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From the Edit to the Remix

The Sunshine Acetates - In the Beginning

In 1975, after being a DJ for a few years in the Bronx and New York City (mind you,I didn’t realize I was a DJ), I realized that I wanted to make some of the records I liked to play longer time. It was then that I saved my money and bought my first reel-to-reel tape and cassette recorder, which I still have today. The first re-edits I did were using the pause button on the cassette. Trying to figure out how much lag time there was between letting it go and when it would actually record was quite a chore. I used a pencil to roll back the tape a bit. Then I got my reel-to-reel, a SONY TC-730,  along with all the tools needed, such as razor blades, etc.

I learned to edit tape after many hours of trial and error. In so doing, I became an expert on how and where to cut the tape to create all the effects I wanted. After editing several records to make them longer, I realized that I could achieve the same effect by mixing parts from different records. Thus, the basis for the medley was born.

After creating “Deadly Medley I”, I realized that what had made the track so unique also made it different to dance to. It was impractical for club use, something that became quite obvious by the looks I got from the crowd when I played it. While the mix sounded great and the multiple edits made it special and unique, it didn’t work in the club. Back to the drawing board! I wanted to do medleys that had a steady flow, just like  blending records on turntables. Next came “Deadly Medley II”. While it had a few multiple edits, I concentrated more on maintaining the flow of the music while also retaining the structure of a medley.

Finally, with the completion of the Village People and the Love And Kisses medleys, not only was I able to create a 10 minute-plus medley, I was able to construct a seamless flow of music from one song into the other. It reached the point where, if you didn’t know the music, you were almost unable to tell you were into another song. Finally , I got it! The re-edit of single songs were solely intended to make the songs longer. Introducing breaks from other records also made them more appealing to clubs, thus the Re-Mix Edit was born, at that time there were really no remix's other than the re-edits.

I’m grateful for the years when I spent countless hours in my living room studio learning how to pick and select the music and how to edit. I believe that all the time I spent working on my Sunshine mixes was my education and introduction to the world of genuine mixing and remixing. By the time I was doing my studio mixes and remixes, I was also able to do my own editing, something that almost no other mixer was doing at the time. Soon I was engineering my own sessions.

I know many people are credited with, or have taken credit for, the medleys and re-edits which, if you trace back to their Disco roots in the mid 70’s, are loosely based upon my early edits and “Deadly Medley I”. I’d like to think that my medleys and re-edits were the inspiration for the many that followed, as well as the many editors and mixer that followed.

For a wealth of information on the history of Sunshine Acetates, please visit my friend Patrick at.

Patrick’s Funk And Disco Page