This is the music-related blog for Jonathan (Scooter) Clark, also known in the electronica world as DJ Bolivia, a producer and DJ from Atlantic Canada. I listen to (and produce) a lot of folk, indie, rock, and hip hop music too!
I also run a company (Replant.ca Environmental) through which you can sponsor the planting of trees to build forest reserves and community forests, which are protected from commercial logging. Please visit: www.replant.ca/environmental
Here's another one of my tracks for you to check out. I'm still working on my website rebuild, every day, but I'm getting very close to finished. I'll almost certainly be able to sit back and catch my breath by this weekend.
In the meantime, let's focus on this track, "Foundation." I'll have a free download link below.
Here's a link to the track on SoundCloud. You can also click on the down-arrow in the top right to download the mp3 directly from SoundCloud:
"Foundation" is a techno track characterized by a consistent beat and solid rhythm. From the start, the kick establishes a foundation upon which the rest of the track builds. The percussion maintains a consistent tempo throughout, providing a sense of reliability and stability. As the track progresses, subtle variations and layers are introduced, but the underlying foundation remains unwavering. It serves as a musical anchor, ensuring a cohesive and predictable listening experience.
The track's structure is built upon repetition and continuity, mirroring the reliability of a strong foundation. Each element integrates with the next, creating a mix that listeners can rely on. There are no sudden shifts or surprises; instead, the track unfolds methodically, reinforcing its steadfast nature. Like a well-built structure, "Foundation" stands firm, providing a sense of security and consistency in its sound.
As the track evolves, it maintains its solid base, never wavering from its established rhythm. This sense of reliability extends beyond the music itself, embodying a broader concept of dependability and trustworthiness. Whether on the dancefloor or in everyday life, "Foundation" serves as a reminder of the importance of consistency and stability. You're only as good as your word. Speak the truth to others.
In essence, "Foundation" is more than just a techno track; it's a testament to the power of consistency and reliability.
I also put up a version of this track on YouTube. The visuals accompanying the track were done by an AI, although the music is my own of course. These AI visuals are very rudimentary. But thanks to OpenAI's Sora, my future music videos may look a LOT more professional:
To check out and/or download any of my other tracks, visit:
Hey everyone, thanks for visiting. I've been super busy for the past three weeks, rebuilding my main website from scratch for the first time since 2017, to make it mobile-friendly. Not surprisingly, it's taken me about four times as long as I had initially expected. But perhaps that's why it's taken me seven years to find time to start that project.
About an hour ago, I uploaded a video to YouTube of one of my tracks from the end of last year. Yesterday, OpenAI announced news of Sora, their new video generation system. Holy shit. AI capabilities have increased at an incredible rate over the past year. Just think about what things will be like in four more years. We'll probably be able to log into Netflix and simply enter a prompt about what movie genre we'd like, include any suggestions for actors (existing or AI-generated), and Netflix will use AI to generate a new and unique one-of-a-kind movie just for you. That kind of progress seems inconceivable today, but AI is advancing quickly enough that this sort of scenario would be entirely possible that soon, based on current exponential development rates. The only problem will be trying to figure out where to source all the raw materials to build the GPU's that will power the server farms that make this kind of processing possible.
In the meantime, let's focus on this track, "Industrial Psychology." I'll have a download link below.
Here's a link to the track on SoundCloud. You can also click on the down-arrow in the top right to download the mp3 directly from SoundCloud:
You may wonder what this track symbolizes. I'll tell you a story...
In a distant future, where the remnants of nature cling to life among the steel skeletons of once-great cities, a new form of expression emerges, thanks to wispy memories of a long-forgotten techno track called "Industrial Psychology."
Our dismal grey scene is the home of the Reclaimers, a group of digital nomads who traverse the desolate landscapes, seeking to restore balance between technology and the natural world. Their mission is guided by the belief that the soul of humanity lies in its ability to coexist with Earth's dwindling ecosystems.
The genesis of "Industrial Psychology" unfolds in the mind of Kai, a young Reclaimer with a talent for weaving the sounds of the old world with the digital streams of the new. Kai discovers an abandoned factory, its machines silent and still, but within it he finds inspiration. Sampling the whispers of the wind through broken windows, the drip of water reclaiming space, and the distant call of the wild, Kai constructs a track that is a mosaic of the world's forgotten corners. Little does Kai know that his track, "Industrial Psychology," is based on a deeply repressed cultural memory of an earlier track of the same name, by a forgotten DJ named Bolivia. However, Kai's music serves as a fourth-dimensional bridge between past and future, a call to remember and rebuild.
