How To Make A Mashup

So you want to make a mashup eh! Well you have come to the right place. In this Hub I will show you how to easily make professional sounding mashups, while going over each step on how to do so. By the end of this hub you should be ready to start making your own, and if you don't get it right away TRY TRY AGAIN!

To make a successful mash up you will need a couple of important things:

1.) A Mashup Software

Mixcraft 5 - This is what I use, it has a 30 day trial. Or you can find it elsewhere free, msg for details

Digital DJ Pro- Never tried it but it is free looks simple enough

Atomix Home - This is a free software as well. Its good for DJs

2.) Acapellas: These are the voice only parts of a song, these can usually be found by searching on youtube. There are also various sites you can download from.

3.) Instrumentals: These are the music only parts of a song and are much easier to find. 

Obviously doing this sort of thing requires you to have some sort of musical knowledge. This way you can easily tell ahead of time what is likely to work and what will Not. To start out just choose a simple beat such as Dynamite by Taio Cruz. Heres the instrumental.

Try & think of what would go with this song. Since it has a very simple beat, with a nice rhythm in the backround that helps with timing this will be easy. Take a look at the itunes top songs, more often than not these songs are also very simple and easy to incorporate into a mashup because the singing style is very repetitve and not complex. Lets say you choose Teenage Dream by Katy Perry, think in your head how it could work in this song, and remember that you can change the tempo afterwards.

Heres the link for Katy Perry Teenage Dream, at first just try hitting play at the same time just to get an initial feel as to how it works together. Now I want you guys to give it a shot.

Now after your first try at mashups tell me, how does it sound. If it sounds great then your already ahead and can skip down a step. If isounds bad theres obviously a problem. Most likely there is a problem with your BPM (Beat per minute) In a program like mixcraft it usually auto syncronizes the beats to fit, but still you usually have to do some manual stuff. This is the most important part of a mashup, if you screw up the whole song will song very bad. It will sound Like This

In Mixcraft you can change tempo here, in other programs there are similar easy to find functions.

Keep fiddling around with the tempo until it sounds on time with the instrumental. Some times you will have to change the tempo numerous time as the instrumental tempo changes. It takes a while but once you get good it will sound great. As a rule don't change the instrumental, change the acapella.

Once you have completed it(so you think) play the whole song listening for any parts that sound off beat, if they are keep changing that segments tempo until it works. You want to make a track that will make you proud so keep working till it sounds the best it can. 

If you get more comfortable, try adding more than one acapella to the mix. Follow all the same rules, though and try to incoporate the various acapellas when they make sense. Don't cut off  one acapellas chorus and insert another. 

Heres an example of the finished version of Katy Perry mashed with Taio Cruz. But I also added Ke$ha and Lady GaGa.

If your happy with your results, then move on  follow my steps and keeping on creating. Have fun!