Long distance collaborating.

[Roytoy]

Hi folks. I have been busy learning my br-1200, and I have a question. My brother is an excellent singer and he lives in florida. We want to start writing some songs together. For now, just get some rough drafts done. What ways have y'all found of doing this that are the simplest? Just use mp3's and this website? I would do the instruments here in south dakota and he would add the vocals from florida. Thanks.

[Flash Harry]

Hi, greeny, oldrottenhead and I share the files for jemimas kite music via email mostly, though we have tried skydrive with some success. The best format for quality is wav but we don't do too badly using 192kb/s mp3 files. Just don't layer them too much.

[Roytoy]

If by layering you mean alot of tracks and busy stuff, then will a 3 or 4 track recording transmit well by mp3? I am hoping that there is some way I can record on my br-1200,( a simple bass-drum-guitar backing track) and get it to him and maybe he could use a micro-br somehow to add vocals and send it back?

I followed the collaboration with Rock Girl and I think Oldrottenhead. It was a while ago, I'm sure y'all remember it. How was that done? It turned out great! You out there, ORH?

[Oldrottenhead]

hi rg my advice would be for your brother to get a microbr. thats what i have. with regard to rockgirl she posted her track, i downloaded the mp3, imported it into a new song folder on my mbr and recorded my vocal onto it. i would suggest when you are recording music to send to him that you leave space for his vocal, by that i mean you have all the instruments panned leaving space in the middle with no instruments panned dead centre or the vocal has to compete with that and i also mean that if you are playing a lot of lead guitar you either leave space by not playing where you know the vocal is gonna be sung or you add the lead guitar after the vocals have been done..
i would also not master any music you send him and leave the mastering to last. your brother could also send you his vocal track without the music for you to mix on your br. i imagine the importing of the vocal track is the same as on the microbr but i am not familiar with your unit.
you have lots to learn re importing mp3s etc but its gonna be fun for you, if you have any questions along the way there are lots of people on here to help reduce the steepness of any learning curve.
hope that helps for now.

[Roytoy]

 Thanks ORH. I like the new photo.

[Oldrottenhead]

i'm a handsome bugger lol

[Tony W]

I highly recommend that you check out skype, especially if you both have broad band.

A few of us transfer .wav files back and forth that way, and its really handy. you can chat, share files, have video conversations etc. Very powerful, pretty fun.

http://www.skype.com/

The added bonus for you is one less step getting files on to that 1200 of yours.

[Roytoy]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[chapperz66]

I do long distance (England and eastern europe) collaborations with Nightcaller by burning CDs of our individual contributions burnt as stereo pairs of tracks with a click track to synchronise with. 

The advantages: 
CD quality which is far better than mp3 (not sure about wav) and somebody gets to mix it properly rather than relying on partial mixes.

Disadvantages:

Somebody has to mix it.
You have to wait for the post to arrive so inevitable delays.
You need a recorder with sufficient tracks to load the other persons tracks (you have a BR1200 so that should be fine).
Its a bit time consuming synching with click tracks.

If you are interested in this method let me know and I'll post furrther details

Paul

[Oldrottenhead]

wav is exactly the same format as cd. i often upload wav files to my skydrive site, which you get free with any hotmail account. i do collaborations all over the place and a lot of folk like to have the individual tracks in wav format. too big to email so upload to skydrive in 10 minutes send link to person i'm working with it takes them 10 minutes to download and bob's yer auntie.