Cyberspace Band?
I know that it is often difficult to find people to play music with.
For a long time, I have been involved in 'digital long-distance'
recording. It has allowed me to play music with friends all over
the world. I thought that it might be something that interested
students here.
Every year, I make a musical Christmas card. It is done with
friends across North America. We use the internet to communicate
with each other and to build the song recording.
This year we recorded 'The Carol of the Bells'. It was done entirely
over the internet and most of the parts were improvised. Take a look
at it and see if the process looks interesting to you. It could just as easily
be a 'cyber' blues band.
Here is a link to the recording:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi8_0ZhRvh0
I am happy to help anyone who wants to try putting something like this together.
Bill
Hi Homer,
No, we are not all part of a forum or instructional site, although we met through sites like that.
Basically, if you have a means of recording a video of yourself playing, and are able to get the resulting video onto your computer (Mac or Windows), you can do this.
The first thing we do is decide on a song, key, and tempo. Once that is done, someone makes a rhythm track. We all have Band in a Box(BiaB), so that is what was used for the rhythm bed. (It is available for both the Mac and Windows, so using it is not restricted by your operating system). If you share the BiaB file, then everyone involved in the project can experiment until the exact form the song will take has been decided. When that is done, a final rhythm bed is built that includes everything (count-in, intro, all the verses, choruses, extro, etc.). That final version of the rhythm bed is sent to all musicians involved in the project . . . And no-one alters it in any way.
Each person records their video while playing along with the rhythm bed. You want the musicians to listen to the rhythm bed through headphones so there is no sound leakage into their separate videos. When a musician has completed his/her video, it is sent to the person who will assemble the final mix.
NOTE: I have each musician record a video of them playing rhythm for the entire length of the song. Just as if they were playing only backup in a band. Then, I have them make a separate video of their lead break. That makes things a LOT easier in the long run.
The most challenging part of the process is putting the final video together (depending on how fancy you want to be). This part of the process is done in a post-production software utility. There are dozens of 'FREE' video editing packages available on the internet. I use Adobe Premiere Pro, but that is an expensive package that I got free when I was working at the University.. There are some very, very good packages for the Mac.
Sometimes you will run into problems with a video. In that case, I share the partial mix with all the musicians and we decide what to do. In some cases, the offending video needs to be rerecorded. In some cases the engineer (me) made a mistake and the mix simply needs to be redone. In any case, the individual who is engineering the mixdown should regularly share the mix with everyone as it progresses. I tend to share a copy of the partial mix as each part is mixed in, but that is up to the group working on the project.
The final mix involves syncing the individual videos to the rhythm bed and fitting them seamlessly together. You can do 'picture in a picture' like the sample Christmas video, or you can simply have only the soloist on camera and the backup players in the audio mix. I want to emphasize that a basic, no-frills, blues band video with 4 or 5 musicians would be very easy to sequence and mix down. As you become more skilled using the video mixing software, you can make fancier videos. There is a lot of instructional material on YouTube teaching how to use most of the good video software packages.
If you have timing issues, they will become very clear to you in this kind of project. The discipline involved in getting a good, in-time video recorded can be a great learning experience.
The last thing you do is mute, or delete, the rhythm track from the mix
To enable easy sharing of the final video, I put it on YouTube, but I always put them up 'unlisted' so that only people I choose to share them with have access. However, that is a decision that you and the musicians that you work with can make.
If anyone starts a 'digital' blues band project, I will be glad to help in any way that I can.
Bill
Wow. I watched the video. Very well done. Does everyone belong to the same banjo forum? How is this done?