Calendar Girl Interview

Here's the link and teaser to another interview I've conducted on behalf of ccMixter - this time with the talented, intelligent, gracious and funny Calendar Girl:

"In October 2006, singer song-writer Tamara Barnett-Herrin from London in the UK published a one sentence challenge to herself and to remixers around the World Wide Web: “I write one song a month. You remix and feedback. We make a record.” This experiment in songwriting and remix culture unlike any other yielded over 300 remixes, setting a new record at ccMixter. Twelve of them have been chosen to be published in an album titled Calendar Songs Volume I due out May 26 (check calendarsongs.com). Known to the ccMixter community as Calendar Girl, she has graciously agreed to an interview with ccMixter."

Trifonic remix packs, interview at ccMixter

From ccMixter: "Trifonic have just put the solo studio tracks from their debut album Emergence, into the Commons. Including a cappellas by Amelia June, Christina Courtin and David Forest.

Trifonic are brothers Brian and Laurence Trifon. Their music blends manipulated ambient sounds and synths with live guitars, strings and other instruments to create an alternative electronica sound distinctly their own. After working as a guitarist and programmer for electronic artist BT, Brian teamed up with Laurence in 2007 and composed several contest winning, standout remixes for ccMixter and licensed music to TV shows including CSI."

This one has a bit of a personal connection, since I've had the pleasure of doing a bit of a virtual interview with LT and Brian on behalf of ccMixter in connection with this release of their tracks.

Uploading remix packs to ccMixter.org

I've gotten this question a few times, so I'll just post my answer here for reference:

There's a 10 MB per file limit on uploads at ccMixter. So there is a very good chance, you'll have to split your sample pack into smaller chunks of less then 10 MB each. In addition, I would recommend using FLAC as a compression tool for the whole bunch before submitting them. Explanation of FLAC here: http://blog.emxr.com/2007/07/flac-file-format-for-audio.html

The exact sequence of steps would be like this:

1. Use the FLAC compression tool to create .FLAC versions of all your WAV files
2. Group the FLAC files into groups of less than 10MB each and create a ZIP file for each group
3. Upload the first ZIP file, creating the ccMixter page with all of the info for the song (name, description, bpm, tags, etc.) in the description also put a link to your original version of the whole song, so people can get an idea what is in your sample pack before downloading the whole thing.
4. After the first ZIP file is on ccMixter, open the page for that one, and click on the link called "Manage Files" on the right hand side of the page.
5. On the resulting page start uploading the remaining ZIP files (containing the FLAC files) of your song one by one. Don't worry about the textual description about the Manage Files being intended for different formats - many people are using the multiple file upload for the purpose of having a complete song sample pack.

If you're curious what such a page with multiple uploads looks like, have a peek at one of the a minor theory remix packs: Dream In Blue remix pack;

• on the right hand side of the page, you will notice the multiple files to download
• at the bottom of the page, you will notice the detailed breakdown of the contents of each ZIP file (ccMixter does that automatically)..

NOTE: You don't have to do the thing with the FLAC compression - you could really do the same thing with groups of ZIPd WAV files, but FLAC is a lossless (no quality loss) compression. But WAV files themselves can get rather large (over 10MB, sou you would possibly have to split some WAV files at a bar boundary somewhere to make them under 10MB each even when ZIPd.

Alternative: make ZIPd groups groups of a very high quality MP3 (320kbps) format - that one is technically still a lossy compression, but it sounds very good.

CalendarGirl does CalendarSongs

CalendarSongs is a great idea of a talented songwriter and singer from London. Appropriately calling herself CalendarGirl, she wrote and recorded 12 songs, one per month over a year and made the a capella tracks available on her CalendarSongs website as well as at ccMixter.org. The year is now up, but the remixes are still pouring in.

Her invitation is "I write one song a month. You remix and feedback. We make a record." While I have no idea what making a record really means in this age of iPods and mp3 files, that isn't the point. Her song writing is great, her voice is really nice to work with and in the end there are only winners: people who love music.

This is a wonderful idea, well executed and drawing remixers like moths to a flame, including this one:

ccMixter quick tips 2

This is part 2. Part 1, which deals with listening to music can be found here.

These few quick tips deal with ccMixter features for remixers as well as for providers of tracks, loops and samples.

• As a general rule, to upload content (including reviews, playlists forums posts, messages), you will have to register/login at ccMixter - to download stuff you don't have to.
  
