After some discussion in this (http://forum.chaos-project.com/index.php/topic,13405)thread, a few of us have decided that we are going to form an online band by recording our parts and sending them to one another, after which we'll sync them together to form a finished track.
Here are my thoughts on how it's going to work:
1. First, we're going to need to decide a song to play. It would probably be easiest if we choose something with sheet music already written, but given our unique combination of instruments, we're likely going to have to adapt something on our own. That still shouldn't be too hard, so we'll be just fine. It'll be especially easy if we can just start with a MIDI and go from there. :)
2. Someone with very steady rhythm needs to record their part first. Then, the others will have to make sure that the speed of their recordings line up with it.
3. Finally, we'll just sync everything together! It actually shouldn't be that hard at all.
So, what song should we play together?
Hmhmhm... decisions
I can't really think of anything that would sound nice with a bass clarinet/clarinet sax and cello lol. I kinda feel like it should be something easy because we've never done this lol
I think video game music is clearly the genre here. MIDI files would definitely work best, and thankfully there's a large collection of them on vgmusic. One of my more favorite pieces has to be Gusty Garden Galaxy. I'm just not sure if that would be too difficult to pull off on our first go.
I'm good with anything simple, like Tetris or Super Mario Bros.
One advantage of combining our parts post-performance is that we'll be able to play multiple parts at once. For example, I could play a part both using the bow as well as plucking the strings for more of a bass-like feel. With this in mind, pretty much anything should be pretty doable. I doubt most video game music will be too difficult to pull off, particularly with the added benefit of being able to digitalize-out our mistakes (re-record certain parts, speed up or slow down artificially if necessary, and so on.)
Stickerbrush Symphony (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2D8OpcEey4) might be fun, but also a little challenging. I just listened to Gusty Garden Galaxy, (I haven't played Super Mario Galaxy D: I apologize for my unsophistication) and that sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult. Do you think that we'll be able to find an MIDI? If so, we can look over it and decide which part would sound best on which instrument.
http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/wii/SMG_-_Gusty_Garden.mid
Oh yeah, what about the percussive sounds? Mouth clicks and snapping fingers? lol
Can I join up? I have a great deal of experience with music.
Quote from: KK20 on August 28, 2013, 12:50:36 am
http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/wii/SMG_-_Gusty_Garden.mid
Oh yeah, what about the percussive sounds? Mouth clicks and snapping fingers? lol
If there's someone here who prides themselves on their snapping ability, then it would definitely be fun to have them submit a track. :D Haha.
Quote from: ArcaneAlchemy on August 29, 2013, 05:16:40 am
Can I join up? I have a great deal of experience with music.
Definitely! We would love to have you join us - I've heard your performances on YouTube before, and they are great!
EDIT: I'm looking at the MIDI now, and it seems like we should be able to divide up the parts pretty well. I can handle the string and pizz string parts, and maybe the harp as well. It looks like a lot of the melody is clarinet and oboe, so that would probably work best on a woodwind instrument.
I'm definitely interested in hearing what you guys can come up with. Good luck to you all!
Quote from: Vlash on August 29, 2013, 01:45:46 pm
I'm definitely interested in hearing what you guys can come up with. Good luck to you all!
Thanks! :D Hopefully we'll have something up soon.
I'm going home this weekend, so I'll try to get something recorded, and if not then I'll bring my sax back to college :P
I'm now sad I left my Guitar at my parents house...
Quote from: Ryex on August 29, 2013, 07:16:35 pm
I'm now sad I left my Guitar at my parents house...
Assuming this all works and that we have fun with it, we'll probably keep doing more songs down the line, so even if you're not able to pick up your guitar for a few months, I'm sure that you be able to join us at some point. :)
So Gusty Garden then? Alright. I'll most likely play the bass stuff (duh) and try the melody and see what I get. Also going to need to test some rooms in the house and how it sounds recorded.
Quote from: KK20 on August 29, 2013, 07:58:05 pm
So Gusty Garden then? Alright. I'll most likely play the bass stuff (duh) and try the melody and see what I get. Also going to need to test some rooms in the house and how it sounds recorded.
Sounds good. I think the bass stuff should give us a pretty good feel for the tempo and that kind of thing, so that will give us a good starting point for us all to start recording the other parts. It's no big deal if two of us accidentally end up doing the same part - we can mix and match and figure stuff out.
I can do vocals. :naughty:
(they don't have to be lyrical, maybe a choir-type thing)
Quote from: Colonel Blinx on August 29, 2013, 09:48:36 pm
I can do vocals. :naughty:
(they don't have to be lyrical, maybe a choir-type thing)
Hahaha. I'm not sure if vocals will fit into this peace, but you can definitely give it a try. Maybe a choral effect will end up sounding really cool. :) And, if it turns out that it doesn't work with this piece, I'm sure we'll need some vocals for something else, so stick around. :)
Gusty Garden, huh? Nice. Well, I'll tell you what would be a good idea. Like White Rose said, we can just mix and match. I think that I'm going to do as many parts as I can and then the "mixer" person can figure out what to do. Best piece of advice though, as sort of mentioned earlier, is to follow the exact same rhythm pattern. I know that when importing midi into fruity loops, the tempo can change if it was programmed that way. So, we should maybe decide on a click track, at least in the beginning and decide on how many times it clicks and what BPM to put it at? Know what I mean Vern?
UPDATE EDIT:
Okay, so I see that the BPM is always at 152. I have added a click track to the midi using the percussion sound.
http://www.filedropper.com/gustygardenwithclicktrack_1
Sorry for the annoying file sharing service, but just make sure you click on the one in grey, the other is all b.s.
Quote from: ArcaneAlchemy on August 29, 2013, 11:15:52 pm
Gusty Garden, huh? Nice. Well, I'll tell you what would be a good idea. Like White Rose said, we can just mix and match. I think that I'm going to do as many parts as I can and then the "mixer" person can figure out what to do. Best piece of advice though, as sort of mentioned earlier, is to follow the exact same rhythm pattern. I know that when importing midi into fruity loops, the tempo can change if it was programmed that way. So, we should maybe decide on a click track, at least in the beginning and decide on how many times it clicks and what BPM to put it at? Know what I mean Vern?
UPDATE EDIT:
Okay, so I see that the BPM is always at 152. I have added a click track to the midi using the percussion sound.
http://www.filedropper.com/gustygardenwithclicktrack_1
Sorry for the annoying file sharing service, but just make sure you click on the one in grey, the other is all b.s.
This should be exactly what we need! :D Now I have no excuse not to get started. Haha. XD I'll try and get something uploaded as soon as I can find a quiet place to record.
Sweet. Yeah, I'm gonna get the guitar and harp parts down at some point this weekend. Hmm, and another thing is the mixing process. The best thing to do, I think when recording is to leave a "spacer" of dead sound from where the click track begins. That way we are all using the same rule of distance and the mixing/editing process will be much easier as a result. I would also stress to leave effects such as reverbs/delay and modulation effects(chrous, flange) to a minimum unless absolutely necessary. This should ultimately be done as a post effect to ensure a clean mix.
Quote from: ArcaneAlchemy on August 30, 2013, 08:31:38 pm
Sweet. Yeah, I'm gonna get the guitar and harp parts down at some point this weekend. Hmm, and another thing is the mixing process. The best thing to do, I think when recording is to leave a "spacer" of dead sound from where the click track begins. That way we are all using the same rule of distance and the mixing/editing process will be much easier as a result. I would also stress to leave effects such as reverbs/delay and modulation effects(chrous, flange) to a minimum unless absolutely necessary. This should ultimately be done as a post effect to ensure a clean mix.
Definitely good things for us to keep in mind. It's a long weekend here due to the holiday, so I should have a chance to get some recording done in the next few days. :)
Hey, so do we need to only get a recording or do we need the whole webcam thing? Lol
Quote from: Zexion on August 31, 2013, 03:16:01 pm
Hey, so do we need to only get a recording or do we need the whole webcam thing? Lol
Just the recording is fine; that's probably what I'll do. We'll just be using the audio for mixing together, so the video part would just be cut out anyway.
I tried to do the beginning oboe part on sax, unfortunately alot of the part is a little too high to play comfortably for me, so I brought it down an octave which doesn't sound too bad. This is only the first few measures though because I haven't even begun looking at the rest of it lol.
>>Download<< (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59018752/Oboe_Begining.wav)
Quote from: Ryex on August 29, 2013, 07:16:35 pm
I'm now sad I left my Guitar at my parents house...
GuitarrrrYeah ;D Cool Idea guys :D Seems like it would be fun, I'd join up but I'm not using any 'decent' recording equipment sooooo.... good luck to you all :)
Wow, so I totally forgot about this. Umm, hows about I do something and maybe people get with it? If you want vid, I guess I can record with the vid too. I do dig gusty garden, and frankly the guitar parts are pretty easy, so I guess I'll just submit what I get and you can sort it out White Rose.
WhiteRose and I have been pretty busy so I thought this thread would die. We can try to start this back up again.
I've been busy, but I still think it would be fun to whip something together if we can manage it. It's not like we're in any rush, so we can just each fiddle with things when we get a few spare minutes and see if we can come up with something fun. :)