COCKOS
CONFEDERATED FORUMS
Cockos : REAPER : NINJAM : Forums
Forum Home : Register : FAQ : Members List : Search :
Old 06-06-2006, 08:11 AM   #1
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default Making a "virtual" Album

Inspired somewhat by the funkdawgs -

http://www.funkdawgs.com/funkdawgs/homepage.htm

I'm wondering if anyone is interested in producing an album in this manner; that is, by collaborating in "cyberspace." I'm not sure about all the details and logistics, but I'm certainly interested in such a project.

Essentially four to ten people (?) decide to become a "virtual" band and compose songs together. One person would probably be the focal point for collecting and mixing all the material. It might go something like this: the bassist creates a groove track, then sends to the drummer, who adds his beats, then sends to guitarist....and so on, until the group agrees that the tune is finished.

I know that "My Virtual Band" exists (http://www.myvirtualband.com/) with a similar aim, but I'd rather not get into having to "vote" on whether a lick stays or goes and I'm not into doing competitions, which I think can actually stifle creativity.

Any thoughts?
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-06-2006, 07:32 PM   #2
sp4miz
Human being with feelings
 
sp4miz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Norfolk, Virginia
Posts: 58
Default

I think its a great idea. I've always thought about doing this, just didn't know if anyone else was keen to it. Yea count me in.
__________________
Music forces one into the psychological state of the composer, nothing more nothing less.
sp4miz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2006, 09:40 AM   #3
killerqueen
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 16
Default

Wow, I totally dig that funkdawgs stuff!

I'd certainly be interested in any collaberation. ThougI won't be able to do anything in the next week or two (as I have exams, and both my guitars are out of action until I get some new strings!)
I play guitar and keys. (Got a few decent B3, Clavinet, Rhodes etc software emulators.)
I also play trombone, which is my main instrument. (Though I have no decent mike to record it with ATM- could get one if I need one.)
What sort of style are you thinking of? Funky stuff like funkdawgs? I'm mostly into the jazz/funk/fusion stuff, but I'll happily do stuff like rock too.
killerqueen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-07-2006, 07:52 PM   #4
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default Virtual Band Idea

Quote:
Originally Posted by killerqueen
Wow, I totally dig that funkdawgs stuff!

I'd certainly be interested in any collaberation. ThougI won't be able to do anything in the next week or two (as I have exams, and both my guitars are out of action until I get some new strings!)
I play guitar and keys. (Got a few decent B3, Clavinet, Rhodes etc software emulators.)
I also play trombone, which is my main instrument. (Though I have no decent mike to record it with ATM- could get one if I need one.)
What sort of style are you thinking of? Funky stuff like funkdawgs? I'm mostly into the jazz/funk/fusion stuff, but I'll happily do stuff like rock too.
I appreciate your comments and questions. I too am a "multi" instrumentalist, although guitar is my main squeeze. I've got an electronic drum kit, guitar synthesizer, bass and a shitload of software, plugins and so on.

As for choice of music, I also lean towards jazz/funk/fusion and am especially interested in doing stuff similar to Herbie Hancock with Headhunters and Tony Williams "Lifetime." Kind of a mix of groove/funk with some sonic exploration. But I like a large variety of music, from avant garde classical to ambient and zydeco and blues, etc.

I'll watch this thread and see how many folks we get interested, and then how many "committed." I'm sure like myself, most of us lead busy lives, what with dayjobs, school and projects, etc. So I don't want to setup some kind of rigid timeline, though it would be very cool to have a CD by this time next year (or before the end of this one, if we get ambitious enough).

Once enough people express an interest in the project, we can work out the logistics--what kind of hardware/software everyone has; how we want to distribute the tracks, formats and all that.

I think this could be really exciting. I would think of this as a slower, more "goal" oriented ninjam. ;-)

Last edited by norelpref; 06-07-2006 at 07:54 PM.
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-08-2006, 08:12 PM   #5
misterC
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 41
Default hell yeah

I'm very interested.... I as well am a multi player, interestingly enough, just as killerqueen, my main is trombone...
I also play bass, and keys... as well as other sampled or sequenced stuff like drums and what not..

looking foward to this...

chris
misterC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-09-2006, 07:55 AM   #6
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default Trombones! Yeah!

Quote:
Originally Posted by misterC
I'm very interested.... I as well am a multi player, interestingly enough, just as killerqueen, my main is trombone...
I also play bass, and keys... as well as other sampled or sequenced stuff like drums and what not..

looking foward to this...

chris
I'd love to work in a project that had some brass in it. And definitely tons of electric piano; I love the Fender Rhodes sound--got to have it....Thus far we have four souls interested. If we get no more than that, I'd be happy. I've even thought about coming up with a band name, and maybe even an album title. We can propose them here and then take a vote.

If each person agreed to be the main author for two or three songs, that would work out great for an 8 to 10 track CD.