  
• ccMixter is not intended to host your original music like myspace or other "bands and fans" sites. If you have creative commons licensed original music and are looking for a place to host it, you may want to consider uploading it to the archive.org audio section. ccMixter is dedicated to the specific musical form of remixing.
  
  
• ccMixter is remarkably spam free. That's not an accident, but a result of diligent observation of the uploaded content by the site administrators. Trying to spam the site is not only uncool, but pretty much a waste of time. This includes not so subtle "tricks" like slapping too many or misleading tags on uploads to try to show up in more search lists. That nonsense may work on youtube, but not on ccMixter. Whoever tries to be cute that way will find their upload deleted rather unceremoniously. Which keeps ccMixter more useful and enjoyable than so many other social networks. There's an acceptable place for on-topic self promotion in the pluggy plugs section in the forums. However, ads for medication, replica watches or too-good-to-be-true software deals don't stand much of a chance there either. :-)

Source tracks, samples, loops

Finding

• Go to the ccMixter home page, and then click on one of the high level tab menu items on the top of the page: Samples or A Cappellas. On those respective pages, explore the sub-menu tabs. Good places to start are the Samples Browse page and the A Cappella Melodies page.

Uploading

• ccMixter generally makes a high level distinction between vocal tracks (a cappella's) and any other kind of sample. When uploading, you'll want to make sure, that you upload to the appropriate area, because currently you can't change that high level distinction after you have uploaded your file. One nice feature on ccMixter is, that you can re-upload a file in addition to editing the information associated with a file after the original upload. This is great for correcting errors or adding more useful information or tags after the fact.
  
  
• There is a way of putting multiple files into a group, by using the "Manage Files" link on the right hand side of the page for an uploaded file. Although the purpose of that feature is mostly to allow more than one format for a specific file, it can also be used to group multiple files of a remix pack for an entire song together. Doing that creates less clutter in your upload page, however it makes all of the subservient files only accessible via looking for the main one. For example, I uploaded the instrumental loops for a song as additional files under the a cappella vocal tracks. This keeps all of the tracks/loops for an entire song together, but it makes it pretty much impossible to find the instrumental loops by themselves. Decide for yourself, what's more important to you: to keep the parts for a song together, or to make individual parts easier to find.
  
  
• For uploading high quality audio source files, use the FLAC format. It is the best of both worlds: The quality of an uncompressed WAV file at a significantly smaller file size. If you have several files, which are likely to be downloaded as a group, put them into a ZIP archive before uploading. You can decide to upload your source tracks in FLAC and in mp3.
  very cool: ccMixter will list the contents of your ZIP files on their download page.
  
  
• If you are uploading an a cappella track, consider putting a link to a full mix into the description. Since ccMixter doesn't like uploads of full mixes, an external link pointing to a full mix is a nice way of giving remixers an easier starting point to work from. Try to make sure, the target location will really hold your full mix for a long time, because somebody may only bump into your song months or years later.
  
  
• Make all of your file names as meaningful as possible. That's will make them more attractive to others. If it's a female harmony vocal to verse 1 of your song "I dream of fame", call it something like "I_dream_of_fame_vox_harmony_female_verse1". Of course, if the file is part of a ZIP archive containing various parts only for the song "I dream of fame", the file can be called "vox_harmony_female_verse1" and the ZIP archive can be called "I_dream_of_fame_vocal_parts".
  
  
• Try to make life easy for remixers by cutting the beginning of tracks and loops at even bar boundaries. It's generally not very useful to have many bars of empty space at the beginning of a track, and most certainly not at the end.
  
  
• If uploading instrumental tracks or loops, consider uploading a midi file in addition to an audio file. It allows remixers to make use of your playing or midi programming while using sound sources (hardware or software) of their own choice. That opens up an entirely new world of possibilities. For drum parts, it's the easiest to work with drum parts adhering to the GM midi standard kit note assignment. However if that's not possible, it may still be valuable to have the midi file of a drum part, if the groove is really cool. Midi files are currently a rare find at ccMixter, so uploading a few great midi loops may make you a ccMixter star in no time :-)

Remixes

• The best file format for complete remixes is mp3, because you want to make it very easy for listeners to enjoy your remix without having to do conversions. 192 kbps is a pretty good quality setting for most mp3 music files, sounding close to CD quality to most people.
  
