SLuiCe
New member
Whoa....sorry about the double post there. Site was lagging up when I posted that....
M
Master Zap
New member
22 ppl collab... ouch... 
I made a fairly big collaboration.... 22 participants... 56 audio tracks in all... all sent to me as mp3 files.... some had been on casette... some recorded w. a cheap computer mike.
All "final mixed" by myself.
Judge for yourself over at www.mp3Charity.com wherre our "we are the world for the web" can be heard
/Z
(P.S. EVERY SONG on www.mp3.com/beatsymphony is a trans-atlantic collab w. mp3 files.)
I made a fairly big collaboration.... 22 participants... 56 audio tracks in all... all sent to me as mp3 files.... some had been on casette... some recorded w. a cheap computer mike.
All "final mixed" by myself.
Judge for yourself over at www.mp3Charity.com wherre our "we are the world for the web" can be heard
/Z
(P.S. EVERY SONG on www.mp3.com/beatsymphony is a trans-atlantic collab w. mp3 files.)
cordura21
New member
Guernica said:
It's just for sync purposes, specially when you're using tempo changes. In fact, if you're using a fixed tempo you don't even need it because any program has a bar/beat ruler. But it can be like a master ruler shared by all the collaborators, and a very cheap one bandwidth-wise, much cheaper than transferring already recorded clicks.
Any other midi device could lock to that original midi file, allowing you to generate your own click, which will be exactly the same as the one used by the other collaborators (1).
In Protools, for example, you start by opening that midi file and then laying all your collaboration tracks over it. I think that's the way many of the programs work.
What is important is that this way you don't need to send big files from the beginning of the song, you can send a Guernica_Track01_Bar56_Beat2.mp3 (2) with say a sporadic bg vocals, so the mixer can easily put it in place, aligning it to the midi file.
Another cool thing about midi files is that you can put markers on them, like "Chorus 1", "Bridge", etc...
Cheers, Andrés
(1) I know there can be some subtle differences and technical problems, but 99.9 % of the time midi works pretty good at sync. The good thing of midi is that there is not audio info there, so you avoid resampling issues, clock problems, etc...
(2) This can also be "Guernica_Track01_Bar56_Beat2.WAV" if it's the final mix. But this approach can let you go premixing with the mp3s if you're in a hurry or just anxious, like me.
dobro
Well-known member
My software will play MIDI, but I can't generate any. So, I think the stereo track with the click is the one that everybody could do. But I've never worked with stereo tracks. How do you 'ignore the click'? Can you mute one side of a stereo track?
Also, another question: what's 1/1/000? The minute and second counter, right? So is 1/1/000 the one minute, one second, zero millisecond mark?
Also, another question: what's 1/1/000? The minute and second counter, right? So is 1/1/000 the one minute, one second, zero millisecond mark?
Barometer
New member
1/1/00 is the very beginning of the track, I think 1st measure, first beat. In Sonar these lengths change if you have tempo changes so it doesn't necessarily correspond to minutes and seconds.
If we all use the same tempo on a collab and everyone starts at 1/1/00, couldn't the click track just be it's own track instead of half of a stereo track?
If we all use the same tempo on a collab and everyone starts at 1/1/00, couldn't the click track just be it's own track instead of half of a stereo track?
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
Yeah, and some of us (read me) use standalone units instead of software so midi isn't as easy for us either.dobro said:
As for the stereo tracks......just think of them as two tracks. Now you can obviously mute a single track so you can mute one of the two "stereo" tracks. What crawdad, guernica and I have been doing is....Lets say crawdad is gonna add a guitar track to my tune and Guernica is gonna add a bass track. I will be the originator of the tune so I will have to "assemble" everyone's tracks when they finish them. I send them the rhythm track I want them to play with. They put this into their recorder and play their parts. Instead of mixing their parts into the overall mix....they send me back the tracks with the rhythm panned all the way left and their guitar or bass part panned all the way right. I put those into my recorder and use the left channel (the rhythm track) to sync up with my rhythm tracks that are already on my recorder. Once I've done that the bass or guitar part will also be in sync. Then I can delete the unneccessary additional rhythm track (it was just for syncing purposes) and I'm left with a guitar or bass line in my machine that's in sync.
Carry that a little further and if you put a single click a few seconds before the music starts on the rhythm tracks the "originator" sends out....the guys sending parts back to me don't need to send the rhythm track back at all as long as they leave that starting click on at the beginning because that would be all you'd need to sync the incoming parts up.
