Re: Long distance Music

["Michael Plishka" <mike@michaelplishka.com>]

Per et al,

Thanks for the enlightening and stimulating thoughts/techniques regarding 
long distance collaborating.  It has given me much to learn.

Thanks again and rest assured I will keep you posted regarding the fruits 
of 
these labors!!

~peace~

Michael
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Per Boysen" <perboysen@gmail.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 3:45 AM
Subject: Re: Long distance Music


> On 1 maj 2007, at 02.39, Michael Plishka wrote:
>
>> I am trying to record with someone a couple thousand miles away.   What 
>> does this fair group suggest?
>> 1. Doing my part of the recording and sending the CD or emailing  the 
>> files?
>> 2. Using software and synching up live?
>
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> In the nineties I pioneered Rocketnet as part of the beta testing  team 
> and learned the basics of long distance collaboration. Rocketnet  was a 
> great system that connected DAWS over the internet, via a  dedicated 
>audio 
> file storage server. I could produce recordings  together with other 
> musicians, no matter who was using ProTools,  Logic or Cubase. Any 
>freshly 
> recorded track was uploaded to the  server and downloaded for monitoring 
> in a compressed format to those  that had joined that specific session. 
> Although Rocketnet never  reached financial break even and sadly went 
> belly up, the basic needs  for long distance collaboration remains the 
> same:
>
> Each collaborator need to (1) receive a monitoring cue mix and (2)  
>submit 
> his own recorded track. For monitoring any stereo file of a  suitable 
> project mix is fine. For submitting your latest recorded  track you 
>should 
> decide on a format with the best fidelity that works  well with all 
> collaborator's DAW system. You can send the files on  DVD's or via an 
> online file transfer. With the www.yousendit.com  service FLAC has 
>proven 
> to work well for lossless audio file  compression. FLAC supports Mac and 
> Windows equally well. RAR can also  be used, but I like FLAC better 
> because its handling of files is much  faster in OS X.
>
> Remember to always start every audio file at bar one, so whatever DAW 
> anyone is using all tracks will sound in sync related to each other,  no 
> matter what tempo setting is used locally in the DAW application  or 
>multi 
> track tape machine. Just line up the starting points of all  files. My 
> ongoing collaboration project runs at 24 bit files of 44100  kHz 
>sampling 
> rate, stereo or mono depending on what is recorded.
>
> Regarding "syncing up" it all depends on the music. For my ongoing 
> project we play by ear and rely on our own sense of timing. But as  you 
> know, there is always a tempo thread going on in the back of your  mind, 
> even if you play totally freely. What I do, at the mixing  stage, is to 
> identify that tempo and adjust the DAW's tempo grid  according to it. 
>This 
> has to be done by ear for best musical result.   The difference is to 
> simply go from "feeling the tempo" (as a  musician) to "knowing the 
>tempo" 
> (as a producer). You may not think  that you need it, but I have often 
> found it useful for subtle stuff  like for example bringing in tempo 
> synced soft tremolo of a reverb  return etc. It can be more explicitly 
> useful if you may want to add a  drum machine or any type of typical 
>remix 
> stuff later on.
>
> An interesting tricks in long distance collaboration is to play to a 
> click track but take it away and send only your recorded instrument  to 
> the other person. Even if this person does research the original  tempo 
> and sets up his own local click track it will be different and  as such 
> result in something surprising. When you play as a musician  you always 
> have a "radar within". This built-in radar doesn't only  deal with 
>tempi, 
> it's about everything in the music. Emotions,  transitions, 
>directions... 
> The trick to succeed in online  collaborating is to develop a 
> collaborating method that allows the  collaborators to identify that 
> "inner radar sequence" of the partner  and being able to relate to it in 
> his own playing. One mistake you  can make, when you receive a 
>recording, 
> is to listen "for sound"  rather than for your partners specific "inner 
> radar print". When  playing together physically this is not such a big 
> danger because you  will see the "bored to death" look on your partners 
> face and remember  to adjust your playing into a more communicative 
> manner, but in  distance collab's you really have to look out for that 
> trap all the  time ;-)
>
> Greetings from Sweden
>
> Per Boysen
> www.boysen.se (Swedish)
> www.looproom.com (international)
> http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
> http://tinyurl.com/2kek7h (CC donationware music releases)
>
>
>
>