  
• Don't forget to give credit for original source tracks used in remixes. ccMixter makes that very easy as part of the uploading process for remixes. It also allows you to add additional credits for other people's samples via the "Manage Remixes" link after you have already uploaded your remix.

All uploaded files

• ccMixter has a kind of a "draft mode", which allows you to have files and their data already uploaded to ccMixter, but not yet visible to anyone else but you and the site administrators. In ccMixter terminology that is called "unpublished". This can be very useful while you are still assembling some of the descriptions for a file, or while you are uploading additional files. You can already see how the page with the file will look, proof-read everything, test all of your links, before making the page with that file and it's descriptions publicly available.
  
  You can also un-publish a file after it has been published. But try not to do that too often, because it will confuse the heck out of people, who are following links. But it can be useful, when people have already linked to your file, and you found a major problem with it. In that case, you can un-publish the file, upload a new version of it, and then re-publish it. And all the previous links are still working.

That's it for now. Happy remixing!

As always, comments and corrections are welcome.

ccMixter quick tips 1

ccMixter is refreshingly different than - and in my opinion superior to - many of the cookie cutter social networking sites on the web these days. Here are a few quick tips for new ccMixter users (note: some advanced features require registration - it's free and easy).

Searching and finding stuff (people, songs, samples, keywords)

• It's pretty straight forward with one caveat. In the ccMixter databases, in terms containing spaces, these are converted to underscores. For example, the term "a minor theory" becomes "a_minor_theory".
• Don't overlook the small link to an "Advanced search" just above the main search box on the top right hand side of each page.

Listening to music

On pages where you can listen to remixes on ccMixter, you will find one or more buttons:

• Pressing the little speaker icon next to "Play", will play a song (or sample) in a little flash player applet inside your browser.
• Clicking on the "Stream" button will begin playback in the default media player of your computer/browser pretty quickly.
• Clicking on mp3, WAV or FLAC, will typically download a song before playing it.
• Very cool: a larger blue button "Stream This Page" will stream all of the items on that page.
• Ultra cool: To grab a podcast of the collection of songs on a page, open iTunes and then drag from the orange "Podcast" button on the ccMixter page onto the "Podcast" menu item on the left hand pane of your iTunes window. In iTunes, click on the little triangle to the left of the newly listed podcast labelled ccMixter to expand the list of individual songs, and then click on the little GET ALL button - and voilà, you are a a whole bunch of songs richer! You can now copy the songs of your choice into your main iTunes library.

One of the shining aspects of ccMixter is the myriad of ways you can find and organize remixes to listen to. Here are just few to get you going:

Newest Songs can be found under the "Remixes" main tab and then the "Latest Remixes" tab. Try the "PLAY this page" or "STREAM this page" buttons on the left hand side of the page. If you don't like a song, just use the regular controls to skip to the next one.

Remix Radio is found under the main "Remixes" tab and is a quick way of creating an instant randomized playlist of remixes from selection criteria.

• Quick tips: Editor's picks are only very few - they get you to a quick list of songs that are pretty decent, but there are tons of great songs that never make the Editors Picks. Don't rely on star ratings either, since ratings are a weak indicator of quality at ccMixter (and at every other site I know). There's no way to program a fair and easy to use rating's system, because it's more of a social issue, not a software one. I could rant on about the difficulty to create decent ratings systems - effectively a voting system, which is a better topic for political science scholars - but I'll spare you the boredom. :-)

Favorite Songs list keeping is another stellar feature of ccMixter (for registered users) via the concept of "Playlists". You can make many playlists - and your playlists are visible to others and vice versa. On pages containing remixes or lists of remixes, there is a button "Add to Playlist", which gives the option of adding a song to an existing playlist or create a new one. After creating a new playlist, you can rename it on the page for that playlist.When playing a playlist, the feature to open it in a separate window will keep the music going while you are browsing to other places.

• Very cool: Since the playlist feature works for sample files as well, remixers can create playlists of sample files, essentially creating a bookmarking system for files they may want to come back to.
• Ultra cool: Even if you are not a remixer, you can become a creator and maintainer of great playlists which other people can link to or subscribe to. If lots of people subscribe to your playlist, it will show up under the main "Playlists" tab in the "Hot Playlists" tab. If you've always dreamed of being a Radio DJ or station manager, here's your chance.
• Fun: Record and upload your own "station identification" as a short sample and put it at the beginning of your playlist, and possibly a couple of other places, but not so often as to be annoying to your listeners. (Listen to ccMixter's own "Remixer Radio" for examples of that).

