A question about music collaboration.

[LAS14]

I love these large group performances, with each person in a different little window. I imagine that they start with one recording, and then a second person plays along with that, and then a third, passing the recording along as they go. I see that each performer is wearing some sort of head set.

Could it be that simple?

I've tried to find out more, but my Google searches lead me into worlds of electronic collaboration, or writing music together, or.... or...

I just want to find a simple way for my chamber music group to get back together again. Three people. Classical music.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

tia
las

[PJMcK]

1. Some things that don't work

Several of my colleagues have put together performances online during the Covid-19 crisis. In each case, they multi-tracked the individual parts as you described. The pieces were recorded into ProTools to allow easy editing. In the end, the multi-track recordings (with accompanying videos) were mixed as usual.

Zoom doesn't work very well because their app prevents more than one person's microphone being active simultaneously. I tried playing piano remotely for a ballet class but it failed spectacularly because each time the teacher would comment, my piano part would disappear momentarily. This makes sense for a video conference because it prevents people from talking over one another. Makes music difficult, though.

Another friend tried using the multi-user version of Apple's FaceTime but that didn't work too well, either.

Overall, latency is a problem. That's when there's a split second delay between what you see and what you hear. Another friend who is a violinist pointed out that latency is not the only problem: because of the digital compression of the audio sent over the internet, the tone of instruments and voices is degraded.

A recording studio I work out of has been conducting sessions through Facebook but the client and the engineer have to keep Dropboxing one another the audio files which is time consuming.

So far, recording is possible but playing together live is very problematic.

Those are my experiences so far. If others have had better experiences, I'd love to hear them too!

[LAS14]

2. Thanks! That's very, very helpful. One thing...

... I don't understand is "to allow easy editing." Why would you edit if you were just adding parts to recordings? This would just be for personal fun, not to create a finished product. I'm not even sure what "editing" a musical performance of amateurs would consist of??

If you come upon any more info, would you reply again?

tia
las

[PJMcK]

3. ProTools editing

The digital recording program ProTools allows for tremendously powerful control over a recording. Like a word processor, you can copy, paste and delete sections of music or even individual notes. Pitch variations can be corrected as can inaccurate timing and many, many other features of the recording.

It doesn't matter if it's amateur or professional, it's the normal practice in digital recording. That doesn't mean one has to use those features, of course. Ultimately, you still want your music to sound good!

If you use a Mac computer or an iOS device, you might consider GarageBand. It's sort of similar to ProTools but it's much easier and friendly to use, (it's also less powerful). You could record your part then send the file to your collaborators who could each add their parts. As we discussed, this multi-tracking would be a way to create a complete performance. By the way, I'm not familiar with PCs but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a similar product for that platform.

In any event, here's Apple's page about GarageBand:

https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/

Meanwhile, I'll keep my ears open and good luck!

[LAS14]

5. I'm using Windows. If we didn't want to do any editing...

... at all, would we still need ProTools? Again, you're being so helpful!

tia
las

[CaptainTruth]

9. I have a studio & have used ProTools for years. You don't need it for what you're doing.

I'd say ProTools is total overkill for what you're doing.

It's very capable with a lot of features & options, but of course that makes it fairly complex. More complexity than you need to deal with for just basic recording of a few tracks.

[PoiBoy]

4. Here's a link that might be helpful...

I grew up, lived and retired in the age of SMPTE time code so these live, real time long distance collaborations are very exciting to me... latency was always the big problem because you know, physics... lol...

Anyway, here's a link to an article with some good information, IMO.. hopefully you find it helpful...

https://reverb.com/news/ways-to-collaborate-on-music-remotely

[LAS14]

6. Thanks. This is very orienting. But it leaves me...

... with the question of whether I need extra software. But I can't figure out how to get the video to coincide with the final layered music. But maybe it doesn't need to. We could just listen. Anyway. But line. Do I need extra software if I don't want to edit at all?

tia
las

[PoiBoy]

7. JamKazam

It seems as if JamKazam would fit the bill for you... no additional software needed for what they call the core platform... looks really basic and could hopefully work for you...

Check out this video to see if it's something you could use...

https://www.jamkazam.com/products/platform

good luck to you..!!

[LAS14]

8. Thanks!!!