Remix Academy, Part 3 of 5. Built around the Dua Lipa “Training Season” remix contest from SKIO Music and Warner Records.
Pick a lane this week and commit. Here are two, built from the same stems. Sketch sixty seconds of each, play them back to back, and keep the one that makes you move without thinking.
Lane one: tech house
- Tempo: stay at the pack tempo or nudge to 124–126. The vocal stretches cleanly at those speeds.
- Drums: four-on-the-floor kick, clap on 2 and 4, open hat on every off-beat, a 16th-note shaker with light swing. Your own drums, not the drum-loop stem.
- Bass: the rolling engine of the record. Resample the morphed vocal, cut it into short notes, and program a two-bar groove that leaves room for the kick.
- Hook: a one-bar vocal chop from the background dub, repeated and filtered open over 16 bars.
- Harmony: minimal. One stab or one pad, high-passed hard. In tech house, groove is the melody.
- The flip: after-hours. Dark, patient, hypnotic. The breakup becomes a mood, not a story.
Lane two: UK garage
- Tempo: garage lives around 130–135. Either commit to about 130 with high-quality time-stretching (pitch locked, formants checked), or stay at 123 and call it a slow two-step. Decide before you build drums.
- Drums: two-step kick (beat one and a skip late in the bar), snare or clap on 2 and 4, swung 16th hats around 55–60% swing, ghost rimshots. The swing is the genre.
- Bass: a warm sub with movement. Short, bouncy notes that answer the vocal instead of sitting under it.
- Hook: chop the throws into re-pitched syllables and play them on pads. Garage loves a vocal that stutters and sings at once.
- Harmony: this is where the organ and piano stems shine. Sample single notes and re-play lush, extended chords inside the key.
- The flip: euphoric. Sunday-afternoon warm. The breakup becomes freedom.
A New Orleans option
Bounce energy sits beautifully on top of house tempo. Re-play the call-and-response feel yourself with your own drums and the vocal throws. Don’t lift a classic break off an old record: that’s an uncleared sample inside a label remix, and it can sink an entry that would otherwise win.
How to decide
Bounce both sketches. Listen in the car and on cheap earbuds. Pick the one where Dua still sounds like the star. If you can’t decide in a day, pick the one that’s harder for everyone else to make.
Next in the series: Part 4, the dry vocal: mix and master chain.
Questions and answers
Can I speed the song up for UK garage?
Yes. Use a high-quality time-stretch that keeps the vocal’s pitch, and listen closely for artifacts on held notes and breaths.
Which lane do judges prefer?
Neither. Past winning styles have ranged widely. Execution and a clear interpretation matter more than genre.
Can I use samples from other records?
Avoid it. Build from the official stems, your own playing, and royalty-free sounds so nothing in the remix needs clearing.
Official sources
— Byron Jupiter
Rendered with Renaissance Instruments
Continue the lessons at the R&B/Hip-Hop Interactive Virtual Reality Software Academy — the hands-on school behind this series: https://rbhip-hopinteractivevirtualreality.org/
More music craft at JUPE Magazine: https://jupemagazine.com/
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