"Industrial Psychology" resonates not only as a piece of music but as a symbol of the Reclaimers' ethos. It's played in the reclaimed zones, areas where technology has been harmonized with nature, powering vertical gardens and purifying air, turning the ruins into havens of green amidst the grey. The track becomes a beacon, drawing people from the shadows of the cities to join the Reclaimers' cause. Each thumping hit of the kick symbolizes past destruction, and subtly underscores the delicate balance between human ingenuity and the natural world.
The climax of this story sees "Industrial Psychology" echoing through the heart of a massive, revitalized city-park during the Equinox Festival, a celebration of the equinox when day and night are in perfect balance. Industrial Psychology is the theme song for the festival. It's the soundtrack of a cultural movement, an experience that encapsulates the hope and resilience of a society striving to forge a new path where technology serves as a steward of the earth, not its conqueror.
But in the end, everyone succumbs to acid rain.
Happy Saturday!
I also put up a version of this track on YouTube. The visuals accompanying the track were done by an AI, although the music is my own of course. These AI visuals are very rudimentary. But thanks to OpenAI's Sora, my future music videos may look a LOT more professional:
To check out and/or download any of my other tracks, visit:
Francis & I just finished up a new techno track recently, called Berlin. We're offering free downloads of the track, and also of the Ableton project files and a Stems pack.
First, here are two versions of the track. The structure of both is the same, although I prefer the instrumentation and mixing/mastering on the Self Isolation Remix:
Now if you're a producer/remixer and you're looking for access to the Ableton project or the Stems, we have them set up in Dropbox. Go to my public account at djbolivia.ca/dropbox and then look in the "Bolivia's Remix Projects" folder. There are four archives there for Berlin. The two Ableton archives have the same contents (despite different archive sizes), but we wanted to make them available as both RAR and ZIP archives, because some people prefer one type over the other. Same deal with the Stems, both archives have the same contents. There's also a rich text file that gives a bit of basic info about the source files, ie. things like key, tempo, external effects and processing, etc.
If you make a remix, feel free to share it online, but please use the following for a filename format: "Urban Francis & Bolivia - Berlin (Your Remix Name)"
This contest ended on November 15th, 2017. We've picked an entry by Ozsone (United States) as the winner of the contest, and a remix by Dark Matter (United Kingdom) as the runner-up. Here are SoundCloud links so you can listen to and download these two remixes:
These two remixes on SoundCloud are 320kbps MP3 versions. You can also find uncompressed full-quality WAV versions in my public Dropbox folder. Here are the original details from the contest. The complete original Ableton project files are still available online for anyone to download. Urban Francis and I recently produced another techno track
together, which we've called "Skyscraper." We're sponsoring a Remix Contest for this track (it can be any style, not necessarily techno), and you'll be able to see the details further down this page. Most importantly, for the producers, we've shared our entire Ableton Live project files. Producers can download the full project, see how we put the track together, do your own remixes (which we highly encourage), or even use the project as a template for your own future projects. All that we ask in return is that you spread the word about our track and video! Here's our most recent version of the track:
The files that you'll need for remixing (either the Ableton project or the audio Stems collection) are now available from my public Dropbox account. Just look in the "Bolivia's Remix Projects" folder. My Dropbox also includes a lot of other stuff that people might be interested in. Here's the link:
The RAR and ZIP versions are different compression types, but the same archives. ZIP files are universally compatible but larger than RAR. RAR will be a smaller and faster download, but are only native to Windows. If you're using a Mac, download a free app such as "The Unarchiver" or "UnRarX" to unpack them.
If you're interested in the stems, you'll be able to use them in pretty much any DAW or audio editor. They're in WAV format, at 48000/24-bit. If you're going for the Ableton project, you must have Ableton Live Suite version 9.7 in order to be able to open the project. The only plug-in used in the project that isn't native to Ableton Live is Dadalife's Sausage Fattener. Videos: Here's an eight-minute video for the remixers, which covers an overview of how we have the project set up:
I'll be producing a music video for this track at some point in the next few weeks, and I'll post it here once it's online.
Remix Contest Details: We're currently hosting a remix contest for this track. I'm personally sponsoring the contest with a prize of $300 (in Canadian dollars) for the winning track. That amount can be paid to the winner (in Canadian funds) as long as you have paypal. If the winner is a Canadian resident, I'm also willing to mail a cheque if you don't use paypal.
In addition, a number of other randomly selected entries will be showcased on my website, in this blog post, on our SoundCloud accounts, and through other internet media, along with the contact info and/or a promo website for the producers of those remixes (if you want to share such info). We also intend to publish the winning entry and perhaps a couple of other entries with a professional label release on Beatport and other sites. 1. You may share your remixes freely on any internet sites, in any file type(s), both before and after the closing date of the contest, as long as you name your remix according to the following convention: Urban Francis & Bolivia - Skyscraper (YOUR NAME Remix).
2. You should not attempt to register your remix with a professional label or publisher (due to potential copyright content clashes, which I'll explain at the end of this post). So if you share your remix with the world, you'll have to do it through your own personal publishing efforts.
