After a five-year reprieve, the Backstreet Boys made a strong return to the charts in 2005 with the hit single “Incomplete.” Anchored by a catchy ambient piano motif, the ballad found favor with die-hard Backstreet fans as well as newer “Coldplayers.”

Enter Josh Harris — master remixer with dozens of major-label remixes to his credit, including The Killers, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Kelly Clarkson, and Utada (see “Remixography” below). When Josh got called to create a pumped-up radio version of the Backstreet Boys single for radio, he unwrapped his new Roland V-Synth XT and went to work.

Josh kindly supplied Roland with a few blog notes and audio clips from the project.

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Blueprint

“Lately, I’ve been working on remixes that are solely for mainstream radio, with no plans for a commercial CD or 12-inch release. This mix was one of those. With the original song being a ballad, I figured that the remix should be a literal doubling of the tempo. So, there was no vocal time-stretching necessary for this one.”

V-SYNTH XT

“I recently picked up a V-Synth XT after seeing it at NAMM, and was very anxious to use it on a high profile remix like this one. Roland keyboards have always played a huge role in my production and remix work over the last few years, so the XT was definitely a welcome addition to the arsenal!

“I knew that this mix was going to end up very guitar-heavy, but I would also need some texture and depth, to make the mix ‘three dimensional.’ Since the XT is loaded up with some moving pads and LFO-synced patches, I knew that I would find something within the factory presets. I usually like to tweak the sounds, but I was really under the gun to turn something into the label. So, factory sounds were going to have to suffice.”

Patchwork

“Even though this mix is very guitar-driven, I actually started with the keyboards and bass. One piece of advice that I can offer to aspiring remixers is to make sure that your track works in a ‘vocal, bass, and drums’ setting. If those three elements aren’t working together, then you will most likely run into problems as you build your track.

“That being the case, I needed to find some sounds that would work with guitars, and I arrived at two sounds on the V-Synth XT: patches 197 (used on the choruses) and 224 (used on the verses). I synced the XT to beat clock from my DAW so that all effects would be in time. I’ve become very comfortable with printing synth sounds with their effects, which adds a different color than using the plug-in reverbs and delays.”

Guitar Tracks

“After adding these two key XT sounds, I had guitarist Roger Alan Nichols lay his parts down, and then the whole mix came together.”

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The included MP3s, below, will give you an example of Josh’s final mix, along with the soloed XT parts. These could very well be the first V-Synth XT tracks to hit the pop airwaves. Many more XT creations will be airing soon, including a stream of remixes from Mr. Harris, whose remix mill continues to crank out the hit tracks.

For more on Josh, visit his site at www.seirenproductions.com.