Christian Pop/Rock Mixes & Mashups

In the last week or so, I’ve developed another interest – or at least re-awakened it from slumber – from a time some years back. For now, this is just another little dabble, but we’ll see where it leads.

I was watching YouTube clips of a Youtuber called Kimaginati0n, who created an annual mashup of the top pop songs of the year, known as “Pop Danthology” since 2010. Watching the energy and transitions from song to song started me thinking that it would be an awesome idea if there was a Christian equivalent. So, I started with a YouTube search but didn’t find anything. The closest thing I could find was where some Christian songs were arranged back-to-back. The following documents the experiments I’m dabbling in, so stay tuned and follow my progress.

Experiment #1: iTunes music mod

In iTunes, you can pick a song and edit its info, including start and end times. This has a cropping effect on the song whilst preserving the original full track. Coupled with the feature of “Convert to MP3”, you can create separate audio clips of specific segments of a song. This is the technique I applied to the create the following:

  • Endless Light (Hillsong Live – Cornerstone):
    • Intro
    • Chorus
    • Bridge
  • You Alone Can Rescue (Matt Redman – You Alone Can Resource, Premiere Performance Track):
    • Intro
    • Chorus
    • Bridge
  • You Are King/Amazing Love (Newsboys, The Ultimate Collection)
    • Intro with Verse 1
    • Chorus
  • Always Will (Hillsong Live, Glorious Ruins Deluxe Version):
    • Intro with Verse 1
    • Pre-Chorus
    • Chorus
  • Forever (Chris Tomlin, How Great Is Our God – the Essential Collection):
    • Intro with Verse 1
    • Chorus
    • Instrumental (woahs)
  • Always & Forever (PlanetShakers, Evermore):
    • Chorus
  • You Are Good featuring Brian Johnson (Bethel Live, Be Lifted High):
    • Chorus
  • For Who You Are (Hillsong Live, Mighty to Save):
    • Chorus with instrumental

These 17 distinct tracks form the building blocks that for the purposes of Experiment #1 form a single playlist where the iTunes song cross-fade setting is set to 3 seconds to ensure a form of basic continuity.

Three complete music tracks, unedited or cropped form the complete collection of music:

  • Hosanna (Hillsong, Saviour King) – first 1:44.
  • Introduction (Hillsong, United We Stand)
  • Always Will – Instrumental Introduction (Hillsong Live, Glorious Ruins Deluxe Version)

This basic experiment leaves all tracks in their original key of composition, which provides for an interesting listening experience in that the random shuffling and order of tracks does not always produce the optimal transition, particularly where some keys clash. On the up-side, some transitions blend quite nicely and given the minimal effort, makes for a satisfactory outcome. Where tracks fade in and out, there still remain small gaps of silence.

Experiment #2: DJ Mix using Garageband

For this experiment, the 20 music tracks will be compiled into two tracks in Garageband. At the time of initial writing, this is all in plan, and yet to be implemented/tested. It is in this experiment where we start to address the limitations that manifested in Experiment #1.

Garageband offers the simple ability to transpose keys where key transitions between tracks create a disharmony. The use of two tracks also allows for a more precise manipulation of timing and transition, including specific looping/repetition.

Further, to help with blending the entire composition, Garageband offers a large library of loop sounds, instruments and vocals to add and embellish the entire production. This phase of the experiment will take some time to complete, but I do have an idea of how to order and blend each of the tracks together.