3. Your remix can be any genre at all, of your choosing. Obviously, it will be easier to produce your remix in a style similar to the existing original, ie. some sort of techno derivative. But feel free to be creative.
4. You may submit up to two separate entries.
5. There is no restriction on the length of your submission(s), although we expect that the majority of submissions will probably be between 4 and 8 minutes in length. Having a submission that is shorter or longer than that range will not handicap you when it comes to judging.
6. The deadline for entries is 11:59pm (Atlantic Standard Time Zone) on Wednesday night, November 15th, 2017. All judging will take place and winners will be announced within this post by December 10th, 2017.
7. This contest is open worldwide where permitted, to entrants who have reached the age of majority in their country of residence. Persons under the age of majority who create a remix may submit their entry through a parent or legal guardian as proxy.
8. Notwithstanding the above, this contest is void in jurisdictions where prohibited by law.
9. The prize for the contest winner will be $300 in Canadian dollars. The Canadian dollar is currently weak, and is worth less than the US dollar. This amount can be paid to the winner as long as you have Paypal or Interac Email Transfer capabilities. If the winner is a Canadian resident, I'm also willing to mail a cheque if you don't use Paypal or Interac Email Banking. I will not send a cheque or use any other type of money transfer service to non-Canadian residents. The recipient of the winning prize is solely responsible for reporting and submitting any relevant income taxes that might apply to your prize money in your country of residence. Canadian residents will not enjoy any preference in judging. We want this to be a global contest. Having said this, we do expect a number of Canadian entrants, so it's possible that the winner could be a Canadian. Just rest assured that we definitely won't discriminate against non-Canadians! The majority of the winners of our past remix contests have been non-Canadians.
10. Judging will be done by a panel of judges including Urban Francis and other associate producer friends. The judges' decision will be based upon the quality of music, production values used in making the remix, and possibly also on how innovative the remix is. The judges' decision will be final, and the judges will not provide feedback on why they chose the specific winning track above any other specific track.
11. You may share your remix publicly before the contest is over. However, the popularity of any shared remixes will not influence the judges' decision. The winner will be decided based upon the judges' perception of the quality of the submissions, not based upon a popularity contest.
12. Your remix is permitted to include any additional vocal/sample material that you generate, although don't take this as a suggestion that we'd prefer that. In other words, you may produce an instrumental version if you want, or you can add new vocal/sample material of your own. You may also include new sounds/instrumentation of your own. However, please do not include ANY samples or vocals that have been copyrighted elsewhere by another artist. Any entries containing someone else's copyrighted content will be disqualified. Any new samples, loops, or other audio materials incorporated into your remix must be royalty-free or exclusively designed by the remixer.
13. Musicians or producers who are under an exclusive contract with a record label are ineligible.
14. No purchase is necessary to enter or win this contest. In fact, there is nothing that you can buy. However, by entering this promotion contest, you agree that any costs that you incur in creating your remix are solely your own responsibility.
15. Any potential copyright or other intellectual property rights that may potentially vest in your remix will be granted to Bolivia (Jonathan Clark) and Urban Francis (Francis Cormier).
16. It is expressly agreed that no payment is due to the participants for the production of your remixes, even if any remixes are released professionally for resale or redistribution on any third-party labels. Only one winner will receive a monetary prize.
17. By providing your entry details to us, you confirm that you would like to enter the promotion contest and that you agree to be bound by these rules, terms, and conditions, ethics rules applicable on the internet, applicable laws and regulations, and all legislation applicable in your jurisdiction of residence.
18. Your remix must not contain any illegal, obscene, racist, defamatory, or sexual material, or any material likely to offend any person or any material likely to infringe upon any person's rights of privacy. The judges reserve the right to disqualify any entries based upon these or any other criteria. Entrants represent and warrant that their comments or public publishing do not contain any harmful, offensive, or inappropriate content, or any other communications which might defame, disparage or reflect adversely upon the promoters or our goods/services.
19. We reserve the right to disqualify any submissions that we believe to be the work of other producers.
20. The winning prize is non-transferable.
21. We accept no responsibility for entries lost, damaged or delayed, or for any inability to submit entries as a result of computer services, systems, software and/or server failure, error, interruption, defect or delay or any other technical malfunction, including problems with internet connectivity and/or filtering or content by any social media platform. Entries which are late, incomplete, corrupt, garbled, inaccessible/blocked, bulk, automated, ineligible, suspected as fraudulent, do not comply with the rules & terms & conditions, or which in our sole discretion affect the validity or operation of this promotion contest will not be accepted and are void.
