Collaborative Home Recording

Just curious if anyone else has ever given any thought to collaborating on home recording projects. As a keyboard player, my gear is a natural for home recording (multi-timbral, MIDI capable, direct inputs, no open mics) and I've been very happy with the quality of even my modest setup, but I think a lot of my projects would benefit from the creativity of other instrumentalists. My gear is fairly adequate for reproducing certain brass, orchestra, guitar, bass and drum sounds, but no matter what patch I dial in or how I adapt my playing to suit a particular instrument, it's still me playing my lines, and my lines get old pretty quickly.

It occurs to me that it wouldn't be very difficult to pass tracks around for other people to track over. If I needed a real guitar track, for instance, I could pass along a rough mixdown MP3, sans guitar, which could be loaded into a guitarist's recording setup and dubbed over onto a separate track. When done, the guitarist could pass me back an MP3 of just his track (or multiple MP3's of multiple tracks), which could then be imported into my recording setup and added to the master project.

Same for me, of course. If a fellow collaborator wanted a keyboard (or brass, or bass, or whatever) track for a tune, they could pass me a mixdown, I could record whatever parts they wanted and pass them back to add to their project. Passing MIDI sequences could offer even more flexibility... if a guitarist had some keyboard chops and even a cheap MIDI keyboard, he could lay down a horn or string part, pass me the MIDI sequence, and I could render it on my equipment (my S90's sounds are amazing), and pass the audio back.

I don't even think platform/application interchangability would be an issue since we'd be dealing with audio tracks only. If I create a track at 98 beats per minute beginning at timecode 00:00:00, all anyone else would have to do in order to use my track would be to create a project in their recording/sequencing application, set the tempo to 98 beats per minute, then import my audio track at timecode 00:00:00. My track would line up perfectly with the other project.

Thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by G.F. " Hookman " Brown on October 30, 2009 at 3:03pm
Hi Chuck,
We can open this to anyone .I don't see how that can hurt anything.
I want to send these two samples to my friend Craig Stevenz and invite him to participate.
He plays guitar, bass and sings.
If you've read my replies to Strat you know that right now I can't record anything to send anywhere.
I would actually prefer to sing my own lyrics but....
Let me get back to you.
HB

Chuck Mayo said:
Hookman, you never said what you wanted to do with this, whether you wanted to open it up for contributions or what. If you want to open it up, we should probably start a new thread and ask if anyone else wants to do tracks.

I'm attaching a de-jazzed version. It's still keyboard heavy, but that's all I have to work with. I added piano and organ comp tracks and some horn lines, took out the jazz drums and walking bass (except for the solos) but I'm still letting it swing.

Next step will depend on what you want to do, I guess. I can upload a zip file of individual tracks that folks can use to mix & match in their own software and/or upload a version with no lead for someone to use while playing around with vocals... whatever.

There's room for three short solos, the tune needs a pretty swingin' rhythm guitar track, and any track laid down so far is up for grabs... I'd just like to keep either the comp organ or comp piano track for myself so I can have a hand in the final version.
Permalink Reply by Michael Schaefer on October 30, 2009 at 9:19pm
Yeah, start a new thread guys and lets work on it over there. I would suggest that we learn from our experiences on Creepin and outline the song structure first. Also, Hookman, you should give Chuck a "feel" you are looking for. You mentioned a little harder, more rock sound. Is there a certain band or sound that you hear in your head? Is it more like Cream? More like ZZ Top? Deep Purple? Help a brother out. :)
Permalink Reply by G.F. " Hookman " Brown on October 30, 2009 at 9:29pm
Strat,I'll try to find a song similar to what I hear.
HB

The Roadhouse said:
Yeah, start a new thread guys and lets work on it over there. I would suggest that we learn from our experiences on Creepin and outline the song structure first. Also, Hookman, you should give Chuck a "feel" you are looking for. You mentioned a little harder, more rock sound. Is there a certain band or sound that you hear in your head? Is it more like Cream? More like ZZ Top? Deep Purple? Help a brother out. :)
Permalink Reply by G.F. " Hookman " Brown on October 31, 2009 at 5:42am
I've got three songs here that I've sent along.
All three are from a Musician Magazine compilation CD.The first is "Rattlesnake Shake" by Vince Converse and Innes Sibun.The second is "Roll the Dice" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds.Both have the "sound" or "feel" that I'm talking about,though neither are "boogies" per se.What they do have in common is both organs and pianos in both songs.Chuck, this should give a feel for the style? type? of keyboard sound I'd like to hear.
Chuck you have enormous talent.What I'm actually asking you to do is hold back on it a little, for this song.
Right now your sample is lush with sound and instrumentation.Instead,let's make this song a rough-and-tumble rockin' roadhouse kind of song.Both of these songs I'm sending are a little full too, in my opinion.But they have the right keyboard sounds.When it comes to Blues and Blues/Rock, I'm kinda of the opinion that less is more.
Chuck, I have many songs.About 50 or so.I'm already thinking of a song called "To Her Heart" that I wrote in 2003, that is perfect for you to turn your talents loose on. You could make this one very lush with strings and horns and such.Think Ricky Nelson style of love ballad.

The third song I'm sending is just for fun.It's an artist that I admire very much.This song is from her debut CD.
She was 19 yrs. old when she cut this, yet you can already hear the quality and the maturity in her voice.
The CD is "Playing With Matches".
The song is "Quintana" .
And the artist is Carolyn Wonderland.
1993
The Roadhouse said:
Yeah, start a new thread guys and lets work on it over there. I would suggest that we learn from our experiences on Creepin and outline the song structure first. Also, Hookman, you should give Chuck a "feel" you are looking for. You mentioned a little harder, more rock sound. Is there a certain band or sound that you hear in your head? Is it more like Cream? More like ZZ Top? Deep Purple? Help a brother out. :)
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Permalink Reply by Michael Schaefer on October 31, 2009 at 10:23am
Ok, then I think we need a 4/4 drum track to start. We'll also need a vocal scratch track so we can match a baseline to the changes.

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