I'm willing to be the focal point and general organizer for the project, if no one objects. I could even host a blog about the project and chart our progress (as well as host track files and whatnot). My webhosting deal is very sweet and I've got gigabytes o' disk space to spare.

So lets say give this thread another week and see who gets into it and then begin the "virtual" jamming....Or at least hammer out more of the parameters for the thing. Regards, and thanks to all for their comments.
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-09-2006, 09:33 AM   #7
killerqueen
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 16
Default

A brass section would be great! I'd have to buy a decent mike, mind you- but that's something I've been planning to do for ages. I'm a great fan of Headhunters-era Herbie too. Have you asked on any other forums, or just here? May be worth asking somewhere like harmony-central.com forums. They've just added a Wind/Brass forum too- might be a good place to find some saxes +trumpets. And any other guitars/bases/drummers if need be. Some different percussion might be cool-bongos, tablas, dhol, that sort of thing. I love the use of unusal percussion and rhythms- particularly indian percussion. Hard to find the players though *sigh* Still, there's always loops!

I think it would be grat if you could set up a forum where we could all post little ideas we have, and then work on those ideas collectively. And of course it's the ideal place to co-ordinate everything.
killerqueen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-09-2006, 03:18 PM   #8
sp4miz
Human being with feelings
 
sp4miz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Norfolk, Virginia
Posts: 58
Default

I'de like to try a little latin type theme with with II-V-I changes and perhaps Circle of fifths comping. What I really dig is dynamic tempo changes within odd times i.e. seven eighths etc. I know this can be challenging within Ninjam, however it is possible to go beyond this app and file share in say Skype or other file sharing formats. What do you all think about that?
__________________
Music forces one into the psychological state of the composer, nothing more nothing less.
sp4miz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2006, 05:11 AM   #9
Riggzy
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 8
Default

You may find it of interest to go reading though www.myvirtualband.com - something quite similar
Riggzy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2006, 10:05 AM   #10
misterC
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 41
Default

Cool site Riggzy.. I also found ccmixter.org, which is very similar.
misterC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2006, 07:34 AM   #11
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default MVB

Quote:
Originally Posted by misterC
Cool site Riggzy.. I also found ccmixter.org, which is very similar.
Yeah, I guess there's no need to really reinvent the wheel. My Virtual Band has all the resources we would need to create a collaborative project. I've been signed up there since last year, but haven't really made use of my account. Time to start, I suppose :-)...And I've been involved, off and on with CC:mixter since it's inception, with mixed (so to speak) results. But MVB looks like it could be a pip, could be a pip.

See ya there.

http://www.myvirtualband.com
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2006, 08:47 AM   #12
killerqueen
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 16
Default

I still think it would be better using your own webspace, norelpref. As I said, it would be useful to have a (private) forum to co-ordinate everything, which myvirtualband doesn't have. Also, I don't think you're allowed to host anything there unless it's a myvirtualband project - I'm not sure if what we're doing would come under that or not. I guess it would have to be more an open-source thing, rather than a `band`.
And of course there's what you said about the voting and competitions and stuff. I signed up for myvirtualband ages ago, but haven't really been active (like you.)
killerqueen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2006, 12:14 PM   #13
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default Hmmmm....

Quote:
Originally Posted by killerqueen
I still think it would be better using your own webspace, norelpref. As I said, it would be useful to have a (private) forum to co-ordinate everything, which myvirtualband doesn't have. Also, I don't think you're allowed to host anything there unless it's a myvirtualband project - I'm not sure if what we're doing would come under that or not. I guess it would have to be more an open-source thing, rather than a `band`.
And of course there's what you said about the voting and competitions and stuff. I signed up for myvirtualband ages ago, but haven't really been active (like you.)
Based on your suggestions, I'm going to go ahead and host a website dedicated to collaborative music. MVB seems very scattered and I find it difficult to want to really participate; and cc:mixter is more for the "re-mixing" folk (nothing wrong with that, being a chronic re-mixer myself).

I've actually already installed a very cool CMS and am customizing it for this very purpose. It has forums, upload capability and tons of other stuff. I'll post the URL here when I think we've got something we can work with. At that point we can all make suggestions for improvement and so forth.

Thanks. BTW, off topic--I'm glad to see Krispin Hartung using Ninjam--he's quite a talented musician.
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2006, 11:43 AM   #14
joshisoz
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 17
Default

hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell

Last edited by joshisoz; 03-16-2019 at 10:04 AM.
joshisoz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-19-2006, 02:13 PM   #15
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default No need for audition

Quote:
Originally Posted by joshisoz
I'm potentially interested. Ive always wanted to do something like this. I'm a guitarist/bassist. Although I WILL admit that I play a lot of prog metal and metal, I'm pretty competent and would like to maybe get in on this. Whoevers in charge can audition me or whatever if you want.
I'm still in the process of developing the site and should be launching it hopefully this week.

