the cyber band

[dobro]

I haven't seen anybody talk about this here. What's involved in sending a song to someone on the web and getting them to add a track? Straightforward, right? Dom Franco's post about pedal steel got me thinking about it (for example, pedal steel players are hard to find here in Singapore ) - but you could do it with computers, right? And then you could call the album Doing it with Computers. Anybody here tried it?

[This message has been edited by dobro (edited 09-03-1999).]

 

[drstawl]

You'll need some great bandwidth to do this in .wav format online. My ISP, while allowing download rates that reach up to >300KBytes/ sec puts a cap of 5MB on uploads and the upload speed is more like 25Kbytes/ sec. But you could send some practice tracks in advance in .mp3 format and then send them the .wav file via CDR or CDRW or Zip or Jaz. They would then mix your actual tracks with their new track(s) and send them back to you via new .wav file(s) on CDR or CDRW or Zip or Jaz. CDR will be the cheapest of the four. But CDRW might have some advantage in a long back and forth exchange. To keep it all remixable, leave all the .wav files separate, but place a sync "pop" at the beginning of each .wav file track, before the music starts. So the CDRs (or CDRWs) will be a growing collection of .wav files sent back and forth. This is the theory anyway. I've never tried this. Nobody wants to play my style of music. Too hard. Too weird. But write Fred. He does this all the time. He'll be glad to help you out.

fleach@provide.net

And check out his results on mp3.com:
http://www.mp3.com/artists/33/freddyjam__jammers_online.html

I'm not sure which ones are examples of his virtual band(s) or his live band, but the results (as to recording quality) are quite similar.

 

[Emeric]

That's a cool idea. Along the lines of Drtawl, why not just send the person an mp3 of the song. They could send back an mp3 of just the part they recorded. At the receiving end you could convert it back to wav and import into your multitracking software. Might be a bit of sync problems, but they could be corrected.

Emeric

 

[patlang12]

look how far we have come in 6 years

 

[Rokket]

The best way I've seen for an online collaboration is to have someone host it with an FTP server, like we do on here. That way, the files can all be centralized, and each contributer can download the files as they need them to mix their own version of the song.

And it's always easiest if someone has a fairly complete song that is just missing a few things, like the ellusive pedal steel. Coming up with a complete song off of a riff or a couple lines of a lyric can take forever....

 

[Tifstorey]

Yeah, its a great idea, i think it needs to be thought out a bit before it is actually undertaken. Like Rokket says, i think someone would need to get a good part of the track down before they send it out.

Great idea though, looking forward to hearing it when its all sorted

Good luck!

 

[Track Rat]

I've done it by down loading tracks back and forth (as with Cjacek) and snail mailing wavs (as with DavidK). I prefere the snail mailing of wavs for obvious reasons. Slower but oh well. The trick is to keep the multitrack wavs all the same length so syncing tracks outside of whatever program you multitrack with isn't a problem (trying to line up fragmented punch ins you did in CEP that you mailed me in Cakewalk can be a show stopper, ya know what I mean?).

 

[Rokket]

Yeah, its a great idea, i think it needs to be thought out a bit before it is actually undertaken. Like Rokket says, i think someone would need to get a good part of the track down before they send it out.

Great idea though, looking forward to hearing it when its all sorted

Good luck!

All the players should be in place before you begin. That way, all the parts are sorted out as to who is going to what. Then introduce the track that is going to be collabed on and do it... All necessary information should be on the table before you start: tempo, what key it's in, genre (if necessary), and what you hope to achieve soundwise.

But then again, this may be overthinking..