I’ve been really pleased with all the remixes people have been sending me for Joyless Pleasure. I’m still waiting for a few but Maurice is already well into the album artwork. I’m keeping most of the mixes unheard for now but one of the mixes is out of the bag and happily already charting. Everyone knows Magda. She’s one of the big one so I’m pleased to post she’s got Miro’s remix of Hostage at number 3 on her most recent chart.

“Miro’s creative sound architecture shines in a variety of interpretations, living between romantic gloom, absurd musicality and rhythm mathematics that could be a Stanley Kubrick version of modern dance music whilst retaining functionality. His mostly dense assemblies enrapture the fantasy thursty listener, who can expect episodic surreal surprises. His deepest passion for detail and visionary audio adventures can be heard regularly on his label Lazerslut and has been unveiled on labels such as Klickhaus, Harthouse, Tic Tac Toe Records and several others.”

For more info: xlr8r.com/podcast/2011/08/magda

There are few people I blindly trust my vocals with. Miro Pajic is one of them. When I was in Berlin and just last month I recording some lyrics for MIro to use. His label Lazerslut in well known in the Minimal scene and he has been very successful with Beatport. Not only has he produced another two great tracks Das Seltsame Grau and Your Lips he has gathered remixes from Ol’ Dirty Beaner (Bar 25) and PCP legend The Mover.

“The title track Das Seltsame Grau , a modern zombie-dance tale performed by Oliver, showing of his german language-skills and his usual hypnotic power. Together with Miros programming passion, this obscure piece of modern dance music puts a spell on you and the person next to you. The Horrorist wouldn’t be the Horrorist, if the music wouldn’t speak words of horror, like in Your Lips . Spooky voice effects jacketed in assertive sound structures and bulldozer bass-ground guarantee a cold shower experience and pleasing nightmares.” – miropajic.com

Das Seltsame Grau (Original Mix) – MP3
Your Lips (Original Mix) – MP3
Das Seltsame Grau (Ol Dirty Beaner Version) – MP3
Das Seltsame Grau (Ol Dirty Skirtchaser Version) – MP3
Das Seltsame Grau (The Mover Remix) – MP3

Disclosure: The service I am about to recommend is owned by a good friend of mine. Please note that he is a good friend of mine largely because he’s a killer audiologist. He’s recorded music for my own label, remixed my songs and mastered my most important release. Miro Pajic is well known in the electronic music scene. He’s a good genre jumper who once made the most dark hardcore music and today is deep in the Berlin minimal scene. His new online ITB mixing service Manic Mixing just launched. If a release is really important to you don’t master it yourself. It’s ok to bump up the volume on crap heading soley to MySpace but for anything that you want a DJ to spin send it to someone qualified. Miro is easy going and will make sure your happy. For details on his mixing process click here: Manic Mixing Details

The important thing to remember is even if you can follow what Miro does in his examples your missing the key ingredient: A fresh talented ear listening to your music!

“First of all, it is necessary to communicate, to find out what your concept and goal is and which final format it will be for. It will help to receive a reference track or demo/sketch version of the music you want to have mixed in the beginning, so i have an idea of what you mean and what we are talking about. I will then do a first rough mix of the material and send you the results, to see if you are satisfied and to make sure that things are going in the right direction. If you agree I will continue and try my best in completing the mix.” – Miro Pajc, Manic Mixing

For more info: Manic Mixing

I often say that the arrangement is the most important part of a song. For some people it’s also the most difficult task. Anyone can make an incredible short loop but developing it into a 4-5 minute song takes some practice, thought and planning. A trick my friend Miro Pajic uses which he calls “negative arranging” consists of copying every track’s parts across the entire 4-5 minutes. Next, he goes in and deletes parts instead of starting blank and adding clips/parts as he progresses. I don’t personally work this way but I was surprised to see Miro is not alone.

As I was doing my nightly troll though the Ableton forums I came across a post by uber Live geek Tarekith. He posted a link to his guide to song arranging and it’s definitely worth a read. He also uses the “negative arrangement” style but he calls it, “subtractive sequencing”: click to read

This is a technique I call subtractive sequencing, where we start with all the song elements and remove bits and pieces to form the structure of the song. – tarekith.com

Have you ever tried this technique? Personally I fill up Session view with many tracks, clips and scenes and drag them into a blank Arrangement view.

Miro Pajic who records under the name Hypnotizer for my label was in my studio today. I hooked up my Nintendo DS and let him rock out with Jam Sessions for a while. To make it sound even better I ran it through Izotope’s incredible Trash plug-in.

Miro is a legend in the techno scene with over 80 releases, many on the infamous PCP label and these days on Klikhaus. Check him out here:
www.myspace.com/pajicmiro