22. Except to the extent that they may not be excluded by law, no representations, warranties, terms or conditions that are not expressly stated in these rules & terms & conditions apply to this promotion contest. We share no liability for any injuries, loss, or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with participation in this promotion (including any damage to entrants' or to any other persons' computer relating to or resulting from participation in, or downloading of any materials or software in connection with this promotion contest), or acceptance, use, misuse, or non-use of any prizes.
23. We reserve the right to edit and/or augment the rules & terms & conditions at any point throughout the duration of this contest, in case we think of something that we forgot to mention.
24. Your remix must not include any unauthorized samples or audio which have a copyright belonging to any other artist or entity. Phew. That was exhausting. To Enter: 1. Send a link to your track via email to Urban Francis in an uncompressed audio format, ie. WAV or AIFF format. The best way to do this is probably to put it into a Dropbox account (you can get one for free if you don't already have one) and share the link to the file with Urban Francis. If this isn't possible, you can find other services that would allow you to host and share your file. But to be honest, Dropbox is probably the best and easiest by far. An alternative would be to get a free Soundcloud account (if you don't already have one) and upload the file there, and enable downloads, then send that link to Urban Francis.
2. You should not send your project/session files.
3. You can produce your remix in the DAW or Audio Editor of your choice. We'd like to know which DAW you used, but that's mostly just out of curiousity. Also, although we haven't decided this yet, we might pick a couple of especially good entries to feature in our public dropbox (your entire project files) IF you're willing to do that. But you don't have to, and that won't affect how we judge the entries. Again, don't send us your full project/session files. For now, just tell us which editor you used.
4. We must have the following information: - Your full name. - Your producer alias, if you have one. - What country you're from. - Your email address (if unspecified, we'll assume that it's the one that you use to enter).
5. You can optionally include a photo with your entry. This is not mandatory, and won't affect your chances of winning. We'll only use this if you're the winner and if you happen to want a photo published.
6. In the event that your submission is randomly selected to be shared by us to a wider distribution, it would be helpful for you to tell us (when you enter) whether or not you want to share any promotional details with your remix. Details must be limited to one email address and/or up to four website links (soundcloud, facebook, etc.).
7. Urban Francis will reply to all submissions to confirm that they have been received. If you don't get a submission confirmation email, please send a second email which is TEXT ONLY to specify that you sent a submission. That way, if your original email (with links and/or attachments) got redirected to spam/trash, we can look for it.
8. The email address to send entries to is: fcormier27@gmail.com Good luck with your remixing. And if you can think of any remix or production-oriented message boards where you could share the link to this post, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
Note: We have copyrighted and registered the original work with SOCAN, the Canadian music licensing agency. Although we are not pursuing copyright claims if the content is posted online, you should be careful if you do a remix and give it to a label that tries to enforce copyright claims on your own remix. Since we've already registered the work, we'd be able to prove that we hold the original copyright. In other words, make sure you don't get into a situation where you sell your remix to a label who then tries to use content-matching algorithms at services such as YouTube and Soundcloud to monetize remixes of your remix. If such a content-match occurred with our original track (which is on both of those services, and other services) then you'd have a lot of hassle trying to remove your track from the system. However, this shouldn't be an issue if you share your own mixes freely on YouTube, Soundcloud, and other platforms. It would only be if you tried to share through a label that was trying to collect publishing royalties that you'd run into an issue.
Don't forget to follow Francis on his SoundCloud account, because he posts free tracks a lot more frequently than I do! Here's the link:
Also, if any labels out there are interested in additional tracks similar in style to this one, let us know. We have a few unreleased tracks that we might be willing to place with labels, although we would not be willing to sign an exclusive or long-term contract with any one label. We'll do track-by-track one-off placements only.
Previous Contests
Here are links to pages with information about previous remix contests that we've hosted. You might find some of the video tutorials on these pages to be useful, because they go into some of our recurring production techniques in a lot of extensive detail:
Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to bookmark this post, and come back shortly for more updates! We'll be posting a number of the remix contest entries here throughout September.
I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:
I have another tutorial video for you. This video is the last in a series of videos that Urban
Francis and I put together, as a techno production project for a track called Hijack.
The track was produced in Ableton Live, and we have all
of our Ableton project files available as a free download from Dropbox.
In this specific video, we wanted to explain what was
going on with the Side-chain compression.
Eventually, the two of us are going to do a very detailed and complex
set of tutorials about compression and side-chaining. They’re very complicated and moderately
advanced topics, and they take a little while to learn to do properly. However, because we have some side-chaining
happening in the Hijack project, we decided that it would be smart to give a
brief overview, so any producers who are moderately familiar with Ableton would
understand exactly what we’re doing here.
Here's a link to the video:
If you don’t understand what compression is, let’s start
there, even though it’s a pretty complex topic.
I tried to do an explanation in my Mastering & Marketing Your DJ Mix video
on YouTube, starting at the 21 minute mark. It’s worth a watch, because of the graphic
visuals. However, let me also try to
explain it here.
