KVR Audio

MOK19 · Post by **MOK19** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:18 am

Yo.

I'm hooking up with another local musician, who's more analog oriented... guitar, vocals, and keys with presets. Maybe another person or two. He doesn't really know the computer side of things. Right now I've re-vamped my music setup to be composed of Cubase, Z3TA+2, and Geist, End Of Story. Everything I need is in the laptop and mobile, minus a midi controller and the audio interface, streamlined and purposefully minimal(excepting needs).

But I've never worked with another person before, let alone with a musician who's probably used to... whats it called? "Jamming?" Something like that.

Anyways, I want to make sure I do whatever legwork I can before we get together so that I can try and do something in real-time. What I'd like is for some input from people who are used to collaborating in this sort of situation, where you're the computer guru and others are more standard musicians. How do you deal? What do you focus on? Etc etc.

I really want this to work, but I'm afraid that he'll make requests and my best response is "uh.... yeah, give me three hours."

Thanks folks.

dalor · Post by **dalor** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:19 am

If you're a knob tweaker, note-by-note editor, drag and drop junkie (like me), the other guy will just sit there waiting for you to get ready.

IMO for the first catchup, prepare some loops, don't expect to 'write' a song in perfection, just play a beat, see what he comes up with and then do things you can tweak in realtime. Don't record, don't even think about pressing 'stop' inbetween! Do all you can do in realtime (filters, reverbs, loops, switch beats, fades, fade in sfx, etc...) Keep the flow between you going... Be playful. Just my 2C.

darsho · Post by **darsho** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:18 pm

Muscians are used to waiting for somebody else to finish his part, from my experience.
If the result is worth it they won't mind. If it means to wait on a guy who doesn't get his act together, they lose patience, though

be sure to know your stuff and your role in the project and be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are on the same musical level.

My tip would be to use a limited setup that you really know (if you only use one synth like you mention ,that should be the case.)
Have rhytmic material ready for quick access, know where your drumsamples are, or even use a loop if it's quicker.

Jamming IMO only means you play a part for a while until everybody has composed something on his instrument while repeating the musical part.
Just like having a drumloop and playing on a keyboard until you have composed a melody or editing a MIDI file while it is playing in loop.

My collab experience is this :

Apart from my band and my solo stuff I also do a DnB collaboration called 'Möbius & Darsho'.

I am the computer guy, who has a Notebook with Reaper, USB-Soundcard, MIDI Keyboard, tons of VSTi, samples, loops and an iPad.

Möbius however, has an ATARI ST with Cubase and many hardware synthesizers.
He also has a modern Netbook for mastering his stuff.

It's a perfect combination

When we meet at his studio, I bring my setup as mentioned above.
When we meet at my studio, Möbius brings two or three of his anlogue synths.

We do all recording on the Notebook and also the MIDI recordings.

We start in the afternoon, one guy does a loop, then the other, then the first again, then the other again and so on. You could call that 'jamming'

Sometimes on guy needs a little time, then the other just has a puff or puts headphones on to already prepare something on his equipment.

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:08 am

i work with a few guys online and sometimes we'll write songs and everyone just adds to it. sometimes we'll just just send bits and pieces back and forth, everyone adds to it and then we do a couple of different mixes. one of the guys is real analog, the other guy is the master of manipulation, effects and cut and paste. I'm more of a songwriter. it works well for us as we get IMO interesting experimental pieces with melody (kind of electronic psych pop).

I have worked with some other people and it didn't really work out; seems like it takes a few songs to see if you mesh in any way. the whole process is way different than forming a band was back in the day, but I really enjoy it now that I know the guys styles so well and trust their instincts.

MOK19 · Post by **MOK19** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:16 am

I appreciate the input guys.

Anyone else have experiences, or pointers?

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:24 am

oh yeah: make sure that people label their files so that it's not a nightmare later. BPM, etc.. I just started collaborating with one guy and he pointed out that he needs key info. i never would have thought of that as I play instruments. this guy is a great recording partner, but doesn't play any "real" instruments.

