Over the years of my DJing career I’ve seen a hundred different ways of tagging and titling remixes. Some distinct trends in naming and tagging have emerged thanks to the popularity of remixing and posting music online. In this post I’ll outline the way I label my tracks, and distinguish between some of the common remix types.
THE COLLOQUIAL REMIX NAMING CONVENTION
Original Artist – Original Title ft. Featured Artist (Remixer Name RemixTitle Remix Type)
Example: Zedd – Clarity ft. Foxes (Balloonbear Remix) (Dj CUTMAN Edit)
Wow, that’s a lot of info. This is all typically stored in an audio files title tag, while the rest of the MP3 tags are optional. Let’s go over what all these elements mean:
Original Artist – As you might have gathered, this is the name of the artist who produced or released the original song the remix is based off of. This is not the name of the remixer.
Original Title – The name of the original song the remix is based off of.
ft. – Optional, short for “featuring”, used for included a separate artist who significantly contributed to the original song, like a guest vocalist. Occasionally appears as “feat.” or “featuring.” This field should only be present if it exists in the original song title.
Featured Artist – Optional, the name of the featured artist, if any.
Remixer Name – The name of the producer or DJ who created the remix.
Remix Title – Optional, a place indicate genre or project title for the remix. This remix title by Electric Children is ridiculous and also amazing.
Remix Type – Typically, this last part of the title tag is simply the word “Remix”, but there are many different kinds of remixes, so I will briefly overview some of the most common kinds of remixes
- Remix – The catch-all term. Years ago this word meant an audio engineer literally re-mixed the song’s original multitrack recording (known as “stems”). Today, a remix refers to any song that contains a sample or direct reference of another song. Sometimes this is created from the song’s stems, other times just the vocal track. If no samples or stems are used, it is not technically a remix, but a cover song, but sometimes these are still referred to as Remixes for marketing purposes.
- Bootleg – An unofficial remix created by sampling an MP3 or audio file of the entire song. Bootlegs are not created with stems.
- Edit / Fix – An Edit or Fix is remix or bootleg that makes only minor adjustments to the original song. Changing a drum pattern, equalization, tempo, or the song’s arrangement all constitutes an edit. Edits are commonly created by DJs who would like to use a song in their sets, but need to make adjustments to fit the format of their show.
- ReEdit / ReFix – A ReEdit or ReFix is an Edit or Fix of another producers Edit, Fix or Bootleg.
Something I missed? Know a better way to title remixes? Let us know in the comments!
Thank you for this concise approach. In the end I think that putting information into inappropriate fields is only a bandaid. The best and cleanest approach is to have have sufficiently distinguished tags/fields to tag remixes properly. If the model doesn’t match reality, than the model needs an update!
For example using MusicBee on Windows I can set an artist’s role to be either ‘Artist’, ‘Guest Artist’, ‘Performer’ or ‘Remixer’. Additonally there are fields for the composers(s) and the conductor(s).
While the tag structure exists, of course the player software service needs to support it! I found this to be the larger problem of the two. What good is all the accurate tagging if the player doesn’t interpret the information correctly?
This was very helpful. Thanks so much. This is our first venture into a remix. Being mastered today so I’m glad I read this before I submitted the title. So if I got it right, the title should be:
Tracy DeLucia – Stand By Your Man (The Hell I Am) (Deckerator “I’m So Sorry” Remix).
Long title but looks good, much appreciated.