Remixing Cosmic Gate—Body of Conflict

Body of Conflict was a popular progressive trance song published by Black Hole Recordings back in 2007. 

The composers of the track, Nic Chagall and DJ Bossi made the Extended Version a bit special, because it features techno, tribal and house elements which were a bit unusual from the regular trance sound.

Project Basic Settings

I used 130 BPM with G#-minor and 4/4 signature.

Workflow

I opened a new track and put the original track into it in the arrangement view. After that I figured out the rhythm of the drum tracks. I continued with decoding the bass, the pad, noise and finally I added my custom lead melody and chords. 

For the samples I used Simpler and for the synths I used Analog and Operator.

Kick

The kick is a usual 4/4 downbeat pattern found just like in any other trance or house song.

The kick is based on simple downbeats

Perc

The pattern is made of like it is accentuating the second and fourth downbeat.

Clap

The clap can be heard in every second and fourth downbeat.

Snare2

Just like the previous one the second and fourth downbeat is used for this one as well.

Hat

Eighth notes are used for this one. The downbeat sections are the first and third ones.

Snare3

This sounds like a snare from an orchestral kit. There is a slight pause after the second and fourth downbeat and after that the sound can be heard.

Perc2

Notes G#2 and F2 used for this percussion sound and tuned for the scale of the track.

Perc3

All sixteenth notes are used in this section.

Tops and Tops2

I selected two top loops from a minimal techno sample pack to use it in the remix. They are slightly distorted or saturated and they are blending nicely into the feeling of the track.

Drums Group

I used a little bit of reverb to give the drums a touch of 3D sound. All parameters are used very carefully. Dry wet 28%, decay 585ms, size 100 and predelay 7ms.

Bass

For the bass I used mainly G#0 and G#1. When the pad is playing the main lead the bass is also changing. Otherwise it’s G#0 and G#1.

Synth

I applied a saw wave for Analog with an almost fully closed lowpass VCF filter at 70Hz. For the VCA only a 763ms decay is used the rest is set to minimum.

Effect

A Compressor is set to make a sidechain compression based on the kick and an EQ Eight to boost +2dB at 241Hz and cut -1dB at 732Hz.

Pad

The intro section uses only the root note of the scale which is G#3. Then the main line is G#3—A#3—F#3—G#3.

Synth

`the default Operator patch is used with a sine wave enabled.

Effect

Astrong Reverb with decay 1.76 s, dry wet 100%, size 55, predelay 8 ms. A Compressor is giving it a pumping feel with sidechaining.

Lead

This is the main lead line. To make it stand out effects are applied to make it bigger.

Synth

Operator is used with two components. The first component is a triangle wave, the second is a sine wave and the sine (-43 dB) is modulating the triangle (0 dB). The tone is set to 70%.

Effect

To give the sound some movement and stage I applied Flanger (medium delay, medium feedback, 50% dry wet, 48% amount, 0.11Hz), Ping Pong Delay (47% feedback, 37% dry wet) and Reverb (decay 2.64s, 43% dry wet, predelay default).

Chords

The idea was to make the sound simple, because it was intended to use with chord with at least three sounds. So basically square or saw would be too much for this.

Synth

Almost same as the lead (triangle and sine), Operator is used but the sine wave got -20dB level.

Effect: Ping Pong Delay (48% feedback, 40% dry wet) and Reverb (decay 1.68s, 44% dry wet, predelay 69ms).

Noise

This is a rhythmic noise patch recreated from the original track. It uses white noise from Analog. 

The main feature is how the effects are used to make it stand out. It got a very big reverb, then a pumping compressor and finally an EQ to make the treble content more present.

Synth

Analog only used with the white noise enabled. VCF fully open.

Effect

Reverb (decay 7.8s, 100% dry wet, predelay 8ms, size 239), Compressor (sidechain to kick, big threshold, big ratio), EQ Eight (low cut at 430 Hz, shelving boost +8dB at 7kHz).

Mixing

I mixed as I went along creating the individual instrument tracks. During the mixing I aimed for a clear and big sound similar to the original track I used.

Mastering

The mastering process was simple. I used an EQ Eight to cut out the extreme lows and highs (40Hz low cut, 19kHz high cut).

Then I applied a Limiter to catch the peaks and give some volume (-0.3dB output ceiling, +2dB input gain).

Conclusion

That was my session of remixing Cosmic Gate – Body of Conflict. 

I recreated some of the instrument tracks from scratch, created melody, harmony, bass, and made a new section for the song.