A lot of people,
when they hear about compression, they get the idea that compression makes
things louder. That’s incorrect. Compression by itself does not raise the
level of an audio signal. There are
several different settings in a compressor, but the main ones are this:
Threshold Value – this is the signal level above which
audio is being affected.
Ratio – tells how much the portion of the audio that is
above the threshold is getting squished.
Now obviously, if the audio is getting squished, then the
audio is getting pushed down from its original volume to a lower volume. So why, when people talk about compression,
do 99% of them think that the audio is getting louder? That’s a great question, and it’s something
that a lot of people don’t understand properly.
First, you need to understand that compression BY ITSELF does not make
the volume louder, it reduces the volume.
Now, let’s be honest – in the fight for volume to gain
prominence in the listening space, very few people want to reduce the volume of
their productions. So that’s where
another setting commonly associated with compression comes into play. That setting is the make-up gain.
After compression is done, if a producer applies make-up
gain to the compressed audio, it brings the volume back up. A producer may set the make-up gain to the
exact amount to bring the peak of the volume back up to where it was before the
audio was compressed. Sounds like a
rather useless practice, doesn’t it?
Drop the volume, then raise the volume.
But the key thing is that when the volume is compressed,
it is NOT dropped in a linear manner.
Louder parts are dropped more than quieter parts. Hence the reason that I said that the audio
gets squished. Therefore, the audio now
has a narrower dynamic range than before.
The peaks and valleys in the amplitude are not as significant; the
changes from the loud parts to the soft parts are less significant.
Since the peak of the volume is unchanged from the
original, once the makeup gain was applied, and since the dynamic range from
loudest to softest is reduced, this means that the AVERAGE volume of the
processed audio is louder. And that’s
the source of the misconception that compressed audio is always louder. Compressed audio definitely has a narrower
dynamic range. If it is louder, that is
only because makeup gain has also been applied.
Side-chaining
Moving on to Side-chaining, the way that side-chaining
works, is that you’re taking a signal from somewhere else, and you’re analyzing
that signal, and you’re using the analysis of the side-chain signal to control
the compressor’s actions on whatever other audio is being compressed. So in other word’s, the compressor’s actions
are being dictated by the energy of the side-chain signal (side-chain audio
source) that’s being fed into the compressor.
Remember that the signal that’s being fed into the
compressor (the side-chain signal) may have nothing at all to do with the audio
that you’re processing. And also,
remember that you don’t have to have a signal being fed into the
side-chain. If you don’t have a
side-chain signal, the compressor just works at a steady set of values while it’s
processing audio. Essentially, a
side-chain compressor without a side-chain signal is just … a regular
compressor.
Ok, so imagine this.
Let’s pretend that the signal that is coming in to the side-chain input
of the compressor is some sort of signal that is steady and repeating. High energy/amplitude (lots of signal)
alternating with low energy/amplitude (quiet).
A good example might be a repeating kick drum. If you keep hitting a kick drum in a steady
pattern regularly, then the “signal” (amplitude) is essentially a constantly
repeating on/off/on/off/on/off/on/off pattern.
If this signal is what is controlling the compressor, then you’re basically
turning the compressor on/off/on/off/on/off/on/off in the same timing and
pattern.
Many producers DO use a kick drum as a side-chain signal,
so that a side-chain compressor keeps turning on and off in time with the kick
drum. The compressor may be processing
just about anything else while it keeps turning on and off. Maybe it’s processing a synth line. Maybe it’s processing a background pad. Doesn’t matter. It’s compressing some sort of audio, and it’s
turning on and off in time with the beating of the kick drum, since the kick
drum is being used as the side-chain signal.
A producer can use the kick drum from the track they’re
working on, as the side-chain. But they
don’t have to. They could use a
different kick drum track as the signal.
And that other kick drum which is being used as a side-chain signal to
the compressor does NOT necessarily have to be audible to listeners of the
track. So a producer could easily have
two kick drum tracks in their song: one
that is audible that the audience can hear, and a second one that is not
audible to listeners, but which is being used as a side-chain signal.
Why bother using two different kicks? Maybe the producer wants a signal with a fast
release for the side-chain (to turn the compressor off quickly), but doesn’t
want the listeners to hear a kick that has a fast release. Or maybe the muted side-chain kick needs to
act as a side-chain signal during parts of the song where there is no kick drum
playing.
If a producer brings an extra kick drum (or any other
type of instrument or midi notes) into a side-chain compressor, but that
audio/midi side-chain signal is not audible as part of the project, the
side-chain audio signal is called a ghost signal, or ghost notes.
Using a side-chain to turn your compressor on and off
allows you to compress audio when needed, to allow for a different part to
shine through a mix, but does not compress the audio at other times. This gives the producer a lot of
flexibility. It’s much better than if
the producer’s only option was to permanently decrease the volume of other
parts of the mix.
