Long distance recording

[andymerc]

As a complete newbie to recording, I want to know whether it is possible to have friends dotted accross the country playing on my recordings?

I would like to use my PC to lay down a drum, bass and guitar rythmn recording, and then send it via the internet to a friend of mine who is a sax player. Ideally, he could then add lead instrument parts before sending it back to me.

Would MP3 enable me to keep the recording down to a managable size? Would it be best to e-mail the file or upload it to my website for him to download onto his PC?

 

[AlChuck]

This can work... just be aware of a few points to consider:

A stereo MP3 will be fine for getting the idea across and he can record a track alongside it, but if you want him to be able to work with the individual tracks, there's a little more effort involved. To getmultiple tracks together into a multi-track sequencer he'll likely have a little more work to do, possibly converting the individual track files to WAVs first so they can be imported, then making sure the tracks all line up once they're in there.

The file sizes are small compared to WAV files, but if you send all your tracks themselves rather than a stereo mix, it'll take longer and be more burdensome. If a stereo MP3 were, say, 3MB, and you had eight tracks you wanted to send, you would be talking about around 12 MB. What kind of connection to the internet do you both have?

If you use the best quality encoding the file sizes are larger; for smaller files the encoding is lower quality. Too small and they'll start sounding cruddy.

If he remixes your tracks and send back new files, that's a second generation of encoding... if you do that again... well, you get the idea.

Perhaps the simplest way -- if all you are after is a horn track to add to your mix -- is send a high-quality stereo MP3. He can then import that as a single stereo track into a multitrack recording program, record his part on an adjacent track; if he has questions about how his part is shaping up he can make a quick stereo mix of the results and fire it off to you. When you're both happy, he can export his part and send that to you, perhaps as a WAV file, and then you can add it as another track in your project and mix it from there.

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

I think that this is cutting edge stuff in digital recording. There really isn't a convenient way to do it unless you have DSL or a cable modem.

If you just want your friend to create a few parts for your mix, send a rough mix as MP3 and have them record the other track. If they encode that track to MP3, though, be aware that you are losing sound quality. That can be an issue with lead instruments as it is best to have them sounding as clean as possible.

My guess is that you will probably be better off posting your files to a website rather than emailing them, especially if more than one person is going to contribute. That way they can choose when to download the files (i.e. right before going to bed) and just let it go. I'd hate to be trying to check email at work and have to wait for a huge download.

If you want the person to have the full mix to play with...that gets pretty tough. If you have a CD burner, you'll probably be better off burning the entire song (all the track files and the multitrack song file) to disk and express mailing it. Then your friends can have everything at their disposal, add the new tracks without limitation, and burn the whole thing back to CD and ship it back. Just make sure that you are both using the same multitracking program.

If you must do it online, you may want to try sequencing your song. Record just one verse section and one chorus, etc. Then replay the same files over and over the way your song is set up. That way you'll only have to upload/download a few 15 Meg files rather than a few 65 Meg files. Use it to set up the song structure for the other musicians that are collaborating with you, then replace them with full files (if you like) when they are done adding their parts.

Cubase has something called "InWired" that allows musicians to share multitrack sessions over the internet. I haven't tried it yet, but I think (not sure) that you can get demo versions of all thier stuff and use it for free. I haven't researched it much, yet, and I was wondering if anyone else has.

Good luck!
Chris Shaeffer

 

[VOXVENDOR]

I bet in a few years, when it gets better, you will see alot of pro-bands, doing this... from studio to studio....

 

[andymerc]

Of curse, I could always invite him over for the weekend....

I like the idea of interactive recording on the Internet, but I guess it'll be a long while before technology catches up. Thanks for the tips though, it's nice to find folks who know what they are talking about.