150 BPM will cover you. In the tutorial example, FL Studio detected the original track at 87.5 BPM. Click yes to set the project tempo to match. Then turn on the metronome and listen - if the kick of the original track falls off the beat, drag the audio clip so the kick lands exactly on the downbeat (bar 1, beat 1). Once aligned, select all your stems and switch their playback Mode to Stretch. This tells FL Studio to speed up or slow down the audio when you change the project BPM, keeping everything in sync. For an e-house remix, 120 BPM is an excellent target. Drag the project tempo up to 120 and all stems will follow.

What Is the Best Way to Find the Chords of a Song?

If you are not trained in music theory, finding the chords of a song by ear can be tricky. A useful free tool for this is the website Chordify. Simply search for the song on Chordify and it will display the chord progression in real time as the track plays, showing you exactly which chord is active at each moment. For the remix example in this tutorial, the chord progression is very simple and cycles through three chords: F minor, G minor, and C minor. In the FL Studio piano roll, these chords break down as follows:

• F minor: F, G# (Ab), C
• G minor: G, A# (Bb), D
• C minor: C, D# (Eb), G

After entering the chords, play them back alongside the vocal stem to verify the tuning is correct. You can also invert chords - moving the bottom note up an octave - to keep the voicings close together and avoid large jumps in the piano roll. Once the chords feel right with the vocal, you have the harmonic foundation of your remix.

How to Convert Audio to MIDI to Extract a Melody

One of the most powerful techniques in the tutorial is converting an audio recording to MIDI in order to extract and reuse a melody from the original track. To do this in FL Studio, load the audio section you want to analyze into Edison (either by dragging it onto the Edison plugin or recording it from the mixer). Hit record to capture the specific section you want to extract, then go to your Channel Rack and select the instrument you want to receive the MIDI data. Back in Edison, right-click on the recording, go to Tools, and select "Convert to score and dump to piano roll." FL Studio will analyze the audio and place MIDI notes in the piano roll. The conversion is not always perfectly clean - especially if the original audio has multiple instruments playing at once - but the melody notes usually appear clearly in the highest note positions. Delete any incorrect low notes, quantize what remains, and you will have a usable melodic phrase. For simpler recordings like solo guitar or a single vocal line, the conversion will be considerably more accurate.

How to Build the Drop for an E-House Remix

With the tempo, chords, and any extracted melodies ready, you can start assembling the drop. For an e-house remix at 120 BPM, the following layers form a solid foundation:

1. Add a bass line following the root notes of the chord progression - F, G, and C in this case. Use a synth bass preset suited to e-house and add Kickstart sidechain compression so the bass ducks when the kick hits.
2. Layer the signature e-house pluck sound staying on the root note throughout, creating a repetitive hypnotic pattern. Add Kickstart sidechain here as well.
3. Add a hard-hitting Tom percussion layer for that distinctive e-house groove. In this tutorial, the Tom layer consists of three layered elements: a low Tom hit, a second Tom with more high-end, and an open hi-hat for extra texture.
4. Add shaker loops and percussion loops to fill rhythmic space and keep energy high across the drop.
5. Add effect sounds including atmospheric drone pads, field recordings for ambience, a downlifter for impact, white noise, and a transition uplifter.
6. Bring the vocal stem in over the drop. Try filtering the vocal at the very start - applying a low-pass or high-pass filter to the first few bars - to build up to the full vocal gradually and create more energy.

How to Use the Final Remix and Distribution Rules

Once you have built the drop and arranged the full remix, you need to understand what you can and cannot do with it. A remix that uses an artist's original vocal recording requires written permission from the rights holders before you can release it commercially on platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. In most cases - especially if the original artist is a major-label act - obtaining that permission is very difficult. However, there are still highly valuable ways to use an unofficial remix. You can share it as a free download to DJs in your target genre, which is an effective way to get your production noticed by people with large audiences. Many DJs actively look for remixes of popular tracks to play in their sets. Alternatively, if you remove the original vocal from your remix and source a different vocal that you are licensed to use, the instrumental arrangement you built becomes an original track that you own outright and can release through any distributor.

Tutorial by Niek, co-founder of The Producer School. For more production tutorials, subscribe to The Producer School on YouTube (280K+ subscribers).