Motunation Collaboration Participation Invitation

[rentadrummer]

There are several forums where the members participate in collaboration projects. It's usually not confined to a particular platform, or even style of music, and some of the completed songs I've heard are very, very good. If any of you are familiar with the Womb, they have the CAPE (Collaborative Audio Production Experience) where they assign the members who want to participate to different teams, with each member being responsible for some aspect of the song. The teams are assigned after everyone who wants to participate posts some information that includes their various skill level on an instrument, or instruments if more than one, vocal ability, musical preferences, mixing/engineering ability, leadership skills, and whether they would have any server space where files can be stored and downloaded. The biggest challenge, besides finding yourself on a team that has much different musical tastes from you, is getting everyone to stick to a schedule and have all of the songs completed by the date they are supposed to be uploaded for evaluation. All of the songs are originals, which avoids any licensing issues.

So, I was thinking. How come we don't do a collaboration project, either with one song and a handful of members to start, or even multiple projects? There are a lot of details to work out, but before doing so, I just wanted to know if anyone would be interested in something like this. I'm not a song writer, but I do have access to originals from a few writers, who said they wouldn't mind donating a song or two to the project. I also know that there are several writers on Motunation who might be willing to come up with a song for a collaboration project.

Another way to do this is to just have a small group of participants record one song, and then let anyone who wants to mix it, have access to the tracks.

Since all the recording work I do is long distance, I'm very familiar with different ways of working like this. The bonus for us would be that most everyone on the forum works with DP, even if the versions are different, so entire projects could be transferred back and forth if necessary, instead of just individual files. The files might get rather large, but it is an option.

Does anyone think this sounds like an interesting idea, have any suggestions and would you want to participate? If we can get enough participants, I say we just dump the whole thing in James's lap and let him figure it out in his free time.

Kidding, James, kidding.

I'll offer as much help as I can, along with anyone else who volunteers.

Whadda ya' think?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

For the music hobbist, that sounds like a great idea. For those of us who make our living selling our musical wares it's overkill. If I am going to make more music in my 'spare time' I'll start up a band or maybe a recordng project with some hairy knuckled creature of slight stature. OTOH I might also opt to do any of a 1000 other music related projects I have back burnered over the past 20 years.

I'm just sayin'...

[Jim]

I like the idea, Ron. Being a jammer and a drummer, I'd already thought about uploading some freeform drum tracks, and letting people have access to them, to either slice and dice or just use as a foundation. You could bicycle a project like that, starting with drum tracks, then hand off to a bassist, then hand off to a guitarist or keyboardist, or other lead instrument, then hand off to a horn player, vocalist, etc. With all members having access to all the DAW tracks, the possibilities for variation could be endless.

Dunno if a hit could be produced this way, but some people could certainly kill some time.

[SixStringGeek]

Sounds like fun. I'd play.

[kassonica]

I've been hoping that this would transpire on this board one day.

Count me in.

Who is going to start.

good timing for me as well as I've started to wind my work load back a bit as to give myself time for my own projects.

[rentadrummer]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I'd like to give it a few more days and see if anyone else is interested. If it's just a few of us we can take it offline and discuss via email.

[kassonica]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I'd like to give it a few more days and see if anyone else is interested. If it's just a few of us we can take it offline and discuss via email.

I hope some more of the people that post here will join as the talent that posts on this board is simply stunning and it will be a lot of fun and I'm sure we will all learn something.

[Tomrabbit]

+1

[Tonio]

can chalk me in ...

[rentadrummer]

While there are fewer responses than I had imagined, this might work in our favor; keeping it simple and more manageable. I think we should limit it to those who have shown interest as of today, and see how it goes. If it works maybe others will be more interested next time, or perhaps not.

I can provide drum tracks, server space for file storage and an original song if needed, depending upon what style of music the rest of you are interested in doing. It would helpful to know what everyone else can do, or wants to do, and we can exchange info here, via PM, or email, whichever works the best for everyone.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I guess my concern is also "direction by consensus." I always feel like there should be one person making final decisions. What if you get a guitar track that totally sucks (in your opinion) but the player loves it? Perhaps with a more defined parameter on such matters, I might be interested in playing along. Keys & perc are my preferred instruments.

[rentadrummer]

I definitely think that someone should take on the role of producer and/or mixer, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the same person who contributes the song. Sometimes it can be more interesting to get another person's interpretation, although it can also be a difficult to give up control. I'd be happy drumming and let someone else call the shots, as long as I always get the last word.

Seriously, does anyone have a song they want to work on, and if not, what style of music do all of you prefer? I work with several songwriters and play more pop or rock than anything else, but I can play other styles. I've probably recorded 50+ songs for one song writer and when I mentioned this idea to him he told me I could use whatever songs of his that I wanted. Many of his songs are in semi-finished state but he said that he would record just a guitar and vocal track, so no one would hear a finished song and get influenced by the other parts or arrangement.

I'm willing to do this in whatever way works the best for the majority and see how it goes. It's just an experiment at this point and there's really no right or wrong way to do it.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I definitely think that someone should take on the role of producer and/or mixer, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the same person who contributes the song.

If Frodo does it I'm in.

[davedempsey]

I'd be happy to offer guitar re-amping and other audio services - prefer mastering to mixing.

[SixStringGeek]

I definitely think that someone should take on the role of producer and/or mixer, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the same person who contributes the song. Sometimes it can be more interesting to get another person's interpretation, although it can also be a difficult to give up control. I'd be happy drumming and let someone else call the shots, as long as I always get the last word.

As long as everyone has access to all the material, people can make what they want in the end. A license agreement should be thrown together that says everyone places his/her work under the same license (creative commons is probably good) so there's no disputes.

I had a lot of fun with Imogen Heap's "Song That Never Was" - she just supplied a vocal and invited people to do whatever they wanted with it - over 500 versions were submitted (some were pretty good - many not so much). The vocal was a good head start because it was a complete song/melody with no instruments. The deal was do whatever, but no commercial use.

OTOH, I think its hard to do a vocal with nothing else. Lyrics are always the last thing I write (ooh words - gotta have words - and a catchy phrase for a hook). Could start with anything, an acoustic guitar line, a drum beat, a bass line. I think it should be cool for anyone to take a branch/version at any time and just run with it and make a fork but this kind of implies some kind of versioning system and a means of keeping the parts all modular. Tricky.