hotdiscomix: Remix Services

Label Portrait (English)

Ace-DJ Remix Service History

by James Fraser - co-owner of Ace-DJ Remix Services

Ace Remix Service was started by James Fraser & Paul Goodyear. Paul had been DJing for nearly 10 years and James had been spinning for around 3 years. Both of them had always purchased remix services and particularly loved Razormaid, Ultimix & Hot Tracks. Paul & Mark Alsop had done some work for Rhythm Stick & Hot Tracks (on a reel to reel) up to this point and Paul also went on to do a lot of work of Direct Hit. His most famous edit was Glam featuring Pete Burns “Sex Drive” which created a huge buzz both in Australia & in the USA. Ace remix service wanted to give remix services a more UK/European feel as at the time, that sound was having a huge influence in Australia and they felt that was where the market would eventually go in the USA. The main features of Ace were to be good packaging, sound quality (which they didn't get right until Tony Mantz started the mastering on Issue 5) & song selection. Ace also wanted to move away from having breaks/mix out points in the middle of songs as a lot of the US services did. DJing was moving away from that style of playing a record for 3.30 mins and mixing into something new.

James' job was to look after the administration side and do some edits while Paul would provide most of the mixes along with Mark Alsop. Paul's wife Wilma also looked after the books. Other DJs who provided mixes included Steven Beale (Melbourne DJ), Nathan G. (Melbourne DJ), James Arnold (Sydney DJ), Bob Walker (Northern Queensland DJ), Shawn King (Melbourne DJ). Ace also occasionally included tracks that were not edited, but were made available on CD due to large DJ demand. 2 such cases were Brand New Heavies “Back To Love” which was originally included on Issue 4 (Paul Goodyears Edit) & Sarah Washington “Heaven”. Demand was so great for Sarah Washington that PolyGram was eventually forced to release it as a CD single.

Ace initially manufactured both CD & vinyl but the expense of having the vinyl pressed in the USA & shipped back to Australia became too prohibitive. (Details of what issues were available on vinyl below). Paul sold his share of Ace to James after Issue 13 as he wanted to move to Brisbane and I James continued Ace until Issue 24 & The Best Of Volume 2 (2CD). From the start Ace had encountered enormous barriers in getting clearances on tracks. Australian record companies had absolutely no understanding of DJ services and the benefit they provided and in some cases Ace were having to pay 30% royalty rates on a promotional CD that was not available commercially. In the end it became impossible to make the whole thing work and James closed the doors. He ended up losing a fortune in the process which was very disappointing considering the hard work involved.