Frequently Asked Questions

What is this site all about?

This is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

Yeah, but is it legal?

Music on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons license. You are free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses. Each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it.

Sometimes, however, a contributor might accidentally upload copyrighted materials he or she doesn't have permission for. If you know of such a case or are the copyright holder of something posted here without your permission or a Creative Commons license, please let us know.

I see you host songs from the Beastie Boys and David Byrne. Did these folks really say it was OK to sample their music?

Really.

Can I mix in my own music with these samples?

Please do. Treat it like a chord progression you borrowed from a well known song and transformed into something that's your own by mixing in your own expressions. It's the same with the music under these CC licenses wherever you find them, on ccMixter or elsewhere.

Do I have to post my remix to ccMixter? (Can I post it to say, Acid Planet?)

No you don't have to post your remix to ccMixter. Yes you can post it to say, Acid Planet. The licenses do not require that you post your creations here, though particular sampling contests may have their own rules about re-posting content, so check the specific contest rules. Part of ccMixter's purpose is to promote the use of Creative Commons license to musicians who have not yet been exposed to them. Software developers should recognize this: ccMixter is to Creative Commons as sourceforge.net is to GPL.

So if I make a new song that includes samples from this Beastie Boys song, can I post it to my own site?

Yes, provided you're not making commercial use of the thing. Many tracks on this site (e.g. by the Beastie Boys, Chuck D and the Fine Arts Militia, and My Morning Jacket) are under some form of Noncommercial license, which allows file-sharing and sampling but prohibits any commercial use whatsoever. Many other tracks on the site are under licenses which allow noncommercial file-sharing and even commercial use of samples. (Be careful: the uploads under the Sampling licenses can not be used in advertising or to promote anything other than the songs involved.)

If I create a new song from samples on this site, do I own the new song?

Yes, you do own the new song, but the original artist still owns the copyright to his or her samples -- you can use them as part of your song as long as you live up to the conditions and restrictions of whatever license applies to the samples you used.

Even if I enter it in a ccMixter Contest?

Most sampling or mash-up contests on the Internet stipulate that you will never own the samples you use in the contest and that after the contest is run you forgo your rights even to the new song you created. By contrast, the songs on this site are licensed to be used in any arena, not just this site or a specific contest, provided you live up to their licensing conditions.

Who should register on the site?

If you are just here to browse and listen to music then you don't need to do anything more. Please enjoy the music. A good place to start is with our editorial staff that watches for the best of the site.

Registering gives you all the benefits and privileges that come from having an account. You get your own artist's page where you can upload your own music, cut-ups of other artists and loop libraries. You can leave reviews, and interact in the forums, pick favorites and more.

If you would like to submit a remix ccMixter then you need to register and create an account. Once logged in, you will see options for submitting sampled remixes and samples to the site.

I'm a sound editor, masher or DJ, where do I start?

Create an account and follow the instructions there.

I'm a songwriter, is there anything here for me?

We encourage artists who produce original material to post submissions of their work to ccMixter in order to make even more music available for legal sampling. However, you should submit individual tracks of your work (a cappella vocals as well as instrumentals) to give the producer or DJ an even richer, more creative chance at reworking your material.

ccMixter is a remix site, so it is not the best place to upload your back catalog. Creative Commons also sponsors and partners with other sites (such as the The Internet Archive and Our Media ) where it is more than appropriate to put all of your material into the Commons, whether it is ripe for remixing or not.

How can I tell if my original music is ripe for remixing?

When you join any Internet community it is always best to learn the terrain before jumping in. This way you are ensured that you are getting the most of out of the community and visa versa. All the music on this site is freely available without any kind of registration so listen to the Editorial Picks and Mixter community favorites to hear what kind of material is being used by the remixers. From there you can best determine whether your material is appropriate.

On a technical level, if your track is highly layered with lots of instruments all playing on top of each other all drenched in echo effects (like reverb and delay) chances are pretty slim (7% actually) that remixers will use that track for sampling and you will have wasted an upload. In that case you are highly encouraged to upload the individual instrumental tracks (without extraneous effects) as sample libraries, preferably loops, marked with tempo (BPM) and key and tagging the upload with the appropriate instrumentation and genre. Doing these things almost guarantees your work will be remixed. If you upload a cappella vocals you can drop the "almost" from the previous statement and you can expect to be inundated.

I have a mash-up of Beyonce and Grand Funk! Can I post it here?

No.

Not unless you are Beyonce and Grand Funk or own their music or was granted permission from both and they agreed to license the work under a CC license. (Which, you know, they really should.)

Is music I submit automatically under a Creative Commons license?

Yes.

Whether I like it or not?

Technical Stuff

What file formats does ccMixter accept?

We accept most popular formats of audio (mp3, wmv, ogg, etc.) For sample library submissions we also accept .ZIP archives. There is are hard limit of 10 MB per upload for either case.

I used samples from more than one source, how do I indicate that?

Select any Post Reply Remix link. Use the 'Search' field to type in artists, titles, etc. for the sources you sampled and check off the appropriate ones.

I'm having trouble uploading...

First of all we are sorry you are having problems. There are several known issues with uploading that are being addressed. In the meantime here are some things that might help the process:

Remember that files over 10 megabytes will not upload.
Turn off all spy-bot, firewall and other resident blocking software. Sorry, but these have been known to interfere with uploading.
If you have a file that close to 10 megabytes and you are on a slow Internet connection may also be an issue because our site may 'time out' thinking something has gone wrong and abort the upload. If you suspect this may be happening and you do not have access to a broadband connection then you might consider re-encoding your music file with lower resolution quality (96kbs or in the case of VBR a lower quality setting). If you are trying to upload a sample library try breaking up the ZIP archive into smaller pieces.
If you are trying to upload fully mixed original song and don't see the proper menu items it is because you have reached the quota for non-remixes.
We have recently fixed a problem with older Safari browsers when uploading. Or at least we think and hope we fixed it. If you are having problems uploading with an older Safari please let us know.
Our MP3 verifier is very particular about the validity of MP3 files so if there is any issue in the file it will be rejected. There are two known issues with MP3 encoders that we have caused these issues:
- Some tools like iTunes and Audacity use the LAME MP3 installed in your system (usually by some other tool like Quicktime). All versions of LAME between 3.90 and 3.92 have a frame synch bug in the DLL when running in CBR mode. These versions are over four years old and you should upgrade to the latest version -- typically this should happen when you upgrade the program that installed it in the first place (like Quicktime).
  
  If you use a VBR mode in your current LAME encoder or simply use another tool to encode the MP3, then you should be fine.
  
  If you are brave you can upgrade your system's LAME encoder to the latest one by tracking one down yourself from say the old MAZ site which may may still work or from free-codecs.com but Creative Commons does NOT stand by the veracity of those sites, use them at your own risk.
- The MP3 encoder used by ACID 5.0 and Sound Forge has been known (to us) to emit corrupt ID3 tags. This can be easily solved by turning off the ID3 tag feature when you render (or save as). In either ACID or Sound Forge click on the 'Custom...' button, the 'ID3 Settings' tab at the bottom, then UNCHECK the 'Save...' check box at the top and click OK.

If you are still having problems please contact our administrative staff, we want to get your music on the site as quickly and trouble free as possible.