Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Remote collaborations, anyone?
- Thread starter LBS-bass
- Start date
Just finished doing a song with some former bandmates. The BL wanted to do "Comfortably Numb" so he rounded up the band and send out the tracks. So, he made practice tracks, where he had taken out the instrument of the band member, which, for me, he took out the bass part. I spent time, just going over it a number of times so that I could memorize the chord sheet. I had tried to play along, using a chord sheet, but I kept getting out of time, when I scroll to the next sheet.
A great idea that he did was to add a click to the backing track, which helps a lot. However, when I was playing along with the backing track, the tempo of the original song was varying, when compared to the click. Also, Gilmour's outro solo has a couple of overdubs, which were just slightly out of time. I wouldn't have noticed, if I was just casually listening to the song but trying to play along with it and having the click, it threw me out of tempo, for a bit.
A great idea that he did was to add a click to the backing track, which helps a lot. However, when I was playing along with the backing track, the tempo of the original song was varying, when compared to the click. Also, Gilmour's outro solo has a couple of overdubs, which were just slightly out of time. I wouldn't have noticed, if I was just casually listening to the song but trying to play along with it and having the click, it threw me out of tempo, for a bit.
I'm doing that with one of my collaborators right now.
We farted around with a variety of platforms to share full mix projects, but that was getting unwieldy and not all that high quality for realtime or near realtime collaboration. So, we're swapping backing tracks back and forth and laying down tracks, editing on our own sides. I'm using Logic Pro X and he's on Ardour. We use Google Drive to swap stems. Its working out well. That's the serious side of the collaboration.
I'm also doing some Frog Leap Studios kind of stuff - heavy, thrashy covers of well-known tunes. Right now I'm working on 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday. I programmed drums, played bass, rhythm guitar and keys, laid down vocals, mixed and produced the track. I needed my buddy for the searing lead guitar parts. So he's recording that right now as well as capturing video. I'll do a final mix down and then edit all the video together. Post it to YouTube so that three people can view and dislike it! LOL!
Anyways, our plan for the serious original stuff is to have enough material to score a film that right now only exists in our imaginations, so we're developing working materials using canned drums. When we can gather again, we'll get our drummer in to lay down his parts and work on some video products.
My other band is completely stood down. That one exists solely for the purposes of getting together to play music. We don't even gig! I tried to sell them on the remote collaboration but only one of them is interested has the technical know-how and gear to make it happen anyways.
Happy to see some replies to this. I haven't done much of this recently; I used to collaborate long-distance with a guitar player I'd known for decades who lived on the opposite coast, but he passed away.
My practice studio got moved to our garage when our housemate was here, but now that he's gone I am back in business and, since I can't rehearse with my bands, I might as well write.
It seems like a logical step right now for those who have the gear to collaborate remotely, since we can't make music together any other way. The guitarist in one of my bands also records using a DAW so I might connect with him to see if he's interested in making something happen.
My practice studio got moved to our garage when our housemate was here, but now that he's gone I am back in business and, since I can't rehearse with my bands, I might as well write.
It seems like a logical step right now for those who have the gear to collaborate remotely, since we can't make music together any other way. The guitarist in one of my bands also records using a DAW so I might connect with him to see if he's interested in making something happen.
- Jan 26, 2014
- 768
- 1,555
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist;DNA Amplification, GHS strings
That's how my band normally writes new material anyway so this is just more time to do so. The two guitar players and I exchange guitar pro files via facebook messenger. Someone will come up with a song idea or even just a riff and we'll all add our input, change this note, repeat this many times....
A couple guys I play with regularly -- sorry, I mean used to play with regularly 
-- just told me about JamKazam. Haven't tried it yet, but if it truly allows for real-time collaboration with no latency or sync issues it'll be a godsend.
(I'll confess, the social networking aspect of JamKazam strikes me as rather inane, but I'm definitely interested in anything that will allow me to perform with other musicians without having to violate social distancing protocol.)
-- just told me about JamKazam. Haven't tried it yet, but if it truly allows for real-time collaboration with no latency or sync issues it'll be a godsend. (I'll confess, the social networking aspect of JamKazam strikes me as rather inane, but I'm definitely interested in anything that will allow me to perform with other musicians without having to violate social distancing protocol.)
yes, as a matter of fact. TBH: we already had a method of collaborating, anyway (my jazz band), involving the rhythm section players. we couldn't publish a covid-era tune without a group/section recording of the 3 horns, however. so we can only go so far in total isolation.
but writing/arranging with all of them is pretty easy: email/dropbox some parts (recordings/manuscript) and we have a discussion!
i haven't done any face/screen time with anyone, though. only a few of us would find it easy to 'hardwire' the connections needed to have a group playdown of any kind. so, we're finishing up a few original tunes to record the horns. later.
- Sep 4, 2010
- 3,304
- 2,730
- Disclosures
- Endorsing: Martin Keith Guitars
yes, quite a lot. It all involves tossing wav. files around.
- Partaking in a (by now) massive band project, where a group of ~120 musicians builds tracks. Every tune is built on a set of roles, that people take on. An old friend of mine is coordinating the whole thing in a producer role.
- It starts for example with someone supplying a lyric, then someone writing music and providing a sketch demo in whatever form, the next one adds drums, then guitar, then bass, whatever else is needed for the tune (backing vox, horns, strings....) andsoforth all the way to mixing, mastering and video-editing. About 2 months in now and there are 30 tunes in progress with 4 finished, and ~ 15 approaching completion. I've played bass on several and written a few tunes.
- The coolest thing is that it is ego-less - once you did your thing, it is out of your hands and whatever happens to your part in the next stages, or however your song turns out, you have NO say in or control over. It is music I usually don't usually play at all, with people I do not know at all. You just gotta trust them. That makes it fun too.
- I am setting up with a few friends a series of duets with bass-player colleagues from the creative scene, where each participant gets to start a duet, and gets to finish a duet someone else started.
- the ruling parameter also will be to give up control: chance will determine who gets to play with whom.
- The only guarantee: everyone gets to play with 2 other people.
That's a good point. And I think it's important to establish expectations with regard to how things get done and what happens when something is finished. I'm doing this for fun and for the creative challenge of doing something new while this pandemic plays out, but it's nice to have something when all is said and done that I'd want to share with others on a broad scale. Everyone needs to be on the same page as far as what's going to be shared and when it's ready. If one person isn't comfortable, then it's not done yet.
- Sep 4, 2010
- 3,304
- 2,730
- Disclosures
- Endorsing: Martin Keith Guitars
To make sure everyone involved is happy with the final results is one way to go about it, but I'd say only possible with a very limited group of participants who are already acquainted with each other (and even then...I still have 3 killer records laying around because people are dragging their feet....).
The exercise to jump into something entirely unrelated to what I normally do, with people I do not know is a different thing altogether. This for example is a finished one that I play on that is way off into leftfield (or should I say right field..) for me. But hey, it was fun to do, and I made some new friends.
A couple guys I play with regularly -- sorry, I mean used to play with regularly
Update: I still haven't tried JamKazam, but my bandmates gave it a trial run last week and they report that it's just not sync-accurate enough to allow for real-time musical collaboration...unless everything you play is molto rubato
My Talk To Bears project has been a remote collaboration since last year. I do the lions share of the instrumental parts (plus a buddy of mine does the more advanced keyboard stuff and trumpet) and an old bandmate of mine lays in vocal tracks from a distance of 2000 or so miles. So far it's worked out very well by way of Dropbox.
Here's an example
Here's an example
