This week Jon shares some tips on long distance music collaboration. We also answer questions about releasing music, studio accounting, fade shapes, and much more.
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Great track Jon! Sounds like it belongs in a film. Should be in the scene where, after just finding his wife’s dead body, the good guy takes out revenge on the bad guys.
I’d buy that soundtrack.
Would love to hear a breakdown of how each part was recorded – instrument/amp/mic/pre/FX/processes used on the drums, bass, and guitar.
Thanks,
Dan
I agree, the track rocked. That riff in the beginning sounded huge.
Joe Gilders SM57 Challenge was yesterday. The song turned out great, I think hes planning on posting it online soon.
GSAA
dan
Hey guys, I’m recording a 4 song E.P. with a local band. I’m not really too sharp with the business side of it, so would it be fair to ask for a percentage of every sale? If so, how much would be appropriate?
P.S. When it’s all tracked, would one of you guys care to give me some mix advice?
Awesome show! Thanks a lot.
Hey guys I loved this weeks topic it really hit home to what my friends and I are doing. I hope this doesn’t come across as an advert for the band because its not. The band wardick is an internet band we met while I was living in Japan one guy is in Montana and the other in Arizona. We basically will post a jam on out own private forum and then just build it from there. All files are uploaded via FTP and one guy mixes all of it.
I, the lead guitar player, will send him dry tracks and he reamps it with whatever he decided he likes. Lately it has been TH2. The drums are either Slate, Loops, Superior Drummer. All mixed ITB with Reaper.
Anyway if anybody wants or cares to know our process please let us know. I am a big believer in the Internet Band and would love to help peeps out if they are interested in starting one.
As you can tell we sell our crap on Bandcamp and so far the bank for the band has bought me a guitar pick.. I cherish that pick I even framed it, its a lonely, but sexy pic, someday it will be a set of guitar strings. Life is so good. WERD
http://wardick.bandcamp.com/
http://wardick.bandcamp.com/
Love you guys.. great podcast.
Great show guys. I had blast recording the drum tracks; it’s always fun to work on projects that personally interest you. I do my share of online drum tracking to help cover the bills; it’s one thing to be a session player, but when you enjoy the music/vision it’s no longer “work”. I purposely tried to hold back & make a solid back beat. I tend to get “proggy” if I’m left to my own devise. This tack didn’t need that vibe at all. Being 70 or so BPM playing solid quarter notes without 8th or 16th ticking away is humbling. It’s a reminder of the importance of good time.
@Dan
I felt a big open sound would best fit the track. I used a Gretsch jasper kit without any damping, I was going for that resonate/ringy tone. Dissonant tom tuning helps add tension. It’s surprising what might sound bad/odd soloed can work wonders in the mix.
For mics I used a whole hodgepodge of dynamic, condensers, & tube mics. For pres I used a 4chn Hardy M1 for kick, snare, & overheads. A modded 4chn DIY JLM baby animal for rooms, & a 8channel SCA with DIY T15’s for the rest of the spot mics. I track these into two daisy chained Studio Konnekt 48 interfaces via Reaper. This is my downtown “drum kit tracking space”, living in a city is not convenient for a drummer.
I trucked the recordings back home & added a Bodhran drum, (tabla that got cut) & egg shaker that you hear a the top & tail of the track. I tracked these guys into protools with a ribbon mic via a API A2D.
I didn’t track with any compression or EQ & gave the tracks to Jon. I had a feeling he might be a control freak like myself & prefers it raw. Don’t we all =).
A lot of crap to send, but a lot of fun.
Great advice on the long distance collaborations. I tried something similar a while back and sharing studio files would have probably helped a lot. I found the biggest limitation though is dedication from your collaborators. It’s hard to move on when one guy isn’t recording his parts and unlike a local band, I can’t smack someone through the I Internet.
I would love for Jon to do a segment on how the writing process worked out for the group. It can’t be easy when you can’t sit in a room and jam out the rough spots.
Hey guys,
A couple of notes on what I heard during the comment section of the last podcast. Apologies in advance for the long post and the references to my own stuff.