INCOMING...INCOMING!!!!! (always wanted to say that)
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
Just saw Barometer's post. You still have to sync things up and simply using metronome (a small dwarf that lives in the subway ) wouldn't always do it because clocks aren't perfect and I think sometimes you might get some variations in there.
) wouldn't always do it because clocks aren't perfect and I think sometimes you might get some variations in there.
dobro
Well-known member
Bob, your method's as cunning as two Frenchmen. Damn. I mean, the originator wouldn't need to run the click track all the way through the tune - a lead in would do it - after that, the collaborator could just follow the tune in most cases.
cordura21
New member
so here's an alternative for those who don't have midi and can't make a tempo map.
The first collaborator will record the click track to an mp3, and make it available to the others. That way you don't need to resend the click track with every additional collaboration. The only thing that you have to agree is in what measure everybody starts.
Dobro: if your software can read midi, then you just need to get a midi file from one of the other collaborators (usually the first one, usually the drummer). That midi file can trigger you click track in your drum machine, or the midi device you have (hard or soft).
The first collaborator will record the click track to an mp3, and make it available to the others. That way you don't need to resend the click track with every additional collaboration. The only thing that you have to agree is in what measure everybody starts.
Dobro: if your software can read midi, then you just need to get a midi file from one of the other collaborators (usually the first one, usually the drummer). That midi file can trigger you click track in your drum machine, or the midi device you have (hard or soft).
dobro
Well-known member
The thing I like about the stereo track which is half click track, half rhythm track is this: the recipient can turn the click track off if he wants to. I sent Slack an mp3 of me, guitar, bass and click, and he sent me an email asking if I could resend it without the click, because it was getting on his nerves. So I did a lead-in click that died away as the song began...
Also, if you have a stereo track which combines click and rhythm guitar, say, it makes it much easier for others to know when to start playing. You just tell 'em.
Also, if you have a stereo track which combines click and rhythm guitar, say, it makes it much easier for others to know when to start playing. You just tell 'em.
drstawl
Banned
>he sent me an email asking if I could resend it without the click, because it was getting on his nerves
Was his delete finger in a cast at the time?
Was his delete finger in a cast at the time?
Lt. Bob
Spread the Daf!
LOLdrstawl said:Was his delete finger in a cast at the time?
We frequent visitors here do sometimes overwork our delete digits.
matty_boy
New member
It might be a good idea to share tracks with a p2p file sharing program. You could email each other with the name, and then do a search for it. I have done this before. It would eliminate the need for any sort of file compression (mp3, etc.) and then nobody would have to be running an ftp server.
Guernica
Active member
Cordura, I really like the sound of the midi map idea. I like the idea of being able to lock up midi compatible devices that way. If im understanding you correctly, that would allow any midi using participant to change aspects of their tracks (performance or otherwise) without having to worry about sync at all, as long as they stuck to the original midi file. Im gonna have to do some reading on that...... sounds cool.
Lt. Bob mentioned what sounds like the best, and most universally possible, way to me at this point. This is a method that everyone could use. No sync track necessary. ...just line them up at the beginning. Once a person has the original rhythm, its just sending back tracks..... wether MP3 or .wav, stereo of mono, ......that sounds pretty damn efficient.
Dobro, My recorder is set up with time as well. I may be able to change it over to a measure count (havent explored that). I am assuming that whichever one is used, as long as all parties involved use the same method, and start in the same place (wether it be 1/1/000 or h-00 m-00 s-00 f-01) all would be fine.
I believe it wouldnt necessarily have to be at the very begining either...... if it were at the third second, and everyone understood this, we would get the same results. .....If im wrong, somebody please correct me.
G
Lt. Bob mentioned what sounds like the best, and most universally possible, way to me at this point. This is a method that everyone could use. No sync track necessary. ...just line them up at the beginning. Once a person has the original rhythm, its just sending back tracks..... wether MP3 or .wav, stereo of mono, ......that sounds pretty damn efficient.
Dobro, My recorder is set up with time as well. I may be able to change it over to a measure count (havent explored that). I am assuming that whichever one is used, as long as all parties involved use the same method, and start in the same place (wether it be 1/1/000 or h-00 m-00 s-00 f-01) all would be fine.
I believe it wouldnt necessarily have to be at the very begining either...... if it were at the third second, and everyone understood this, we would get the same results. .....If im wrong, somebody please correct me.
G
dobro
Well-known member
">he sent me an email asking if I could resend it without the click, because it was getting on his nerves
Was his delete finger in a cast at the time?"