BTW, auditions are not necessary. Auditioning, voting and all that I want to get away from. I assume anyone serious about making music has sufficient skills; I think desire, healthy ego and attitude are more important than anything else anyway.

Case in point: the Talking Heads were just a collection of college buddies who decided to make a band, and I don't think they knew how to play any instrument at all at the time.

I'm personally looking for a band which is greater than the sum of it's parts; I want to get away from the "star guitar" mentality which I myself have been guilty of perpetuating.

I will post the URL for the collaboration site this week.
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2006, 06:36 AM   #16
Newbie Brad
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 128
Default

I'm eager to look at your new site. I might not be able to participate, not sure yet, no reflection on you or the project. But I had a suggestion. Perhaps you could split up production of the tracks amongst the musician-participants so generally all musician participants would record something on most or all tracks and all or most of the musician-participants would be responsible to produce one of the tracks.

Last edited by Newbie Brad; 06-20-2006 at 06:39 AM.
Newbie Brad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-20-2006, 05:00 PM   #17
misterC
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 41
Default

I think NINJAM would be an effective practice/jam tool to let the creativity flow and generate some of the melodies/riffs/licks that would eventually turn into a song. At that point, the file sharing begins. Someone could start with recording to a click track then send it to someone else, and then record their seperate track...at the end you should end up with a single track for each musician that can be mixed down properly instead of overdubbing each part onto the previous ones mix....

sound like it would work?
misterC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-21-2006, 03:22 PM   #18
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default Well I'll Be Jiggered

Quote:
Originally Posted by misterC
I think NINJAM would be an effective practice/jam tool to let the creativity flow and generate some of the melodies/riffs/licks that would eventually turn into a song. At that point, the file sharing begins. Someone could start with recording to a click track then send it to someone else, and then record their seperate track...at the end you should end up with a single track for each musician that can be mixed down properly instead of overdubbing each part onto the previous ones mix....

sound like it would work?
Still working the site, but I just discovered (what has probably been known to many Ninjammers) that you can import a whole Ninjam session (the "clipsort" file) into Reaper. Each user has his/her own track. This is SOOOOO much easier than how I was remixing and editing Ninjam sessions before. Prior to Reaper I would have to go through all the .ogg files with the impossibly cyptic names and listen to them to find the "good" or desirable sounds. Then I'd import them and edit them in Acid Pro. This was ridiculous, in retrospect! Although I used this tedious method to create a number of remixes, now I can just use Reaper, which is so much easier. I wish I'd known this a year ago!

Oh well. Now I know. BTW, Reaper is a great little audio editor, I recommend it to those who haven't yet tried it.
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-28-2006, 01:20 PM   #19
killerqueen
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 16
Default

How's the site coming on?

In the meantime, anyone fancy arranging a time to get together on Ninjam?
killerqueen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-29-2006, 07:42 AM   #20
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default Rethinking

Quote:
Originally Posted by killerqueen
How's the site coming on?

In the meantime, anyone fancy arranging a time to get together on Ninjam?
I've been trying to upgrade two of my domains to the newest Wordpress version and wrangling with that lately. Finally working out the bugs....
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-29-2006, 06:34 PM   #21
senecal
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 1
Default

Hi guys,

Great discussion! I'm the co-founder of MyVirtualBand.com. I just wanted to say that MVB currently promotes "open source" music. Because of this philosophy there isn't really any sort of auditioning or voting that goes on within the projects. In fact, we have had many projects evolve in several different directions! Some projects are completely open and some are more focused. A lot of that depends on the the project initiator and who is participating.

Currently we are beta testing a brand new version (which we call MVB 2.0) that is not yet open to the public. The new version should be out soon and will be a significant improvement over the current MVB site.

Anyway, just thought I would chime in as I saw the discussion about MVB. Take care everyone.
senecal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-30-2006, 07:35 AM   #22
norelpref
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Default MVB Be the Thang then

Quote:
Originally Posted by senecal
Hi guys,

Great discussion! I'm the co-founder of MyVirtualBand.com. I just wanted to say that MVB currently promotes "open source" music. Because of this philosophy there isn't really any sort of auditioning or voting that goes on within the projects. In fact, we have had many projects evolve in several different directions! Some projects are completely open and some are more focused. A lot of that depends on the the project initiator and who is participating.

Currently we are beta testing a brand new version (which we call MVB 2.0) that is not yet open to the public. The new version should be out soon and will be a significant improvement over the current MVB site.

Anyway, just thought I would chime in as I saw the discussion about MVB. Take care everyone.
Yeah, after thinking more about this, I think MVB is the place to go for collaboration. I don't want to expend a lot of energy reinventing the wheel. So I'll see ya all on MVB, perhaps.
norelpref is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:03 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.