First off, I heard Ryan say something that I believe is incorrect. He said in response to an 88.2 sample rate question that “most microphones cut off at 20k so that doesn’t matter unless you have microphones that are going to extend above that range”
In my experience, most mics actually DO record significantly above 20k, regardless of how they’re rated. I believe that the reason that the misperception that they cut off at 20k exists is while the mics do capture sound up there, the manufacturers don’t bother to rate them that high because they may not be exactly LINEAR above 20k.
As a sound effects recordist I’ve personally recorded frequencies well above 20k with the internal mics of the Zoom H4n, the internals on the PCM D50, all of the mics on my west texas gun shoot (Senn 421, Schoeps CMC6.mk4, AT4050, Sanken COS11 lav, Rode NT5). http://thesoundmyheadmakes.blogspot.com/2011/06/west-texas-gun-recording-pt-3-post-and.html
here’s a spectrogram of a metal gate I recorded with the D50:
http://flic.kr/p/8qEh2m
I’ve even recorded ultrasonic frequencies with the Austin Ribbon mic that I built.
Here’s the ribbon mic blog post with a spectrogram that includes the Austin Ribbon mic, a Line Audio CM3, and a pair of AT4050s, all recording at 96k and capturing frequencies above 20k:
http://thesoundmyheadmakes.blogspot.com/2012/04/building-ribbon-mic-part-2-listening.html
and here’s the ribbon mic by itself, this time just recording at 44k, but clearly showing frequencies all the way up to the cutoff.
http://thesoundmyheadmakes.blogspot.com/2012/04/building-ribbon-mic-part-2-listening.html
Last one, here’s a shootout that Frank Bry did with a 416 and an 8040 (which is rated to 50kHz)
http://www.therecordist.com/chains-and-sennheiser-mkh8040-mkh416-comparison
The point is that most mics can actually record ultrasonic frequencies. Wide frequency response mics may do this *better* but they don’t do this *exclusively*
IMO those frequencies are only useful when you bend them down in to the range of human hearing, but hey…
regarding kickstarter:
Last year I did a successful kickstarter project, and blogged the living hell out of it. that compilation is here: http://thesoundmyheadmakes.blogspot.com/2011/10/kickstarter-compilation-thread.html
it’s not a music album, but many of the planning and financial principles still apply.
Ok, enough blog flogging. Someone needs to needle Ray Pevley for not knowing what “literally” means, ride the whatever, you guys rock, and back to the show…
Hey guys, greeeaat shooow! I have an unrelated question but don’t know where to post it, so… ??? …here is where it’s landing.
As far as live bass signal chains go… I am curious whether putting a passive bass signal through a compressor which then goes to a DI box which is splitting one signal to the house mixer and one signal to the bass amp is considered an active signal. I am trying to decide on a DI box for this set-up, but don’t know whether I should get an active DI (which would be best if the signal remains passive) or a passive DI (which can handle an active load). I have trolled the bass forums and can’t find an answer. Most scenarios described have the signal going into the DI first and then the compressor/ amp… but I want the compressed signal going to the mixer.
Any ideas would be more than I got… I am stumped.
Thanks!
Mike
Hi guys, thought I’d chime in about work people.
I’ve found that there are ‘yes’ people and ‘no’ people. Avoid contact with the ‘no’ variety. They are a waste of your time. If you get someone on the phone who says “no”, hang up! Call back until you hit on a ‘yes’ person. They are at least willing to try to help you. I’d rather have a ‘yes’ person who doesn’t know what they are doing vs. a human roadblock who knows everything. In all areas of life- follow this rule. It has served me well.
Brett
Hi Guys,
Great track Jon. You guys might be fighting over ownership rights when that is the tune for the climax sequence of 28 Months Later. I think I’ve heard before about sites where people can get together for virtual collaboration. I can’t afford to pay session players for bass and drums, wish I could. Also no time for a band or even a practice really but I’d love to “meet” players such as myself that would just like to play on each other’s tracks for free. Do you know of anything like this?
Ride the pussy.
There is a couple online collaboration sites. But I use Kompoz.com. It is free and easy and I have always gotten what I needed.
Ride something….
I like the idea of the collaboration sites but they can be a real pain in the a$$. First your putting your effort into something that somebody else is going to make money on (icompositions.com ect. ) you work hard to write and produce this music just for some site operator to make money off of click throughs and you get nothing for your work.