Friends type of relationship management is implemented philosophically differently (in my opinion much better) in ccMixter. It's not reciprocal, but when you are on a person's profile page (and are logged in as registered user), you can click on the link "Add ... to your favorites" at the bottom of the page or a bit higher up is a link next to Notifications "Get Notified About ...", which allows you to get emails when the person has uploaded a new remix and/or has been remixed. So you can keep track of other people remixing the same materials as you as well as keeping track of your remixers. So it's really easy to keep track of relevant happenings at ccMixter without even having to go there. Since ccMixter doesn't have an interest to always suck you to their site and click on ads, it is much more gentle with your time than commercially motivated social networking sites. And that's a good thing!

• Very Cool: clicking on the Publicize link on a user's "Profile" page gets you to a page of html code snippets to include in your own website or myspace or similar sites. There are a number of different options - one of my favorites can make it look like this (yes, this player [invisible in some RSS feeds, though] is really included and piped in from ccMixter):
  
  

Private Messaging is implemented differently as well (philosophically and technically). Again, since ccMixter does not need you to click on advertising, it doesn't need to suck you to their site for every little thing. Registered users can send an email to a fellow registered user, by going to that member's profile page and clicking on the [email contact] link next to their name. That will send a message to the email account of that member. Note, that this will reveal the email address you have registered with ccMixter to the other person. So it's not private messaging like on some other sites, but facilitates making off-line connections.


There's quite a bit more, but you'll get the idea. Next time I'll try to mention a few ccMixter features for sample providers and remixers.

Happy ccMixter listening, and as always, comments and corrections are appreciated!

ccMixter.org - First Impressions

I've finally just started to experience both sides of ccMixter.org for the first time - once as content provider and once as as remixer. And the first impressions are very positive. If you want to hop right over and skip reading my notes below, I would recommend starting with the ccMixter about page.

So you are still reading this? Ok here we go:

General Impressions
Being sponsored by the Creative Commons organization, ccMixter is not littered with advertising and assorted visual madness so commonly seen at social networking sites these days. While I consider that as an overwhelmingly good thing, some aspects of the user interface take a bit of getting used to, because it is so refreshingly clean, different and not yet another clone of so many other over-hyped so called web 2.0 sites. It's a bit like using Google for the first time, after having used Yahoo for a long time. ccMixter packs plenty of web 2.0 punch, many things implemented much cleaner than on other sites. How many sites have we all visited with more than one "play" button for various snippets of music, but when you already have one piece playing, and press on another play button, the first piece continues to play? ccMixter gets this right. A newly pressed play button switches off the previous piece and starts playing your newly selected one. And the site handles changing browser window sizes and/or font sizes about as elegantly as can be done these days. Just those two things - done better than so many high profile sites - are a couple of immediate tip-offs about the thought, craftsmanship and caring that is going into this site. Victor Stone is the gentleman behind most of the programming code and he goes by the handle of "fourstones" on the site. And being a very good music maker and remixer in his own right, he is an active participant in remixing as well as uploading samples in addition to hovering around the forums to answer questions and give guidance. I wonder, if he ever eats or sleeps. :-)

ccMixter (so far) doesn't have a "friends" mechanism. I don't know, if that is a philosophical choice or a question of maybe adding it later. Personally I hate the inflated friends thing (and on many bigger sites it quickly gets to be that way) - it becomes quite useless, once there are too many friends for each person. But on the positive side a friends mechanism is one interesting way to link-hop and can be a fast way to find people one already knows, because a friend may have already marked them as friend. So a friends mechanism has worked for me at times, but only while the numbers of friend linkages is reasonably small - maybe up to 30-50? However ccMixter offers fabulous RSS feeds for following the exploits of the people one wants to stay in touch with. In addition it's easy to see what comments (called "reviews") a site participant has made, so that is one way to to link hop, although those lists end up quite lengthy as well. Maybe the system could be programmed to derive a "friends" type of list from multiple comments having been sent back and forth between individuals? In any case, it's a fascinating problem to solve for social networking sites, regardless of topic.

