Advice on Virtual Collaboration?

[rk000]

Hello everyone, glad to hear the Rally went well once again!I am not in a position to be doing music full-time and actually moved away from a promising band recently for non-music opportunities.I've had recent success with a music library and, thanks to you wonderful people on the forum, am getting a handle on how to pursue more opportunities there. I am a guitarist and songwriter - nothing more, nothing less. I depend on singers, drummers, keys players, bassists, etc. for the rest. Since I moved away, my original plan was to collaborate virtually with my former bandmates and hopefully some new contacts where I moved. We all have home studios and use compatible software. The end goal is to put out recordings via digital distribution and submit them to music libraries. Unfortunately, though I was assured otherwise at first, I'm finding the commitment isn't there from everyone now. So, I need to find more collaborators. I wonder if anyone has had experience with virtual collaboration, specifically:1) Finding collaborators. I've posted on the ASCAP collaboration site and a few other classifieds-style sites. Any other good resources?2) Keeping everyone on the same page. I had assumed frequent emails, phone calls, and iChat conferences reinforced with at least one in-person visit a year would suffice. Is this realistic?3) Software Compatibility Issues. My original group all used Garageband or Logic, but new contacts may not use these. Just plan to work with .mp3 files instead of the software format files and deal with it?Finally, if anyone likes what they hear below and would be interested in working together, please let me know.Thank you,Bobby Kleinwww.taxi.com/bobbykleinprojects

[jchitty]

Virtual (online) collaborations have worked beautifully for me. I feel like they are making my music come alive. Whether I get fowards from TAXI because of this, I do not know. But I feel like these collaborations are making really great music. I am now working with 4 TAXI members on 4 different songs.....one of them was with Squidlips, a board member here. I was very pleased with the results. Another one was with Steve Davis, and he's done two songs with me so far....we also got very good results. I am working with two more TAXI members now... I won't mention their names now because they might now want me to just yet, but I am very hopeful for what will follow.This board is an excellent place to meet and collaborate with musicians and songwriters. If you make some friends here, I'd recommend it over any site you can find. It has been a Godsend for me. I don't live in a musical town, and there are not many musicians where I live. I'm mainly a songwriter, and I can't really produce good demoes, and plus, two heads are better than one. A skilled musician and singer (and other songwriters) can really fix the rough edges on your tunes. You can use the PM system here to contact people you feel might be interested in co-writing with you. Right now, my hands are tied, so I can't co-write with any more folks......can't spread myself too thin, hehe. I've never met any of my co-writers in person because we live far away, but I've talked with one of them about meeting next spring. But you don't have to meet with them to co-write song. To highlight what you said, phone calls and e-mails will do the trick. Phone calls are especially good because you get a feel for what the person wants and who they are as a person as well. As far as IChat conferences, sure that would be good if you have more than one co-writer.One piece of advice I'd give....if you're into control, it won't be good for collaboration. I'm not saying that you can't ask for something you really want for the song, but you have to learn to compromise too. Be good about paying for half the demo costs (if this is the way you work) and offer equal rights on co-writes. Don't get hung up on minor things. And embrace change 'coz you'll need to be flexible. Our songs are like children, but sometimes, you have to let them go. So many times, a song will turn out much better with a co-writer on the project.

[kouly]

Very good advice Chitts and I'm taking notes!

[michaeldean]

Hi Bobby,I've not done any online collaborating, so I don't really have answers to your questions, but I sure did enjoy listening to your material! Wow, were those all songs that you wrote? Very intriguing stuff!The Bluestone Moon demos are very cool! I would buy that album!Also, very nice guitar work throughout.My instruments are voice, guitar, and bass (in that order), and I'm trying to concentrate on my own writing right now, so I'm probably not a high probability candidate for collaborating, but I am interested in the answers to those questions, so I'll continue monitoring this thread...One thing you may want to consider is putting tracks on tape and sending the tapes via snail mail. I'm a bit skeptical about passing MP3's around and ending up with any kind of usable product. ADAT and/or DA-38 and/or DAT might be a good compromise. And I believe all 3 formats will carry time code (maybe not DAT).Anyway, best of luck to you!

[squidlips]

Quote:I am now working with 4 TAXI members on 4 different songs.....one of them was with Squidlips, a board member here. I was very pleased with the results. Me too! Also, very happy to work with you, chits. It was a real pleasure. Quote:One piece of advice I'd give....if you're into control, it won't be good for collaboration. I'm not saying that you can't ask for something you really want for the song, but you have to learn to compromise too. Be good about paying for half the demo costs (if this is the way you work) and offer equal rights on co-writes. Don't get hung up on minor things. And embrace change 'coz you'll need to be flexible. Our songs are like children, but sometimes, you have to let them go. So many times, a song will turn out much better with a co-writer on the project.I agree.....flexibility, negotiation skills, diplomacy and sensitivity are all great strengths to bring to a collaboration. Figuring out who to collaborate with is as important as what you're collaborating on.

[gotsong]

Hey There,You can't go wrong learning how to work online because eventually online bandwidth will reach a point where this can all be done realtime and you will be a step ahead and thirsty for an easier way to simplify the process when the technology is ready. It will simply automate the tasks you are already used to doing manually.With that said, currently I have been collaborating successfully with a site I created myself. If you are not a web developer, don't let that stop you because email and PayPal will work just as well.Also, check out eSession.com if you want to add a professional edge to your track. They have a talent pool referred to as "eTalent". These guys all have at least 15 major label credits and you can negotiate a price with them per song. I applied as an eTalent guitarist because I have equivalent major tour experience and have recorded for years. There are also musicians that have signed up that are just eSession members that you could probably collaborate with for free.There are good articles in Electronic Musician as well on file format types that can commonly be used and also underlines pertinent info like sample rates,tempos, and bit depth.All the Best!James DavisCustomGuitarTracks.com');// -->james.davis@customguitartracks.com1-866-495-TRAX (8729)

[jamienelson]

I’ve been doing online collaborations for almost a year now. I use Sonoma Wire Works RiffWorks software. There are a couple of options for doing it this way. They have a built in online Collab interface called RiffLink that will let you work with up to 4 people in near real time that is still in Beta. The other way is to Email or FTP your song files back and forth with your collaborators. The song files get quite large so I use an Email service called YouSendIt.com. The advantage of sending the files back and forth is that they don’t get compressed like they do on the online RiffLink service and loose quality.The RiffWorks community is a good bunch of people and the talent level is off the charts. Most of the people there aren’t with a P.R.O. yet though and don’t know a lot about the music business. I still highly recommend checking it out.http://www.sonomawireworks.com/riffworks.php

[rk000]

Thanks to everyone for the help! Michael, thanks for listening and glad you liked the Bluestone Moon stuff. I did not write them all, but did play on them all. I wrote several of the songs that will be on the upcoming album, but do not have good copies of them yet to submit.

[kouly]

This all sounds pretty good but the future of collaboration is changing as we speak.Now with Leopard on a Mac people can work on a file without having to move thefile over the internet. In an iChat files of unlimited size could be exchanged but thescreen sharing feature makes the necessity of transfering a large file to do editing a thing of the past since these edits can now be done quickly and seamlessly as if the file was on your computer.

[deantaylor]

I've been doing online collabs since 2003. It is the only way I collaborate. It works great for me. Never met any of my collaborators in person. Chits gives good advice above.Dean