Imagine Bush as Lennon . . . you’ve entered the world of the mash-up, a world where songs collide and U.S. Presidents’ words get mixed around into whatever you want. (Well, I hope — I wouldn’t entirely put it past our President to spontaneously break into Lennon lyrics way out of context.) Take a walk on the Wild Side, indeed, courtesy our friends at one of the zaniest radio stations on the planet, New Jersey’s WFMU:

Walk on the Wild Side Mashup (Bush vs. Lennon)

Oh, and Word to Jersey City. Represent. And for taking us on truly a strange trip, this track is CDM Track of the Week. Thanks, Emory!

Artists letting you rethink or destroy their work? You bet — Trent is at it again.

When Nine Inch Nails released their single The Hand That Feeds in GarageBand 2.0 format, it was a huge hit. Hundreds of fans posted remixes in the first week after the release. But Windows users — and even GarageBand 1.x Mac users — were left in the dark.

Now, Trent Reznor is back with another NIN single, ready to remix / mash-up with raw tracks, but this time he’s got the multi-format thing down. The new single, Only, is available for users of several Windows/Mac DAWs:

Mac: Apple GarageBand 2.x or later (also compatible with Logic Express and Pro 7.x)

Mac/Windows: Ableton Live (hurrah!)

Mac/Windows: Pro Tools (HD, LE, M-Powered)

Windows: Sony ACID (Xpress/Pro)

I’m not going to pull any punches: I’m psyched about the Live version more than any of these. Sure, Pro Tools is the software NIN used to make the track, but Live’s remix tools are without par among these options, so if you’re ready to really radically remix and mash this one, Live is the way to go. That said, I’m equally excited this isn’t an exclusive of any one app: if experimentation is the aim, having choices is great. More on this story and artists letting listeners remake their music:

The Hand that Feeds – analysis of previous single, and why this track wasn’t produced in Logic as some had speculated

Beatmixed on the previous single (and why it was a pain for Windows users

Remix-friendly songs in the near future?

Audiohead goes inside NIN’s studio

Digidesign.com on the new single

Here’s the idea: a remix/mash-up artist collects a bunch of MP3s. (Hopefully Creative Commons for legal reasons, but I digress.) An app instantly locates all those files. She types the first few letters to find a file, drops the file into a program, and it instantly beat-matches the song. Only one app really fits that description: Ableton Live 5. (see my quick take on features, or go direct to the source) Three reasons this matters for mash-ups:

1. MP3 support: Mash-up artists want to be able to easily pull compressed audio from their hard drive, which was one of the reasons previous versions of Live didn’t catch on. (now, if only other formats worked, too . . .)

2. Files without hunting: One of the major problems with almost every DAW on the market has been how hard it is to navigate the tons of audio files we all have on our hard drive. By implementing a global search feature, Live 5 does away with that.

3. Real tempo matching: Oh, sure, Live 1-4 (and many other programs) worked seamlessly for regular audio — but any complexity required manual placement of warp markers and lots of tweaking. Other software works fine with prepped loops, but requires extra work for raw audio. You’ll still want to drive manual in some cases, but it looks like Live 5 could finally deliver on the ability to just drag and drop audio and manipulate beat and tempo “magically.”

And this isn’t just of interest if you’re making a mash-up — the raw audio could be your band, or another of your tunes, or whateer you want. But these are predictions, not a review. The real proof comes when we all get our hands on the public beta. (See CDM’s look at Live 5’s new features; the announcement is minutes old so expect more soon!)

Chris O’Shea points us to Ben Hanbury’s project Recycle TV, which combines an old TV set (well, actually, he substituted a picture of one for ease), a Max/MSP patch, and Eric Singer’s real world-to-MIDI interface, the MidiTron. Via copyrighted and open source clips, you can mix together musical phrases constructed from miliseconds-long clips. The beats created are even cooler, perhaps, than the VJ effect of the clips; check out the video. (I especially like those Wookie moments. You’ll see what I mean.)

Best of all, Ben has shared his Max/MSP code; see the project blog. I always like to see how people patch in Max; it’s like a window into different personalities.

As for Ben’s underlying statement about copyright, I’m not entirely sure — he claims the copyrighted text would be public domain because of their age, though I don’t know of any copyright law under which Top Gun would be public domain. On the other hand, Star Wars creator George Lucas (remember him?) was originally inspired by avant-garde filmmakers who raided old film stock. Copyright violations have long been part of the creative process, that’s for sure.

I’ve been playing with the Nine Inch Nails track (reported by many, many sites in the last few days: NIN made their new single available in GarageBand 2.0 format). I have to say, this is a lot of fun. To me, the song sounds better with more tracks muted: the lesson here is, all of us are loading way too much into a mix. (I know, I know, it’s NIN: but listen to just the vocals alone and tell me it’s not a lot more interesting bare?)

Trent Reznor suggests he wanted us to be able “to create remixes, experiment, embellish or destroy what’s there.” And what did Trent’s posse do with it? From the readme: “All work effectively stopped for a while – it’s fun to mess around with. I’ve now heard a country version of the track as well as an abstract Latin interpretation (thanks, Leo).”

So it wasn’t just me adding banjo. Do I think more songs should be released this way? Yes, I do. Being able just to turn off certain tracks makes the CD more live, lets you hear things you wouldn’t have heard.

For the record, I’m guessing NIN did not use Apple Logic Pro as some have speculated on the Web. Trent, for his part, says in the readme they used Pro Tools. It’s no surprise Logic showed up in the creator codes: Logic supports OMF import and GarageBand export, so they went that route to get the file from PT to GB. Too bad: Trent, give Logic a try the next time you fire it up. (I can see it now — Trent’s Dub remix!)

The normal release of the NIN single The Hand That Feeds
is, of course, on iTunes — in audio, not GarageBand format. (Missed opportunity, Apple?)