online collaboration

[dagosto]

Oh, I got ya fargone.

[clineaudio]

My first response is, as a decent engineer whose craft may be respected, why the heck would you want to "remote record" anything but a voice over or other single source recording (ala an ISDN VO record at a post-house).
People are paying you to record, wouldnt' you want control over the mic placement, and selection? ...Of course, the upside would be if you were a producer/editor and you knew you had a good room/tracking engineer, but in those cases, there's budget for .....get this ..."plane tickets".
My tirade is largely related to the original note, which was roughly related to "home studios"...the last thing I want to do I is a patch, at distance, to a home studio.

[fargone]

Originally Posted by clineaudio

My first response is, as a decent engineer whose craft may be respected, why the heck would you want to "remote record" anything but a voice over or other single source recording (ala an ISDN VO record at a post-house).

I agree. A single source recording seems to be the biggest draw for something like this. When a band goes into a studio, there's a certain level of comfort that needs to be attained in order to get the best results. If the project is taking place in an environment that just can't accomidate the artist, but is essential to the project, this kind of thing can be very beneficial. For example, the Wurlitzer that I want to record is in Nashville. It's a modified version of blah blah blah. However, I can't take it to New York, and the rest of the project is being done there. Or, the session drummer I really want to play on this song is in California. I can hire him to remotely play this track from his home studio (This is being done more and more lately with top session players, and they tend to have hella nice home studios.)

Though, I've heard of many bands who have a 'long distance relationship' in terms of songwriting and recording. Mashuga, for example, live in different parts of Sweden(?) but write music by sending parts back and forth to each other. With the advent of this kind of technology, bands can now practice/write/record each other over a DSL line.

As an engineer, one's got to keep their mind open to new ideas in this ever changing business. Major studio's have washed away because they couldn't adapt to the changing tide. We, as engineers, need to be ready and open for whatever comes around the corner. The guy who still thinks digital technology is crap is a dinosaur that will soon be completely extinct. Adapt or be trounced. Besides, I've heard some great stuff come out of 'home studios'

So, while everything that I've recorded remotely has been been VO (a spanish version of a training video, ADR for "The Minority Report" among a couple of others) there is major potential for so much more.

[fargone]

Besides, do you want to put your classic drumset on a plane? and could your band afford it?

[dagosto]

I see this whole project as more of a tool to supplement and the creative process. Albums aren't created in big studios as much anymore. A lot of artist's are creating their work in their homes and perhaps a quick bit of input from somebody who may not be physically available could mean all the difference in the world.

Basically, if in fact this service is viable, it is a new tool in our belts as music creators. Now we just gotta get some feedback on it.

BTW, it does MIDI too. Can't see any downfalls to that.

[johnS]

Originally Posted by fargone

Or, the session drummer I really want to play on this song is in California.

I'm pretty sure I just saw an ad for this type of thing in Electronic Musician. I guess you can outsource your percussion tracks nowadays. Pretty cool if you ask me.

[johnS]

Of course, we would never say outsource. We would say long-distance collaboration or something.

[fargone]

yes, long-distance collaboration...

Yeah, I read about it somewhere too. Big drummers getting into this. It's a great idea.

[GearJunkie]

I know a number of people doing something similar to this. Not in a live setting like this, but tracks getting recorded, put on a server, guitar played in LA, bass in seattle, drums in chicago, etc etc.

A band I know is having their guitar player and bass player record their parts in LA while the singer and drummer record their parts in chicago.

[clineaudio]

Gear junkie, totally correct. You've reminded me of what is sometimes easy to forget, it's not the tools, it's the user. As with anything, it can be used for good or evil.