2. The bad musicians on these sites. Again you work hard to create a good track and some (less then qualified person) comes along and drops a D112 all over your track and when you don’t use it or point it out they get offended.
3. The good musicians deserve to be paid, they’ve earned it. People will troll these sites trying to get good work for nothing. Not Cool..
Unlike people who listen to free podcasts full of awesome information and don’t donate. LOLOLOLOL
GSAA
I have always thought is would be great fun to throw together collaborations. I’ve wanted to do it with some of the bands we play with locally and make an “exquisite corpse” kinda thing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse)
The timing is pretty good with this show. My band has hit a progeny detour. In the last year and a half, three of us have spawned a new generation. We are all to stubborn to quit, but things like collaborations are looking more and more appealing as diaper changes have become a new hobby. We can all find time, but finding time where all our schedules agree has been the hiccup. This would definitely help in that arena. Now if i can only teach those slapdicks to track we might be on to something.
Ride the chicken
tax advice on HRS?! you fellas are brave
Hey guys GSAA…and Ryan…FWIW, my last name is actually pronounced “Peeve Lee” not (pev lee); a very common mispronunciation….just FWIW…I mean.. unless you’re just “poultry riding Determined to call me pev lee , and that’s cool, just wanted to throw the right info out there, because I foresee my name regularly coming up in the comment section….aaannnywwaay…oh, and btw btw, I did what you guys said to my question last week and slowed up on the reading and really ramped up the recording, and have several projects in the works and am really learning a shit ton…yes I said shit ton…
Long distance music collaboration…now there’s an idea…i can’t really say that was unaware of it; so much as, I simply never gave it much thought at all. Although, after listening to last weeks show, I realize what a great concept that is; especially with all the Tech goodies that are out there today…Well played Mr. Tidey….well played indeed…also, are you guys still sending those diplomas by chance? I have officially made it thru all of the episodes. However, there is so much great stuff in these episodes, I plan to go thru then again…especially specific ones. Regardless, If the diploma is still available, I would dig having one to hang in my fledgling little studio startup,..
One last thing, any chance we’ll be seeing a mobile version of this site soon? Trying to navigate the site when leaving a comment can get to be pretty cumbersome with an iPhone due to al the zooming that has to be done to be able to read it …just a my suggestion…which that along with a dollar might get you a cup of coffee…either way there is way too much awesomeness here for that to stop me…just have to start commenting fron the iPad or PC…Keep Rockin the chicken although I’ve heard telltale stuff will cause your hair to fall out and cause your palms to grow feathers or something….just sayin…
As Dan said in comment number 1. Great track Jon! Really did seem like it could be a part of a film score. Brought me right to Silent Hill. Another great show guys.
Great show guys! I’m a newcomer to the podcast, and this was the first show I listened to because of the subject.
I was turned on to the idea of long distance collaborations because of Indaba Music (www.indabamusic.com); a site dedicated to collaboration. I’ve done several projects there; most went very well and I’ve been pleased with the results.
Last year, someone on the Six String Bliss Forum posed the idea of documenting a collaboration. There have been lots of “guitar-build
” projects thoroughly documented, but no one had really dissected the process used in doing a collaboration. What started as a discussion turned into a massive project, as 9 contributors worked together to do a cover of “Hey You”. Here’s a link to the original thread where you can see the evolution of the idea: http://sixstringbliss.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=jman&action=display&thread=2961 Here’s a link to the thread with the final song: http://sixstringbliss.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=jman&action=display&thread=3037, and one just to the final song for anyone that doesn’t want to bother with the forum posts: http://soundcloud.com/bookerjwood/comfortably-dumb-hey-you
As I mentioned, there were 9 contributors (2 in England, 1 in Germany, 6 in the US). There were many different DAW’s used (including one person who ran open source software in Ubuntu on Linux); everyone just submitted their completed WAV files to Dropbox. One person was the Producer/ Mixer/ Mastering Engineer, although he took a lot of input from the community.
Six String Bliss puts out 2 albums of community submitted songs every year. It’s a great community for guitarists of all ages, genres, and skill levels, and we always welcome new contributors.
These days I get a LOT more musical satisfaction participating in a collaboration than I do in creating something by myself. Thanks for a great show on a great topic. And yes, that song of Jon’s was absolutely terrific. Great ambient vibe; you really SHOULD submit it for use in a movie!