8 Things to Know Before Making a Mashup
- Making one can be relatively easy, making a good one? Not so much. Anyone with Audacity, Adobe Audition or heck even GarageBand can cram two songs together but actually making it sound good will take more patience than most of us have.
- Prepare to go unnoticed. Search “mashups” on YouTube or SoundCloud and there will be hundreds if not thousands of individuals like you trying to get their mashups noticed. There is no “instant fame” for this like there would be for makeup gurus or even cover artists.
- Expect people to not initially think you’re an artist. A lot of people turn their noses up at DJ’s, believing their talent is taking form others rather than creating something new. Despite how untrue, made clear by this mashup of “Gunpowder & Lead” by Miranda Lambert and “The Weight” by Shawn Mendes.
4. Despite how good it might be, some people simply hate mashups. What can you do?
5. Some celebrities will not be flattered with what you do with their songs. Artists like Prince or Don Henley will not be thrilled if you try to market on their songs and that’s how they will see it.
6. With that the being said, the legality of this whole ordeal can be rather tricky to maneuver. Canadian DJ Daniel Kim, who rose to fame with his yearly Pop Danthology, told disappointed fans he would not be making a 2016 mashup due to his previous ones being taken down on YouTube for copyright infringement.
Here you can read more on the legal side of this here
and here
7. That insane mashup between Linkin Park and The Chainsmokers you were thinking of making? It’s already been made, I know this because I just listened to it. Being original here will be hard because anything and everything is touchable. Here’s just a few mashups that shouldn’t work, but they totally do.
8. Above all? Forget what everyone else says and do you. If you want to walk in to the legal land mine that is mashups, more power to you. Who knows, you could be the next DJ Earworm and help create a little something like this:
