My Process

Converting and Downloading

In the beginning (and up until very recently), I would grab screen recordings on my phone directly from YouTube of both acapella tracks for the mashup songs as well as the instrumental of one of them to be the backing track. However, a schoolmate of mine shared something with me that made my life a whole lot easier. There is a website where you can convert YouTube links into MP3 or MP4 files. This method is much less time-consuming, of course, and it’s quite accessible. So, I have been utilizing this function and saving each individual piece as an MP3 file.

BPM Matching

If I cannot find a perfect acapella or instrumental track, the backup to that is the app I use for BPM matching called Moises. This app allows me to remove the instrumental or vocals from any file I upload into a “Project.” It also has a feature that increases or decreases the BPM. I typically choose the faster of the two songs as my instrumental track, so I usually speed up the BPM of the other song to perfectly match the BPM of the instrumental track. Moises can also change the key of the song, yet I do not utilize that feature because changing the key also changes the pitch of the vocals. Transposing to a higher key makes the vocals higher-pitched, and vice versa.

Editing and Saving

Finally, with all of my mashups (and every video I have ever edited for YouTube), I bring all of the pieces together in iMovie. I start by using a regular image as my surfaced “clip” or “film,” then add in the newly tweaked audio pieces into it as audio strings, lining them all up together. For example, my mashup “Steal My Modern Girl” (One Direction’s “Steal My Girl” and Bleachers’ “Modern Girl”) uses the instrumental for “Modern Girl.” I attach that audio clip first, then add the “Steal My Girl” acapella audio clip. I then line up that clip with the instrumental to keep everything in time and on beat.

Once I throw in the acapella to the backing song, I blend and chop it all together as I so wish, bringing each acapella clip back and forth between each other. I also adjust the volume of each audio clip so that one song does not sound louder than the other, and that the instrumental track isn’t louder than both acapella tracks. At the end, I throw the cover art for the mashup (which I create using PicsArt) as an overlay to the reel and stretch it out over the entire project. Finally, I save the finished iMovie project to my camera roll.