An advantage of using ghost notes or a muted side-chain
signal is that you can have it turn the compressor on and off in any pattern or
timing that’s convenient to you.
An advantage of using a regular audio source within the
song (one that the listeners hear) as a side-chain signal to affect another
track is that the timing may be perfect for your needs. For example, if you need a kick drum to cut
through a synth line, you can play the audio of the kick, and you can
simultaneously route that auto into the side-chain of a compressor that cuts
the volume of the synth, allowing the audio version of the kick to cut through
the mix.
By the way, if you want to see the project that we used as the basis for this tutorial, here's the music video (yes, the full project files for this track are available as a free Ableton or stems download):
I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:
Congratulations to Dom3n, from Slovenia, who was the winner of our Hijack remix contest! Here's his winning entry:
Here are a few of the many other notable entries for the Hijack contest. We'll be slowly releasing additional remix entries over the coming months.
Here is the Original Post that we made about this remix contest: Urban Francis and I just did another track
together. This time, the style is techno. We've made the
mastered final track available as a free download, we've created
a music video on YouTube, and we're sponsoring a Remix Contest
(details below). Most importantly, for the producers, we've shared our entire Ableton Live project files! Producers can download the full project, see how we put the track together, do your own remixes (which we highly encourage), or even use the project as a template for your own future projects. All that we ask in return is that you spread the word about our track and video! Here's the original:
The files that you'll need for remixing (either the Ableton project or the audio Stems collection) are now available from my public Dropbox account. Just look in the "Bolivia's Remix Projects" folder. My Dropbox also includes a lot of other stuff that people might be interested in. Here's the link:
The RAR and ZIP versions are different compression types, but the same archives. ZIP files are universally compatible but larger than RAR. RAR will be a significantly smaller and faster download, but are only native to Windows. If you're using a Mac, download a free app such as "The Unarchiver" or "UnRarX" to unpack them.
If you're interested in the stems, you'll be able to use them in pretty much any DAW or audio editor. They're in WAV format, at 48000/24-bit. If you're going for the Ableton project, you must have Ableton Live Suite version 9.7 in order to be able to open the project. Only three resources external to Ableton were used, as detailed in the notes included in the folder. One external plug-in is a free download (Voxengo's Span), one is cheap (Dadalife's Sausage Fattener), and the last (Absynth 5) is more expensive, but can be replaced with a different VSTi of your choice if you don't have it. Here's the music video that we produced for this track. Thanks for sharing it around :)
Remix Contest Details: We're currently hosting a remix contest for this track. I'm personally sponsoring the contest with a prize of $300 (in Canadian dollars) for the winning track. That amount can be paid to the winner (in Canadian funds) as long as you have paypal. If the winner is a Canadian resident, I'm also willing to mail a cheque if you don't use paypal.
In addition, a number of other randomly selected entries will be showcased on my website, in this blog post, on our SoundCloud accounts, and through other internet media, along with the contact info and/or a promo website for the producers of those remixes (if you want to share such info). 1. You may share your remixes freely on any internet sites, in any file type(s), both before and after the closing date of the contest, as long as you name your remix according to the following convention: Urban Francis & Bolivia - Hijack (YOUR NAME Remix).
2. You should not attempt to register your remix with a professional label or publisher (due to potential copyright content clashes, which I'll explain at the end of this post). So if you share your remix with the world, you'll have to do it through your own personal publishing efforts.
3. Your remix can be any genre at all, of your choosing. Obviously, it will be easier to produce your remix in a style similar to the existing original, ie. some sort of techno derivative. But feel free to be creative.
4. You may submit up to two separate entries.
5. There is no restriction on the length of your submission(s), although we expect that the majority of submissions will probably be between 4 and 8 minutes in length. Having a submission that is shorter or longer than that range will not handicap you when it comes to judging.
6. The deadline for entries is 11:59pm (Atlantic Standard Time Zone) on Sunday night, February 26th, 2017. All judging will take place and winners will be announced within this post by March 15th, 2017.
7. This contest is open worldwide where permitted, to entrants who have reached the age of majority in their country of residence. Persons under the age of majority who create a remix may submit their entry through a parent or legal guardian as proxy.
8. Notwithstanding the above, this contest is void in jurisdictions where prohibited by law.
9. The prize for the contest winner will be $300 in Canadian dollars. The Canadian dollar is currently weak, and is worth less than the US dollar. This amount can be paid to the winner as long as you have Paypal or Interac Email Transfer capabilities. If the winner is a Canadian resident, I'm also willing to mail a cheque if you don't use Paypal or Interac Email Banking. I will not send a cheque or use any other type of money transfer service to non-Canadian residents. The recipient of the winning prize is solely responsible for reporting and submitting any relevant income taxes that might apply to your prize money in your country of residence. Canadian residents will not enjoy any preference in judging. We want this to be a global contest. Having said this, we do expect a number of Canadian entrants, so it's possible that the winner could be a Canadian. Just rest assured that we definitely won't discriminate against non-Canadians! The majority of the winners of our past remix contests have been non-Canadians.