Generally speaking, ccMixter doesn't try to re-invent all kinds of wheels or make itself the hub of your entire life on the Internet. So while it clearly is a social networking site around musical collaboration (remixing being "sequential collaboration"), it's not there to handle your entire online life, promote your band or other stuff so common amongst the social networking clones out there. It's a place where reasonably serious music makers meet for the purpose of remixing. Overall ccMixter doesn't try to suck you into visiting the site all the time for ad revenue or to drive the hit counters up for a future takeover by one of the dot com giants. How refreshing!

Licensing
The licensing of source materials is straightforward creative commons based - this means content at ccMixter can be freely remixed, sampled, mashed up and re-published non-commercially (some content even allows commercial re-publishing). This type of licensing allows the music to flourish and is becoming recognized by more and more visionaries in the arts as well as in business.

Maintaining an Identity
Signing up to the site was straightforward and fast. One can create a profile page with a single small image (remember ccMixter doesn't try to be a promotional site for bands or general hangout for buddies), a link to one's home page, some "about" text and a couple of other informational items. A great feature is the ability to send emails to other users without knowing each other's email address. I much prefer that over the PM (private messaging) systems, which force me to log on to the hosting site to see what the message was. The PM madness out there is like a return to the stone age of multiple disconnected email systems. ccMixter scores big points in my book for its approach to messaging. (Even the software we're currently using for the a minor theory site gets this wrong - Note to self: fix that!)

Uploading content
This worked straightforward as well, but this is where I spent some wasted time and bandwidth, because I didn't read the upload page properly. While the initial distinction between acapella tracks and other loops is sensible, it would have saved me some time and ccMixter some bandwidth to be able to switch my uploaded files from "sample" to "a capella" after the first erroneous upload. To get the tracks into the right category I ended up deleting them and re-adding them through the right link. Similarly, it might be nice to switch a regular remix upload into a contest entry later on, or vice versa.

A ccMixter limitation, which I have a lot of sympathy for is the 10MB limit on uploads. I have sympathy for it, since in my own experience with our "a minor theory" site, uploads of more than 10MB's often fail. Combinations of web host limits, slow Internet connections and browser timeouts can make uploading larger files a difficult proposition. However, this limitation makes it quite a bit of extra work to upload entire remix packs. For example the remix packs for our a minor theory songs even in FLAC format are between 36 MB and 64MB. So I ended up just uploading a capella tracks and creating a link to the full remix packs hosted at our own site. Maybe it's just fine that way, too.

Submitting my remix to the Salman Ahmad remix contest was overall a very straightforward and pleasant process, but it did ask for a bit too much private data for my liking. Why does one have to part with that data just for entering the contest? I understand that some additional data may be needed for the winners of contest, but that would only be a small subset of the contestants and could be collected only from the winners at the time that it becomes necessary. Fortunately that additional private data isn't shown publicly on the site, but in the age of identity theft, I am a bit hesitant to submit private data to a website, because even the best designed, programmed, managed and well meaning website can suffer from a programming bug or an attack. In ccMixter's defense, one doesn't actually have to enter that data at the time of uploading the contest entry, but can fill it in later - could that be after one is notified of being a winner?

Finding things and staying informed
There's a useful general search function, although one needs to keep in mind that the underscore _ character is used instead of a space in most name and keyword fields. There are lots of links - you are always only one click away from any provider of content. There's a useful forum for more public group dialog and to get help. All content is tagged with system selected as well as uploader definable tags, so for example, one can quickly find content with tempo 125 to 130 bpm. Or a female melody a capella track. As mentioned before, there are RSS feeds all over the place. Maybe one nice addition might be to be able to get separate feeds for just one forum area rather than only a combined feed for all forum traffic. I find RSS indispensable to keep in touch with a lot of stuff, and can only highly recommend learning how to take advantage of subscribing to such feeds.

Listening (New paragraph added 2007-07-26 GMT)
In addition to having a really nicely implemented ccMixter Radio, editor's choices, and user ratings, ccMixter's playlist feature is a great way to remember, organize and track favorite remixes, or the worst of the worst, if you are so inclined!. You can have many playlists and listen to or subscribe to other user's playlists, including the omnipresent RSS feeds, so you can stay informed of other user's updates to their playlists.

