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Post by lunaalta on Feb 1, 2014 19:44:16 GMT -5
I hope this is the right place for this.....  Been away a week or so, sorting out a new Win 7 install. All good, so far......... so....... This is a track that I put together with some friends, using the Internet to pass files around (I live in Spain).... I quite like it, 'cos it seems to rock. This is my first 'Internet ' collaboration and I must say, it was thoroughly enjoyable, but needed much patience, due to time zone differences. I wouldn't mind your comments, good and bad. It started off with a forum post about the desire to put a rock video together. All the poster had was the title, 'You Can't Stop Rock And Roll'. Well, that set balls rolling amongst my grey matter and I offered up a rough track, guitar, bass, drums and a vocal meter track. This seemed to fit the original poster's fancy (he's in Montana, I believe, in the backwoods), so he came up with some lyrics. No sooner had I put the full vocal track up, when a bass player, in California, piped up, asking for a bassless version, for him to play about with. And so, the bass track was born. As soon as, a little blue man appeared (also in North US), asking for a drumless track! You just can't keep these people away..... LOL. Thus came the drum track into existence. Well, I mixed a little, tweaking, here and there, until we were all happy, until our Canadian buddy stepped up and asked if he could add a piano track, backing vox and maybe master it for us. Always happy to shove some of the work in someone else's direction, all said 'AY!'  So, here you have the finished sound track. I've linked to my Sound Cloud page, to save bandwidth. You Can't Stop Rock And RollThe story is set in the future, when R+R is banned, but bands, such as ours, continue to play underground, as we would..... A battle between the band and the main 'enforcer' is the theme of the song. The cowbell break is left for inserting the big showdown duel between the guitarist and the enforcer. The guitar I used is my Olympic White '73 Fender American Custom Strat, all pretty much standard, except it was silenced and the neck wore out, so it got changed.  I tracked using Sonar 8 Pro, not sure about the others involved, maybe Reason in several cases. Enjoy......... |
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Post by newey on Feb 1, 2014 21:13:26 GMT -5
Very nice, lunaalta! I wanted to crank this WAAY up but the wife was sleeping so I had to dial it back. But it definitely rocks.
Collaborating over the net is an interesting process, but it can be frustrating. Little things, ones that you could work out in 5 minutes if everyone was in the same room, can take days. You end up re-thinking the collaborative process entirely.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2014 23:42:30 GMT -5
Decent song luna! Who sings? The guy who wrote the lyrics?
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Post by lunaalta on Feb 2, 2014 4:36:10 GMT -5
Thanks GD!  No, that's me, GD. Actually, it's the first take from when I got the lyrics, meant as a guide. I did mean to replace it, but never got around to it....  Our Canadian buddy put down the backing vocals. Yeah, we had to do a couple things, on the technical side, before we started, the first being to accept that tracks won't be coming back within an hour....LOL. But, more on that below. We also established a 'tuning' standard. I discovered that my little KORG GA-30 tuner was flat!  The DTR-1000 rack mount is perfect, as is the Sonar internal tuner. Then came timimg and beat measurement. For a previous piece, a country song, we found that the drum machine used by another Canadian friend was waaaay out. This is what he used to put the basic, scratch track down with, so we all ended up working at, perhaps 128.639 bpm, mostly (since it wandered...). Actually, after a lot of searching, I discovered that it is almost impossible to time sync 2 computers that are not connected. Apparently, the internal clocks (seems there are two) aren't as accurate as I always assumed them to be. In most cases this isn't going to be a serious problem, since we rarely need to line up to the nearest usec (microsecond) nor want to. Of the 4 computers we tested, non was in 'perfect sync'. But, generally, a better quality machine will give better results than a cheap rhythm/drum machine. We are lucky, in that we could set up an ftp site (we have several between us), for transferring tracks, etc. So, track movement wasn't too big of an issue. We used .wav tracks, just because..... Then, there is the individual/personal communication thing. At the time we recorded this, through summer/autumn 2003, my machine couldn't use voice chat effectively (this is now 'sorted' with the Win 7 install), so we were relying on our private text chat channel. This helped a lot, but one guy (he's kinda stuck in 'Country', but slowly expanding) got kinda upset when his harmony tracks didn't rock. He has a great voice, but just couldn't grab this groove/meter. Explaining feeling and hidden/implied stuff is a bit like trying to explain guitar tone. And, we all know how impossible that is....LOL. Since all involved had been, involved with this kind of rock, at some time in our deep dark (long) pasts, the contributors to this just fell right into the groove, luckily, and whatever we tracked seemed to fit. One thing each of us asked, is to be able to modify our contribution before the final mastering, which meant that we each made small changes as the tune progressed/evolved. A must if you are not actually in the same room playing. Other than that, we each had complete freedom to lay down whatever we thought fitted in. We also had to accept that maybe the others wouldn't agree that your track wouldn't quite work, which didn't ever occur in this tune, as it happens.... Lastly (sorry for the book posting), since I came up with the initial rough musical idea, I was left with the job of collecting the tracks and putting them into the mix for the others to hear, as I felt appropriate, but with other's suggestions being taken on board, where appropriate. I then put a final mix together. It is important to decide who, if anybody, will be making the final decisions, otherwise the ball can bounce back and forth forever....LOL. This one was easy, though. Everything fell right into place, as if it was pre-ordained.... Apart from the Canadian Country incident, it was as if we all knew where this was going. And we have put together several country songs since, so that problem was worked out, too. As to the video, the creator of the idea has give us a completed script, with camera directions, which looks like fun, he is very much into putting videos together, being a game creator, among other things. But, for the moment, it seems this side of the project is on hold. So, I decided to put the tune out there anyway........  