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Free Drum & Bass track voted for by you!

29th October 2016 by Nicky Havey Leave a Comment

Ladies and gentlemen, how are you?! What a busy week this has been in my music circle with the wonderful Maya Stone hooking me up with DJ D-Vox who played out a couple of tracks that were on this month’s free download poll on her show last night! That prompted a big response and for the first time, we had a dead heat!

Ooooo exciting!

The two tracks that were involved were actually not the ones played out on D-Vox’s show, instead they were:

Jx – Son of a Gun (Nicky Havey remix), a blast from the past that has been re-engineered more times than the High Wycombe buses!
True Illusion feat Jenny Jones – Killing Me, another remix of True Illusion by me, am I sponsored by him or something?!

Which free download do we get?!

As this was a dead heat, I used the very high tech solution of putting these songs in to a hat and randomly picked out Jx – Son of a Gun (Nicky Havey remix)! Wooohoooo!! There’s a link at the bottom of this article which will take you to your free download!

Is there a story behind this one then?

Well, it’s not as extravagant as some of my previous stories but there’s still something 😛

The remix itself came from one of those afternoons back in March 2012, when I definitely should have been spending time slightly more productively on my PhD! That’s right, this remix is actually 4 and a half years old! I was sat at my desk in my room, snooping around my music software and just started playing around with sounds, hitting my keyboard randomly until suddenly, I heard something that seemed very familiar.

It reminded me of Son of a Gun by Jx as it popped up randomly on my mp3 player during one of my many walks in to Uni. A quick online search to see if anyone had done a Drum & Bass remix of it yielded no results so I thought, let’s just go for it! I found the vocal and the song basically came together almost too perfectly! It was one of my earliest songs I uploaded to SoundCloud and quickly became very popular.

So why is it in this download poll?

Put simply, my production skills back then were terrible, the balance of the sounds was awful and I took it down for a few years, until I started getting better at balancing my tracks (the purchase of proper studio speakers helped with that conquest). That’s when I started sending my songs to be professionally finished by the guys at the Audio Animals studio and, once completed, I put this in the poll and as you voted for it, you can now blast it out of your car speakers!

In fact, there is a funny story behind this, which starts off with my friend, Photo Addict (who helped me set up this website) downloading the first version of this remix 4 years ago. He went to his friend’s place as his mate was showing off about how he had these brand new speakers fitted in to his car. Now, remember how I said my production skills were a little bit loose back then? It turns out the bass was a little bit too strong and I received a message later that day from Photo Addict saying that the track blew his mate’s car speakers 😛 Whoops!

Anyway, click here to get the final remix, car speaker friendly (although I make no guarantees that it won’t cause damage – disclaimer 😀 )

Thanks for the support and getting involved! More free downloads to come, make sure you subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a trick!

Nicky

The people have chosen… and wisely!

11th June 2016 by Nicky Havey Leave a Comment

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more….

Oooooo, you have chosen so very wisely as I put a drum & bass twist on an absolute 90s classic! The results of last month’s poll are shown below and you can see that the track you wanted with the most votes was Haddaway – What is Love? (Nicky Havey remix)!

You may have noticed on my SoundCloud upload that it is 4 years old already. Well, I know time flies but that’s a bit ridiculous isn’t it?! How has 4 years passed before this has been let loose again in the public domain? Pull up a seat (you’re probably sitting down already) and let me tell you 😉

Noobish Beginnings

It all started in October 2012 when I was just messing around with the music software as I was looking to get to grips with how everything worked. I eventually stumbled across a VST contained within and started smashing the keyboard to see what various effects would happen, which explains the short, stabbing opening sound you hear throughout the remix.

As I then explored chords, other sequences and sounds, the melodies came together with a quirky, lively drum beat. I could sense a high energy track in the making. Suddenly though, out of nowhere, I just hummed to myself, “What is love?” and then the hunt began for the vocal (acapella) of “What is Love by Haddaway”! I was hoping that the key of the acapella would fit perfectly in to what I had made and luck was on my side as it did!

First upload

I wanted to gauge how the remix would go down with my followers back in 2012 to see if the risk of remixing such a well known track would be worth it. I uploaded a short clip and, to my amazement, people were really taking to it and were asking that I finish this! As a man of my word (although working on a completely different time zone), I listened to the people and finished the track off (with a “perfect mixdown” using the latest in-ear running headphones and no mastering). Well, at least I finished the landscape of the song off….

Many revisions later….

I decided to hide the remix from my SoundCloud page about 2 years ago (2014) as I knew the sound quality was terrible but it still remained my most played track and the first to go over 1,000 plays. Time went on and I was slowly investing in better music equipment, eventually getting around to revisiting some of my older tracks. As I was wading through the back catalogue, I stumbled across the “What Is Love” remix and thought I just had to finish it for good, get it mastered by the Audio Animals and give a chance to the people to vote for it in the poll, which they did and now it’s here to stay 😀

I hope you enjoyed that little story and don’t worry, there is plenty more to come 🙂

The picture is from Ben Nevis in Scotland, which I took when I did the UK 3 Peaks challenge in 2014.