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:37 pm

Check out this place:

http://www.kompoz.com

It's a site for people to find collaboration partners

MickGael · Post by **MickGael** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:41 pm

darsho wrote:...be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are on the same musical level.

+1 Can't overstate how important this is.

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:07 pm

MickGael wrote:
darsho wrote:...be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are on the same musical level.
+1 Can't overstate how important this is.

I think I'd partly agree with this and phrase it differently:

"...be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are OK with differences between musical level."

My username here came from the fact that I was jamming with a guy much less advanced than me and I persevered trying to get him up to speed with jamming by playing the same chord patterns over and over without variation for hours. That difference is OK if the more skillful person has a lot of patience. It's also good in some ways because the more musically advanced person can spot the 'happy accidents' that occur when someone is learning and help both to take it somewhere fruitful.

MickGael · Post by **MickGael** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:09 pm

robojam wrote:
MickGael wrote:
darsho wrote:...be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are on the same musical level.
+1 Can't overstate how important this is.
I think I'd partly agree with this and phrase it differently:

"...be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are OK with differences between musical level."

Even better

DWB2 · Post by **DWB2** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 4:14 pm

I think stopping and listening are important.

synthgeek · Post by **synthgeek** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 4:48 pm

Some good advice here already, a big "+1" from me on recording everything. Here's what I'd add:

When I do stuff like this, I try to explain up front that the "fancy stuff" takes time, and that in order to keep things moving (if that's what we're going for), I'll just be doing a basic sketch of my parts. If and when we want to, we can stop & focus on something specific, or I can fancy it up later.

It's nice to have a tempo reference, so I usually just set up something quick & basic for them to play to - if they already have an idea they want to try, I'll have them play it to get an idea of the "groove", use a tap-tempo tool to get a starting place there, then put down a basic drum loop, maybe a bassline. Then I'll let that play while they record their bit, and we go from there.

As for the request thing - in my experience working with people who are unfamiliar with the technology/terminology, this is often where a lot of time gets used up. Often I've had them ask for something kinda specific, spent a bunch of time doing one thing with them saying "no, that's not quite it" the whole time, then suddenly realized they were really asking for something else, or I had misunderstood their wording or whatever. This is related to one of the things I have the most fun with though, which is when they realize how much is actually possible... "you can do that? Wow."

Also, apparently it sometimes isn't obvious to the non-techy types that nothing has to be set in stone. I've had times where it seems like they're afraid to mess up or try different things because you're recording.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:14 pm

For some fun times (if you get lucky

) jamming with random other people from around the planet, just to get a feel for what happens, you can use NINJAM. It's the only way I get to play "live" with others, so I probably value it more highly than others who can get to play in real real-time.

Many people on NINJAM will stream loops and mix on the fly. Others are playing acoustic direct into the jam. Some are playing live MIDI (like me). It's very varied.

The two key skills have already been mentioned:
darsho/robojam: be sure the parties involved have the same goal and are OK with differences between musical level.
DWB2: I think stopping and listening are important.

These are far more important than what you're playing. All I'd add is:

Enjoy making music with others!

MOK19 · Post by **MOK19** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 2:30 am

This thread as a primer has helped my confidence quite a bit. I appreciate all the help guys.

Tangentially related, anyone have suggestions for file management methods? My file structure and naming conventions are pretty good, and I'll be working that pretty hard. But what I really mean is how you transfer files between each other, and keep track of what/when/how.

To start with, we setup DropBox. Anyone have other useful or better tools to suggest?

darsho · Post by **darsho** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 10:09 am

MOK19 wrote:This thread as a primer has helped my confidence quite a bit. I appreciate all the help guys.

Tangentially related, anyone have suggestions for file management methods? My file structure and naming conventions are pretty good, and I'll be working that pretty hard. But what I really mean is how you transfer files between each other, and keep track of what/when/how.

To start with, we setup DropBox. Anyone have other useful or better tools to suggest?

dropbox is cool, I use it myself. Very useful.

For the band we use www.box.net because they once had a 'special deal' with 50GB for free. Now it seems it is back to 5GB if you make a free account.

Windows Sky Drive has 25 GB for free, I think.

How does one 'collaborate'?