I just wish we had gotten together in the late 60s/early 70s.......... |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 5:05:53 GMT -5
Thanks GD! No, that's me, GD. Actually, it's the first take from when I got the lyrics, meant as a guide. I did mean to replace it, but never got around to it.... Our Canadian buddy put down the backing vocals. Nice singing man! BTW, you don't seem to have any spanish accent, or am i wrong? |
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Post by lunaalta on Feb 2, 2014 7:16:49 GMT -5
Why, thank you, Sir! Kind of you to say so. Actually, I'm English, but with a Polish father, born in London (great place to be a teenager in the 60s). But, I have lived in Spain for the past 23 years. I'm told my Spanish accent is pretty good, when I speak Spanish. But, of course, I maintain my South London accent when speaking English. Since the lyric writer has a nice, round US accent, the lyrics and phrasing, kind of, pushed me a little in that direction when I read/sang them. There ya go!  |
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Post by newey on Feb 2, 2014 8:58:53 GMT -5
We had, and worked through, many of the same issues. It is necessary to appoint someone as a "production dictator", who has the final say-so on the mix, what goes in, what gets left out, etc. That person can certainly post various versions and ask the others which ones they like better, but someone still has to have the final say, or the whole things dissolves into chaos.
And .wav files are a must. Anything with a compression algorithm will screw up the syncing of the tracks.
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Post by lunaalta on Feb 2, 2014 12:46:13 GMT -5
FLAC is also a good format, half the size and lossless compression........ I believe.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 13:57:46 GMT -5
FLAC is also a good format, half the size and lossless compression........ I believe. and you are correct. |
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Post by sumgai on Feb 2, 2014 20:13:16 GMT -5
After a lot of searching, I discovered that it is almost impossible to time sync 2 computers that are not connected. Apparently, the internal clocks (seems there are two) aren't as accurate as I always assumed them to be. This is why they invented click tracks. Inserting such a beast into a recorded track is child's play for literally every audio editing program, and insofar as I have ever seen, syncing to a click track is also de rigueur. In that no one can play any more closely to a given speed than what he/she can hear as a metronomic beat, this precludes any worries about computer clocks, etc. I should add that even if a piece of playback software does not play at the exact same speed as the originating computer, nonetheless the recipient will play along to that click track with esssentially the same timing as the original. When the two (or more) versions are mixed back together, the editing software will sync the various click tracks seamlessly. (At least Audigy can do it, I may be speaking through a ripped speaker cloth about other software....) At this point, any pitch differences are also easily corrected, again in software. To my ears, this has never negatively affected the outcome in terms of tonality, any differences are so slight in the first place. The same should be self-evident in regards to file compression, but that's really a matter for discussion concerning tonal qualities, not timing issues. HTH sumgai p.s. All these issues are even more easily overcome by including MIDI tracks, even if only for purposes of syncronization. But I admit that for many players/budget recording artists, this is overkill. Still, a word to the wise, and all that. |
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Post by lunaalta on Feb 3, 2014 5:13:38 GMT -5
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.... it's all 'overcome-able', just that it can cause a little extra work. Or a lot.......... Click tracks obviously help, though I usually put a rough drum track together, to use instead, to include the 'swing/groove' of the tune. Much easier to play to, than that awful plack, tick, tick, tick..... When sending tracks, a count in beat is advisable, plus the bpm info. That's where extra work is involved..... When the two collaborators have different time sync, you can end up several beats out of time, if not bars, by the end of the track. Not a problem if you are tracking live, to themusic, but it's a different story if you are constructing a MIDI drum track. Yes, you could play to the music and ignore the sync timing, but that removes some very useful tools in your DAW. In Sonar, 'AudioSnap' (audio) and 'Quantize' (MIDI), among others. The first I rarely use, the second, on occasions when creating tracks. If your needing to write, as opposed to play, a MIDI track (I'm no keyboard player or drummer) it gets close to impossibly difficult, if you have no timing grid to work to. You can over come this, of course, but then you are gonna return a track which won't line up in your collaborators machine....and so it goes on. LOL. Although, I rarely get serious problems from this, since we're all using good enough gear for it not to be a noticeable problem. I guess a separate click track can be distributed to each contributer to work with, but then