LOL - no, I sent the whole thing as a mono track. He couldn't delete the click. That's why I'm so smitten with awestruck admiration at the cunning simplicity of the stereo-track-with-click idea.
Guernica - another reason for my starting at a prearrranged point (not the very beginning of the track) is that if I do beats using Fruity loops, and if the first beat is right at the beginning of the track, somehow it gets lost by the time I burn the session to CD or convert it to mp3. I have to leave some space at the beginning.
Was his delete finger in a cast at the time?"
LOL - no, I sent the whole thing as a mono track. He couldn't delete the click. That's why I'm so smitten with awestruck admiration at the cunning simplicity of the stereo-track-with-click idea.
Guernica - another reason for my starting at a prearrranged point (not the very beginning of the track) is that if I do beats using Fruity loops, and if the first beat is right at the beginning of the track, somehow it gets lost by the time I burn the session to CD or convert it to mp3. I have to leave some space at the beginning.
cordura21
New member
Guernica: I like the midi ruler because you can have any sync point in the song, not just the start. For example, let's say you do a sax solo at minute 3:40. Sending a file with silence from the very start will be a waste of space and bandwith. And also the fact that a midi file has all the info to trigger a click track without a recording of it.
Cheers, Andrés
Cheers, Andrés
crawdad
Dammit, Jim, Shut Up!
Guernica said:
The key is "everybody understands this". The only reason I suggested 1/1/000 is that its the very beginning point that can be recorded from. If everyone does record from that point, the files should match up.
However, when I did the first collab with Lt. Bob we used a film technique called a two beep. What that is, by definition, is a short beep or click that starts (in film) exactly 2 seconds before picture start. The tracks I sent had it and the track he sent back had it. All I had to do was align the two beeps so they started at the same time. Its easy to do on a computer platform and Lt. Bob says he can slide tracks around on his Roland workstation. I'm not sure about any other formats. With tape, you'd need to have a synchronizer system which would be able to offset multiple machines. Ah, the old days...
Anyway, you know the clap board you see at the beginning of raw film, where the guy actually claps the two pieces of the slate board? In the old days, that noise was recorded in the audio and was used to sync up the audio to the film. Later on, they added LED SMPTE right on the board (Deneke)and the tape machines got the same SMPTE feed, so the audio could be locked up with picture based on the SMPTE time code numbers.
Well, with our audio only projects, something has to indicate you have "lock" on the tracks or you are just guessing. My reasoning on the 1/1/000 was that EVERYTHING starts at the same time. That should handle the audio.
If you are getting into MIDI and audio, you also need to share tempo information with your collaborator. If you recorded audio to a click of 124 and your collaborator is a drummer who is doing MIDI drums, he needs that tempo information so his file will match yours.
M
Master Zap
New member
A note: Creating a MP3 file in most encoders creates a 786 sample delay... so recording a click, a beep, whatever, that everyone includes in their file is a GOOD idea.
For the massive www.mp3charity.com collaboration we did, we had a version of the backing w. a click intro to the piano. I told everyone who recorded a full length thing "make sure I can hear the piano/click at the start or AT LEAST some snippet of music, before your take".
Note that some people recorded REALLY low tech, so for example one guy simply used headphones to listen to the backing, and simply PUT HIS MIC into the headphones for a few seconds, took the mic out, put headphones on, and sung his part.... that very lo-tek way gave me a way to sync his vox precicely to the music easily later.
I just wanted to drop in this little detail about mp3 encoding/decoding tending to shift time a bit....that must be catered to, and a click will fix that.
Of course in our project there was no way to send uncompressed WAV's (I'm on an expensive slow connection)
/Z
For the massive www.mp3charity.com collaboration we did, we had a version of the backing w. a click intro to the piano. I told everyone who recorded a full length thing "make sure I can hear the piano/click at the start or AT LEAST some snippet of music, before your take".
Note that some people recorded REALLY low tech, so for example one guy simply used headphones to listen to the backing, and simply PUT HIS MIC into the headphones for a few seconds, took the mic out, put headphones on, and sung his part.... that very lo-tek way gave me a way to sync his vox precicely to the music easily later.
I just wanted to drop in this little detail about mp3 encoding/decoding tending to shift time a bit....that must be catered to, and a click will fix that.
Of course in our project there was no way to send uncompressed WAV's (I'm on an expensive slow connection)
/Z
alibish
Hotrod Cadet
Here's a couple of random musings.
