Hi guys.

I grew up in the 80's and one of the traditions built up, at least in my life time, was when you had a favourite song you went out and bought the extended version on a 12 inch. Or cassingle. More playable in your car. ;-)

They are one of my favourite things of the 80's and beyond. And hearing an extended mix for the first time was almost as exciting as that first kiss. If not more. :-D

In any case, this has got me wondering, for a while now, how did they remix the songs? What I mean is on what equipment?

Even if an extended version or extended remix may be viewed as simplistic or primitive by todays standards. They featured an impressive range of effects for their day, considering this was before common computers were usable for doing so and before digital mixing took over in the main stream. I mean, you've got instrumental isolation, looping and note repeats, reverbs, delays, reversing, overdubs galore and completely rearranged tracks if not more on the list. That's no mean feat! Even doing the same on a modern DAW with a computer would be no walk in the park.

I'm not aware of there being a music super computer that the expensive studios would have had access to for remixing and mixing in general that would have been akin to the Quantel Paintbox used in TV studios. But I can't imagine doing all these effects on tape machines back then. Even advanced ones. My grandfather had a reel to reel tape machine that was fun to play with back then.

I've looked up info on the net and I can find history of remixes but that's all really. I want the technical info. So, who knows how it was done? Thanks. :-)