10. Judging will be done by a panel of judges including Urban Francis and other associate producer friends. The judges' decision will be based upon the quality of music, production values used in making the remix, and possibly also on how innovative the remix is. The judges' decision will be final, and the judges will not provide feedback on why they chose the specific winning track above any other specific track.
11. You may share your remix publicly before the contest is over. However, the popularity of any shared remixes will not influence the judges' decision. The winner will be decided based upon the judges' perception of the quality of the submissions, not based upon a popularity contest.
12. Your remix is permitted to include any additional vocal/sample material that you generate, although don't take this as a suggestion that we'd prefer that. In other words, you may produce an instrumental version if you want, or you can add new vocal/sample material of your own. You may also include new sounds/instrumentation of your own. However, please do not include ANY samples or vocals that have been copyrighted elsewhere by another artist. Any entries containing someone else's copyrighted content will be disqualified. Any new samples, loops, or other audio materials incorporated into your remix must be royalty-free or exclusively designed by the remixer.
13. Musicians or producers who are under an exclusive contract with a record label are ineligible.
14. No purchase is necessary to enter or win this contest. In fact, there is nothing that you can buy. However, by entering this promotion contest, you agree that any costs that you incur in creating your remix are solely your own responsibility.
15. Any potential copyright or other intellectual property rights that may potentially vest in your remix will be granted to Bolivia (Jonathan Clark) and Urban Francis (Francis Cormier). Note that this is simply to avoid legal complications, and we do not intend to attempt to sell copies of your remixes.
16. It is expressly agreed that no payment is due to the participants for the production of your remixes. Only one winner will receive a monetary prize.
17. By providing your entry details to us, you confirm that you would like to enter the promotion contest and that you agree to be bound by these rules, terms, and conditions, ethics rules applicable on the internet, applicable laws and regulations, and all legislation applicable in your jurisdiction of residence.
18. Your remix must not contain any illegal, obscene, racist, defamatory, or sexual material, or any material likely to offend any person or any material likely to infringe upon any person's rights of privacy. The judges reserve the right to disqualify any entries based upon these or any other criteria. Entrants represent and warrant that their comments or public publishing do not contain any harmful, offensive, or inappropriate content, or any other communications which might defame, disparage or reflect adversely upon the promoters or our goods/services.
19. We reserve the right to disqualify any submissions that we believe to be the work of other producers.
20. The winning prize is non-transferable.
21. We accept no responsibility for entries lost, damaged or delayed, or for any inability to submit entries as a result of computer services, systems, software and/or server failure, error, interruption, defect or delay or any other technical malfunction, including problems with internet connectivity and/or filtering or content by any social media platform. Entries which are late, incomplete, corrupt, garbled, inaccessible/blocked, bulk, automated, ineligible, suspected as fraudulent, do not comply with the rules & terms & conditions, or which in our sole discretion affect the validity or operation of this promotion contest will not be accepted and are void.
22. Except to the extent that they may not be excluded by law, no representations, warranties, terms or conditions that are not expressly stated in these rules & terms & conditions apply to this promotion contest. We share no liability for any injuries, loss, or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with participation in this promotion (including any damage to entrants' or to any other persons' computer relating to or resulting from participation in, or downloading of any materials or software in connection with this promotion contest), or acceptance, use, misuse, or non-use of any prizes.
23. We reserve the right to edit and/or augment the rules & terms & conditions at any point throughout the duration of this contest, in case we think of something that we forgot to mention.
24. Your remix must not include any unauthorized samples or audio which have a copyright belonging to any other artist or entity. Phew. That was exhausting. To Enter: 1. Send a link to your track via email to Urban Francis in an uncompressed audio format, ie. WAV or AIFF format. The best way to do this is probably to put it into a Dropbox account (you can get one for free if you don't already have one) and share the link to the file with Urban Francis. If this isn't possible, you can find other services that would allow you to host and share your file. But to be honest, Dropbox is probably the best and easiest by far. An alternative would be to get a free Soundcloud account (if you don't already have one) and upload the file there, and enable downloads, then send that link to Urban Francis.
2. You should not send your project/session files.
3. You can produce your remix in the DAW or Audio Editor of your choice. We'd like to know which DAW you used, but that's mostly just out of curiousity. Also, although we haven't decided this yet, we might pick a couple of especially good entries to feature in our public dropbox (your entire project files) IF you're willing to do that. But you don't have to, and that won't affect how we judge the entries. Again, don't send us your full project/session files. For now, just tell us which editor you used.