So even for pure music listeners ccMixter offers a superior experience to most social networking music sites. As the quantity and quality of the content grows, there is little doubt in my mind, that ccMixter will become one of the legendary music destinations on the web. And because of the creative commons licensing, it is immune to a lot of the nonsense affecting internet radio and online music in general. As the corporate players in the traditional music business are becoming ever more aggressive in locking up music, sites like ccMixter will continue to bring music makers and audiences together. There is already quite a bit of quality music there - and even some of the less refined stuff has a raw charm to it, which reminds me of the magic of experiencing music more personally. intimately. The web version of musical performances in a small coffee-shop or club. Instead of leaving a tip, you can leave a review for the online performer. A nice comment makes any performer's day whether it be after a live or after an online performance. On a site like ccMixter it's much easier to avoid listening to crap than on most commercial radio stations with it's corporate rock bands, mickey mouse club alumni and television contest winners. And ccMixter doesn't have advertising blemishing the music experience.

Bottom Line (for now)
These are just my first impressions, and so far there is a lot to like about ccMixter - and in my opinion it's the overall best remixing site I've found so far. I hope that most of my remixing friends will start joining ccMixter. The site has the potential to become the best remixing treasure on the web - in many technical ways it already is, but a continuing influx of talented music makers will really fulfill it's potential. I recommend starting with the ccMixter about page

In addition, I've seen talk about additional collaboration features being added. That would be a great addition indeed, since remixing and collaboration are highly related and many remixers end up collaborating (heck, that's how a minor theory started!)

I'll try to actively participate at ccMixter by providing more samples from a minor theory and some of my own as well as remixing some other content from there outside a contest. It will be interesting to compare the experience of a site without a "friend" mechanism to other sites with friend mechanisms.

After having given ccMixter a first good spin (pardon the pun!) , I have a little bit of the same feeling, when I first bumped into Wikipedia or the Internet Archive. This has the makings of becoming one of the very special destinations on the web.


Any errors, omissions, or other thoughts, please leave a comment. - Thanks!

Salman Ahmad "Natchoongi" Remix Contest

This contest may be interesting for remixers, who enjoy world music - from ccMixter.org: Salman Ahmad "Natchoongi" Remix Contest: "Creative Commons and Magnatune are extremely proud to be working with international multi-platinum recording artist Salman Ahmad and are pleased to offer the audio source files from Salman's Natchoongi online under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, so that producers worldwide can use the sounds in remixes and new compositions. As a way to celebrate we are sponsoring a remix contest using those sources."

I like the licensing terms much better than those at sites like realworldremixed.com, since remixers are allowed to publish their remixes non-commercially in other places than the sponsoring site.

Curve music Remix Contest

A new excellent source of high quality audio materials from two different acts for remixing over at ccMixter:

Curve music Remix Contest: "... the audio source files from several tracks from Zone's 'MADRUGADA' and Tamy's 'Sou Mais Bossa' albums online under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, so that producers worldwide can use the sounds in remixes and new compositions. As a way to celebrate we are sponsoring a remix contest using those sources."

The material is from: Enzo Torregrossa AKA ZONE (featuring Manola Micalizzi) and Tamy.

The contest runs from June 6 to 28, 2007.

Funky Remixes

This one looks very interesting: Funky Remixes: "A Free and Legal Music Source | Free Remixes... Listen, Download, Rip, Remix and Share: artists like the Beastie Boys, Chuck D, David Byrne, Paul Westerberg and many others are mixing up the copyright laws of music. They want you to have free access to music.

Why? To allow fans and musicians to rip, remix and share music, free and legally, in support of ongoing music creation, promotion and evolution.

A copyright revolution, fueling a music evolution."

The site seems young still, but looks like it will be worth following, although I prefer sites with remix packs rather than only finished mixes. Found a great David Byrne tune there.

Medl remix contest

From vocoid.com : "Medl is giving you a chance to make a new melody with medly. Using the great Creative Commons tools at ccMixter, we're releasing the parts from all the tracks on our album, Medly, for your mixing and mashing pleasure. Use the raw audio to come up with a new take on our track, and if we like it, we'll include it in a remix compilation."

ccMixter - best general purpose remixing site?

This remixing site may very well be the best general purpose remixing site out there at the moment. I think the licensing concept is spot on. It allows music to flourish legally, while optionally preserving commercial rights for original artists and remixers alike:

ccMixter "... is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.

Remixers If you're into sampling, remixing and mash-ups grab the sample packs and a cappellas for download and you can upload your version back into ccMixter, for others to enjoy and re-sample. All legal."