Take it easy

Nicky

And the winner is….. York – On The Beach (Nicky Havey feat. TigerPaw remix)

30th April 2016 by Nicky Havey 3 Comments

Whether you’re a believer in fate or not, the story behind this next free download gets more surreal the more I think about it! Pull up a chair (which you probably already have) and let me tell the tale of how this remix came to be as it’s so much more than just a case of “here’s another track for you.”

From the beginning

When I first heard “York – On The Beach” about 16 years ago, it was the CRW remix on the Ministry of Sound Ibiza Annual (2000). I was really in to trance back then and instead of doing homework, I would be listening to these anthems, which was a lovely and welcome distraction 😛 The atmosphere of the breakdown, the use of the guitar sample from “Chris Rea’s – On The Beach” and the great energy it provided meant I was hooked on this song for many years.

Drum & Bass remix?

Fast forward to about 2011 when I started experimenting with music software, York’s On The Beach was one of the first songs I wanted to have a proper go at remixing. After having a long look around the internet, YouTube and SoundCloud, I couldn’t really find a drum & bass remix of this song, all I could find were club version remixes. I plucked up the courage to contact York after searching on Facebook and via his website (in 2012) and I knew it was a long shot asking for stems and getting a response from one of the big names in trance music but if you don’t ask, the answer will always be no, right?

Contact!

To my amazement, I promptly heard back from him. He said he would try and dig out the stems but he made the original a long time ago and many computers had been used since then (with all the pc upgrades), so whatever he had left, he sent over. Of course, I was beaming with delight at this point and, using a combination of cutting samples from the CRW remix, the stems York sent and my own style, I had made something that I was pretty happy with but felt that the sound quality wasn’t right. At this point in my music production “career”, I didn’t even know what mastering was and I was using in-ear headphones to actually get the balance of sounds right… laughable now really!

Something’s Missing

Events outside of music (i.e. my PhD, yes THAT again) and inside the music scene dictated play for the next 18 months (up to the end of 2013). I was part of AirPlus Recordings and at the time, I wanted to see if I could get the remix released with this label. How naive! Unless you get permission (in writing) from the original artist, you can’t release a remix – copyright infringement anyone?

However, a new song evolved from it all. I was speaking with TigerPaw, the owner of AirPlus, and he said that he would make a guitar melody himself that we can use to put in the song, take out the “On The Beach” samples and I can slap in some female vocals from a royalty free sample pack. The remix had now transformed in to a collaboration, which we called “Something’s Missing” and it got released as part of my first ever LP – AirLove.

Rewind the clock

I later decided to leave AirPlus as it wasn’t right for me at the time to release music, though I am still good friends with TigerPaw. All of my tracks from the AirLove LP were uprooted and I decided to go back to that “Something’s Missing” track. It didn’t feel right as the foundations of the song were for the “York – On The Beach” remix. The core of the song was still there but now I had an amazing guitar riff from TigerPaw to play with. I asked if he’d be happy for me to use this still, I apologised to York for taking FOREVER to get back in contact and I started to work on it again.

Mastered

Around the middle of 2014, I started getting my tracks professionally finished off by the Audio Animals and I could see the huge benefits of doing that. It wasn’t until September 2015 that I felt I had got the remix to a suitable point and TigerPaw was happy with it also. I sent it off for mastering and when it came back, I forwarded it on to York just before the new year. I thanked him for his patience seeing as it had been close to 4 years since I actually first contacted him about doing the remix! He downloaded the song and that was the end of it…. or so I thought!

Fate?

Earlier this month (April 2016) I wanted to start something new on my website. I used to give my music away for free up until getting signed to Allowance Records (March 2015). However, as I am releasing my original tracks now, I thought I would look back at all the remixes I have made so far and give the power to the people to vote for which one they would like FOR FREE. The first poll has recently just come to an end (earlier today) and I want to thank all of those who took the time to go through the list and make your votes count!

Last night, the “York – On The Beach” remix was in the lead by one vote and it held out for the victory – see the poll results below. What I wasn’t expecting though was for York to actually post the remix up on his Facebook and SoundCloud page last night! I had no idea that was coming and I certainly didn’t get much sleep due to my excitement! He either knew the poll was running and the remix was leading (which is highly unlikely, let’s face it, I’m no mega star here and it was just a fun poll that I didn’t tell him about) or there’s some amazing things that happen independently and align themselves for a brief moment!

Poll results April 2016 — Winner of April 2016 Poll: York – On The Beach (Nicky Havey remix)

Click here to go to my SoundCloud page and get your free download!

Thanks to everyone who got involved, I hope you enjoyed the story and the remix too!

Same again next month 🙂

Nicky

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