1. The click at an agreed time point is a great idea. You could even have one click near the beginning, and another at a later agreed point, after the tune has finished. The first click could be lined up to make sure the tracks all start at the same time, and the last click could be lined up (using stretching if necessary) to make sure the tracks also end together.
This is probably overkill for digitally recorded stuff, but might be useful for tape recordings where slight inaccuracies in tape speed could cause tracks to gradually drift.
Also, it makes a lot of sense to leave some space at the beginning, 2-4 bars.
2. A friend with better ears than me (not a hugely proud boast
) told me that the MiniDisc algorithms work much better for compressing individual tracks than they do for entire mixes. Basically because an individual track tends to have a much more limited frequency and dynamic range than a whole song.
The upshot of this is that those minidisc multitrackers give better quality (less degradation) than a minidisc compression of an entire mix, provided the final stero mix isn't also recorded using minidisc!
I don't know if MP3 is similar, but I suspect that individual tracks compressed with MP3 will show less degradation than mixes compressed with the same settings.
Also, if you *really* know what you're doing, you could tweak your MP3 encoder to suit the material in each individual track.
3. In case anyone doesn't know about it, there's a good free lossless audio compressor - MonkeysAudio.
http://www.monkeysaudio.com
I've only done one collab, with erichenryus on drums. He sent me a midi file and I used it to trigger a drum soundfont. I thought it sounded pretty good, and the drumming was *way* better than my feeble attempts to program.
1. The click at an agreed time point is a great idea. You could even have one click near the beginning, and another at a later agreed point, after the tune has finished. The first click could be lined up to make sure the tracks all start at the same time, and the last click could be lined up (using stretching if necessary) to make sure the tracks also end together.
This is probably overkill for digitally recorded stuff, but might be useful for tape recordings where slight inaccuracies in tape speed could cause tracks to gradually drift.
Also, it makes a lot of sense to leave some space at the beginning, 2-4 bars.
2. A friend with better ears than me (not a hugely proud boast
) told me that the MiniDisc algorithms work much better for compressing individual tracks than they do for entire mixes. Basically because an individual track tends to have a much more limited frequency and dynamic range than a whole song.The upshot of this is that those minidisc multitrackers give better quality (less degradation) than a minidisc compression of an entire mix, provided the final stero mix isn't also recorded using minidisc!
I don't know if MP3 is similar, but I suspect that individual tracks compressed with MP3 will show less degradation than mixes compressed with the same settings.
Also, if you *really* know what you're doing, you could tweak your MP3 encoder to suit the material in each individual track.
3. In case anyone doesn't know about it, there's a good free lossless audio compressor - MonkeysAudio.
http://www.monkeysaudio.com
I've only done one collab, with erichenryus on drums. He sent me a midi file and I used it to trigger a drum soundfont. I thought it sounded pretty good, and the drumming was *way* better than my feeble attempts to program.
Guernica
Active member
Hey folks,
Crawdad, I think the 2 beep method is kinda the same thing that weve been doing all along. ..wether it be a beep, click, stick, ......etc. (If im understanding you correctly) right? Except, that as mentioned before, ive been sending r. tracks back and forth, .......which i realize now was a serious waste.
Re: sharing tempo infor with your collab partners when using midi, ... wouldnt the tempo info already be on the midi file? Again, If im understanding correctly, .....I believe that it would serve the same purpose as sending over the original r. track (the way we do things now)...... or sending over a click track. Only, with a midi file you would have the advantage of a quick lock up to other midi devices, and the ability to just send "parts" located anywhere in the song without the click way back at the beginning.....Cordura, jump in if im missing something.
a learnin G
Crawdad, I think the 2 beep method is kinda the same thing that weve been doing all along. ..wether it be a beep, click, stick, ......etc. (If im understanding you correctly) right? Except, that as mentioned before, ive been sending r. tracks back and forth, .......which i realize now was a serious waste.
Re: sharing tempo infor with your collab partners when using midi, ... wouldnt the tempo info already be on the midi file? Again, If im understanding correctly, .....I believe that it would serve the same purpose as sending over the original r. track (the way we do things now)...... or sending over a click track. Only, with a midi file you would have the advantage of a quick lock up to other midi devices, and the ability to just send "parts" located anywhere in the song without the click way back at the beginning.....Cordura, jump in if im missing something. Is that right?.......wow...... aint that a bitch. So, anytime a person converts a .wav file to mp3 it adds a 786 sample delay? Are there any encoders available (LAME encoder, sam?) that dont do this?
a learnin G