How Do I....

[forpetessake]

A couple of questions.

A bunch off us over at the Kiss fan site are going to record a "tribute album" of various artists for the heck of it.

The idea being that one person records a track onto Audacity or some other program, emails that track to the next person, they add on their part an so on.

Some members are using Audacity. Others are using the Kristal 16 track recorder.

Is this going to work. And while I have done extensive recording in a real studio, we are using a virtual studio (ie the internet and our PC's). So if someone could kind of step me thru the process in a kind of simplified way. I need to answer some questions on this over there. And I sure could use some help advice on it.

thanks!

[uab9253]

Well - a couple of potential pitfalls, without knowing the audacity specifics:

1. You want to export your track as a wav and the next guy should be able to import it, no matter what sw he is using. Now he adds a track. Say his track starts a minute into the song. You now need to export it as 2 wav files. How does the next guy bring in both and have them lined up where they are supposed to be.

2. Ok, say you export the two tracks as one wave eliminating problem 1 above. Now guy number three has to live with the relative mix from the first two.

3. Wav files get pretty big. Unless you have super fast connections emailing a wav file will cost you your closest friends. So, go MP3 you say? If you do, for every link in the chain you are compressing/uncompressing from MP3 to wave, etc, and killing the quality.

The best way, if everybody uses the same software, would be to burn the entire project file to cd/dvd and snail mail it. That way, by the end, everybody's part is pristine and readily editable/mixable/eq-able.

Anybody else tried this "Hands Across America" approach? It sounds interesting and maybe I have overlooked something.

Just don't let Paul & Gene get wind. If Gene finds out, they will seize it, paint Ace & Peter's makeup on 2 fake guys, and release it. And garnish your wages for the next 10 years. The bright side - You might get discussed on an episode of "Family Jewels"

Can you tell I am a pissed off ex-fan?

[forpetessake]

Very funny and thanks for the advice!

[KillerV]

I live in South Africa and have worked with people from all over the world - usually singer/songwriters. It started out because studio-time at my studio was usually nothing compared to what they had to pay where they were. At the same time I'm smiling 'cause I'm paid in foreign currency. Hell yeah!

It's usually a case of them getting me a rough demo and then I record/produce most of the song in my studio and then have them send me their parts at the end to mix it all. This is how we do it:

1)Artists records a rough guitar/vox demo of the song, e-mail everyone involved the MP3 and we discuss the direction it will take musically.

2) We agree on a BPM, program a click track and export it as a WAV to send to everyone involved.

3) Record drums, exporting a WAV. for each track that the guy who will do the mixing keeps, but also a stereo mix MP3 of it all to e-mail to whoever plays bass. Bass track(s) get sent to the guy who mixes.

4) Record bassline and mix down a new stereo file with drums/bass to send to the guitarist, or whatever part comes next. As with the bass tracks, the individual parts get sent to the guy who does mixing, with a new stereo mix MP3 being sent to whoever does the next instrument.

5) Do this untill all parts are done, making sure that all the WAV's are recorded/exported to start at the same point so that they line up in your DAW. Mail (e- or snail-) large WAV's to mixing guy.

6) Mixing guy puts MP3's of how the mix progresses on a free music site so everyone can check it out and say what needs to change. Mails the final mixes to everyone involved at the end.

Now, usually in my case I get session guys in the studio who does everyhing here in my studio, so there's not that much e-mailing tracks around, except for MP3's to show the artists what's going on with his/her track. The artist usually then only does his vocals and whatever other parts he needs to do and I mix it all. I have done the back-and-forth mailing thing once or twice, but it's more schlep although it works in the end.

With projects like these I have found that it can become a case of "too many cooks...", so beware of that. It's definitely easier when fewer people are involved. It can be a lot of schlep, but it's very satisfying to work with people from all over.

Hope this helps. Best of luck for your project.

[uab9253]

Wow, that is an interesting approach. Thanks for sharing that.

[forpetessake]

Very interesting. I am running these ideas past the group...and hopefully we can settle on something that will be easy enough to keep people interested and...yet good enough to get the job done!