the above will still apply. The guide beat, at the beginning of a track, is useful, so long as the music can be 'close enough' at the end of the track, as well. I guess I'm saying, it's so much easier, when you have 10, 15 or more tracks to line up, all from different sources, to have a reference grid to work from. Another facility that will not work so well is effect syncronisation. So, you want to have your delay pulsing along with the music, or multiples of it...... it can't read your click track. Nor can your modulators, phaser, chorus, flanger, etc.... Been there, done that, got the scars tee shirt. On one occasion, our Country player put scratch drums and bass together and added several voice/haromny tracks, but used an old drum machine to sync it all. Well, it was so far out it wasn't funny, when we tried to put new drums and bass. Poor guy had to start all over..... Having said all that, I must say, it's great fun putting music together, something I've been involved with since I was a teenager. And, it's a lot easier now with digital tools to work with. |
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Post by sumgai on Feb 3, 2014 13:54:43 GMT -5
la, When constructed as a click track, the sync problems between software/hardware are reduced to near-nonexistant, if not fully so. But that does not prelude the inclusion of a drum track, if so desired. I fully agree, if there's gonna be a "groove", then drums of some sort are gonna save the day. (Unless you're attempting to sync up with ashcatlt, in which case the mere mention of drums will invoke Godwin's Law, and you'll be forever banned to "Partnership for a Drum-Free Amerika"!) All of this is "overcome-able", to be sure, but not necessarily in a fast and easy way. Just as R. A. Heinlein said, TANSTAAFL - you gotta expect to do some work. After all, if it were as easy as software makers try to make it appear, then we'd all be doing the final Greek Games scene* from Revenge Of The Nerds, and without breaking a sweat. Although if I understood your subsequent post correctly, this all happened over a decade ago, when DAWs (both hardware and software) were still in their infancy, so you can be excused for rehashing what is "old school" by today's standards. Today.... it's still not all automatic, but it's gotten a lot closer. HTH sumgai * Not available on YouTube, sorry! p.s. This is not the time or place to re-hash old arguments discussions, but as of this date, attempting to open SoundCloud results in no less than 14 SSL Exceptions (this is different from Certificate problems). Looking under the hood for why those pop up, the first thing I saw was "Cross-Site Script Injection". That's enough for me right there, no need to go any further. Suffice it to say, there's a reason why I am now in my 15th year of no Trojans, virii, other malware, nuttin'! It's because I practice Safe Hex! [/rant] For the record, SoundClick raises no such red flags. 'Nuff said. |
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Post by lunaalta on Feb 3, 2014 17:27:07 GMT -5
Not sure I understand where you are going with this (or coming from, for that matter), S, but 'this all happened' autumn 2013..... I'm using Sonar 8 Producer, having worked my way up from 4..... I'd say I have a reasonable grip on it. No SoundCloud problems at this end.....¿ Win 7/Opera 12.16 Like you, not seen a malware/anything in at least that long. Yup, Heinlein, my favourite SF author....... No problem here with work, just trying to keep it down to what is needed to get the job done. Which entails understanding the tools we have to work with.... |
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Post by sumgai on Feb 4, 2014 1:15:50 GMT -5
At the time we recorded this, through summer/autumn 2003, Not sure I understand where you are going with this (or coming from, for that matter), S, but 'this all happened' autumn 2013..... Ah, I see.... it was a case of "fat fingers", wasn't it?  Even so, I suspect that you and I are closer together on the same page than might otherwise have been discernable up to this point. Indeed, whille we'll never totally eliminate the work, we can (and should) reduce it to the bare minimum necessary to achieve the goal(s). For many players/recordists, that means that MIDI is not high on the priority list, it's just plain arcane when compared to most of the analog-world thought processes. (By that, I mean compared to the way most players are used to doing things... their mindset and all that.) In cases like the one you'be been discussing, I can only say, to each their own. We have a veritable cornucopia of available tools to choose from, and there really is no wrong way to do something, so long as the end result is what was envisioned in the first place. There might be easier ways, but if they aren't obvious at first glance, then the time it takes to investigate, learn, come up to speed, etc., is always a factor in whether one changes methods, or not. Comfort and familiarity is not to be sneezed at, right? Again, HTH sumgai |
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Post by lunaalta on Feb 4, 2014 5:59:10 GMT -5
LOL, fat, sexy fingers, please! ....oh, and a touch of senility, just for spice. I use MIDI when I'm putting drum tracks together, at home, 'cos I don't have drums and wouldn't do a very good job of playing them, if I tried (believe me, I have). On occasions, I might put some MIDI brass on a track, or..... well, as a substitute, when the real, live thing is not available. Although, I always export MIDI to a wave file, for the mix. Just so I can bring it 'into the sound', so to speak. Actually, a young percussion student (20 yo) is coming over on Thursday, with his 'Cajón'. He's on his last 2 years, of 5, doing jazz percussion. Unlike many of the students I have heard, here in Spain, he has a real talent and lots of feeling. I've jammed with him on drums, and he's right behind ya, all the time. He's interested in helping me put an R+B band together. That should be interesting....LOL. Just gonna triple check this for typos, before I post it, LOL! |
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