4. We must have the following information: - Your full name. - Your producer alias, if you have one. - What country you're from. - Your email address (if unspecified, we'll assume that it's the one that you use to enter).
5. You can optionally include a photo with your entry. This is not mandatory, and won't affect your chances of winning. We'll only use this if you're the winner and if you happen to want a photo published.
6. In the event that your submission is randomly selected to be shared by us to a wider distribution, it would be helpful for you to tell us (when you enter) whether or not you want to share any promotional details with your remix. Details must be limited to one email address and/or up to four website links (soundcloud, facebook, etc.).
7. Urban Francis will reply to all submissions to confirm that they have been received. If you don't get a submission confirmation email, please send a second email which is TEXT ONLY to specify that you sent a submission. That way, if your original email (with links and/or attachments) got redirected to spam/trash, we can look for it.
8. The email address to send entries to is: fcormier27@gmail.com Good luck with your remixing. And if you can think of any remix or production-oriented message boards where you could share the link to this post, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!
Note: We have copyrighted and registered the original work with SOCAN, the Canadian music licensing agency. Although we are not pursuing copyright claims if the content is posted online, you should be careful if you do a remix and give it to a label that tries to enforce copyright claims on your own remix. Since we've already registered the work, we'd be able to prove that we hold the original copyright. In other words, make sure you don't get into a situation where you sell your remix to a label who then tries to use content-matching algorithms at services such as YouTube and Soundcloud to monetize remixes of your remix. If such a content-match occurred with our original track (which is on both of those services, and other services) then you'd have a lot of hassle trying to remove your track from the system. However, this shouldn't be an issue if you share your own mixes freely on YouTube, Soundcloud, and other platforms. It would only be if you tried to share through a label that was trying to collect publishing royalties that you'd run into an issue.
Don't forget to follow Francis on his SoundCloud account, because he posts free tracks a lot more frequently than I do! Here's the link:
Also, if any labels out there are interested in additional tracks similar in style to this one, let us know. We have a few unreleased tracks that we might be willing to place with labels, although we would not be willing to sign an exclusive or long-term contract with any one label. We'll do track-by-track one-off placements only.
We've recorded a series of seven separate YouTube videos that will help explain how we put together various parts of this project. The videos are aimed at intermediate and advanced Ableton producers. Here they are:
For results from an older 2016 remix contest of a progressive house track called "Courage" that Urban Francis and I produced together, which also has the Ableton project available in my public Dropbox, visit this link:
Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to bookmark this post, and come back shortly for more updates! We'll be posting a number of the remix contest entries here throughout March.
I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:
I recently sponsored a remix contest for a track called "Courage" that Urban Francis and I put together. We were overwhelmed by a flood of entries for the contest! We had more than a hundred entries, which was a LOT more than we expected. Narrowing down a final winner was pretty difficult. Here's what we did:
Urban Francis picked about fifty of his preferred tracks, and we shared those with eight of our friends who are music producers or DJ's. Each of those eight friends got to pick two tracks out of the group. One track would become a finalist, and another was a "noteworthy entry" that didn't make it as a finalist, but which our panel judge felt deserved more exposure. We then pitted the eight finalists against each other to come up with a final winner.
In judging a winner, the judging panel looked at a number of factors, but mostly the following four considerations:
1. Creativity - Any genre was acceptable, and we were really pleased with the variety that we got!
2. Professional Sounding Production - Does the remix sound like it's ready for professional mastering?
3. Identifiable - Does the remix have some identifiable elements of at least one of the original mixes, either vocal samples and/or melody lines or chord progressions?
4. Playability - Is the track a suitable choice for a DJ or radio programmer to include in a set or a show?
The final winner that was picked was a mix by Lazarus, of New York. We'll feature it first in this post. But we also wanted to share the other tracks submitted by the other seven finalists, and the eight noteworthy entries that were picked, so we're including SoundCloud links in the this post to all of these sixteen tracks. All of these are downloadable, so feel free to grab copies and share them with your friends.
You can also grab copies of all of these tracks (and of our original Ableton project files for this track) from our public Dropbox folder at this link:
I have to give a huge thanks, on behalf of myself and Francis, to everyone who submitted entries. Above and beyond the sixteen tracks that we've featured above, I've already heard a number of really professional sounding other entries, and it's obvious that a lot of participants put a lot of time and effort into making their productions. There were a lot of entries, including some that aren't featured above, that could arguably be judged winners!
I'm currently doing forestry work in the Canadian bush, so I haven't had much time to be heavily involved in this contest. However, I have a few weeks of downtime in early August, and my first goal is to listen to every single track that was submitted, and I'll be sharing a few more of the remixes in our Dropbox folder at that time.
Thanks for your interest in this remix contest!
I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:
