How to let your lyricist listen to your melody?

[Casey H]

Some songwriters are not able to make their own broadcast quality demos-- that could be for the backing track and/or the vocal. So, someone in that situation would either do the backing track themselves and hire a vocalist or use a demo service for everything. Some Taxi members right here do very good work doing work-for-hire recordings for others.

Another alternative would be to bring in a co-writer who also could do the demo recording. Some will do production work in exchange for co-write or a fee+co-write.

It's a good idea to get some feedback on your song in rough form before investing in a demo. If the songwriting isn't where it needs to be, spending money on a demo will be wasted expense. You want to fix the songwriting issues first.

HTH
Casey

[lovefilmmusic]

Great. Thanks a lot. Perhaps sometimes I would try to find a co-writer on this forum who does the production aspect of the song.

Thank you.

[hummingbird]

Good advice (as always) from Casey!

[funsongs]

Casey, et al...
Would you also advise keeping the click track alive, not muted?
Even with a melody and/or scratch nonsense vocal, might it be helpful to have that cadence, too?

I've not done a collab before, but I hope to get to do some co-writes in this fashion, and recently started with a video call via Skype. Since there are lapses...you can't jam together at the same time, but the listener can record a live take, for reference sake. I'm interested to see how this is gonna work out.

Thanks for posting this thread, btw.
Cheers,
Peter R.
www.soundcloud.com/funsongs-1

[hummingbird]

You could have a click track, yah.

[In my first collabs with my 'internet band' back 10 yrs or so, we started by 'calling' what instrument(s) we would provide for the project . The project mixer would create a draft reference track and let us know the set BPM. It would be sent out to the collaborators. So, I'd get the ref track, load it in my system, set the BPM, and record my track(s) while it played. Two bar blank, then the ref track would start, and I'd play or sing along. Then I'd run off my individual tracks without cutting out anything, and send them to the producer for the project, who would mix the tracks received. Once all the instruments and background vocals were completed, the final lead vocal would be recorded and mixed. When I began, I knew nothing about mixing, but after working on a few projects as mixer, and with some guidance from the more knowledgeable members of the group, I learned. Although we worked with 120 mp3s (we weren't pitching stuff, just having fun), the end results were pretty good!]

[Casey H]

Casey, et al...
Would you also advise keeping the click track alive, not muted?
Even with a melody and/or scratch nonsense vocal, might it be helpful to have that cadence, too?

I've not done a collab before, but I hope to get to do some co-writes in this fashion, and recently started with a video call via Skype. Since there are lapses...you can't jam together at the same time, but the listener can record a live take, for reference sake. I'm interested to see how this is gonna work out.

Thanks for posting this thread, btw.
Cheers,
Peter R.
http://www.soundcloud.com/funsongs-1

If there was a click track, it wouldn't hurt to send it as a separate track so whoever was working in their DAW could have it if they needed it. However, keep in mind that IF this is just a rough for pure songwriting purposes (e.g. not a real production), a simple guitar or piano rhythm track along with the nonsense-word melody is probably enough.

Casey