Jam And Record!

[JasonE]

I am starting this thread based on the conversation in another thread so we have a dedicated place to discuss it.

The idea that was thrown out is to have a place where people can create and upload backing tracks so others can pull them down and record themselves playing along with them, or singing if you will, and upload them to share with everyone. This leads me to some thoughts.

This would include people of all playing levels. There will be no negative critiques on anyone's playing, singing, recording or mixing. It is to be a positive thing to help uplift each other and encourage everyone to experiment and do that they enjoy doing. People can ask for advice on playing, recording and mixing if they want to and we can give our advice to help someone get better at the whole process. We will all improve through the process.

Multiple people could provide backing tracks. We will probably want to stay away from backing tracks produced by someone else. I have some that I purchased a very long time ago. The folks that made them said they didn't have any issues with people sharing recordings they made with them as long as they disclosed who made the track. I just don't want to get into any legal issues with this. If we do use a commercial track and get a notification it will have to come down.

We need a site where we can host the recordings as well as post links. I am thinking that it would be a new thread for each backing track that gets uploaded. That way someone can pull the track down and do their thing and upload it to the same thread whenever they want to and we can keep each "song" in it's own area. We could do the posts here if there is no objection to that @JMintzer ?

Suggestions for somewhere to host the recordings? It looks like Sound Cloud will probably have a cost associated with it. I didn't dig deep enough to see what the cost would be for it. I don't know if there are any free sites.

I am also interested in who may be interested in doing tracks for this. I will throw in on it. Alright, throw your thoughts in this tread.

 

[JMintzer]

No Problemo!

 

[Bogner]

Nice!

 

[Max Headroom]

Great idea, hope it gets the traction and attention it sounds like it warrants.

 

[RossF]

Guitar Backing Tracks

Ballad Backing tracks for guitar. Free Guitar Jam tracks organized by genre, scale/mode, key, and tempo. +2000 free backing tracks. Discover why we have the best backtracks! - #1 Way To Improve Your Guitar Playing - Top 10 Backing Tracks 2020. Ballad Backing tracks for Guitar

www.guitartonemaster.com

Here you go.

I have a ton of them too. If I can find them I have no problem sharing them somehow.

 

[JasonE]

Guitar Backing Tracks

Ballad Backing tracks for guitar. Free Guitar Jam tracks organized by genre, scale/mode, key, and tempo. +2000 free backing tracks. Discover why we have the best backtracks! - #1 Way To Improve Your Guitar Playing - Top 10 Backing Tracks 2020. Ballad Backing tracks for Guitar

www.guitartonemaster.com

Here you go.

I have a ton of them too. If I can find them I have no problem sharing them somehow.

This is great! And, a good way to get things started faster. Thanks for posting that!

 

[Huggy Love]

I think it's a great idea, I've done it in the past and made the backing track I recorded available to the fellow members here.

The only two things I can think of as cautions are:
- Letting members create individual threads for each backing track may overload system and give the powers that be & mods more than they want to handle. An ongoing thread for them all to be in might be better.
- Original or covers? Doing already published songs may open up the door to copyright issues.

Aside from that I think it's a noble idea that would give our PRS fam a platform to display their talents. I hope you can get it off the ground.

 

[JasonE]

I think it's a great idea, I've done it in the past and made the backing track I recorded available to the fellow members here.

The only two things I can think of as cautions are:
- Letting members create individual threads for each backing track may overload system and give the powers that be & mods more than they want to handle. An ongoing thread for them all to be in might be better.
- Original or covers? Doing already published songs may open up the door to copyright issues.

Aside from that I think it's a noble idea that would give our PRS fam a platform to display their talents. I hope you can get it off the ground.

I think it has to be something original or modified enough that you may be able to figure out what song it was based on but is not the same.

I think having a lot of threads may be a good problem to have. We can address that if it becomes a problem and put a limit on how many per week can be posted. Maybe we funnel them through one or two people to meter them. I am hoping people will be busy working on the ones that are out there instead of creating a bunch of new ones. It will be good if there is enough interest for people to be doing both though.

 

[JasonE]

Guitar Backing Tracks

Ballad Backing tracks for guitar. Free Guitar Jam tracks organized by genre, scale/mode, key, and tempo. +2000 free backing tracks. Discover why we have the best backtracks! - #1 Way To Improve Your Guitar Playing - Top 10 Backing Tracks 2020. Ballad Backing tracks for Guitar

www.guitartonemaster.com

Here you go.

I have a ton of them too. If I can find them I have no problem sharing them somehow.

It looks like many of these are on YouTube. I had an audio ripper at one point on one of my machines that would pull and download just the audio from a YT video. I may have to look for something like that to pull just the audio. It will also need to be a decent quality of audio. This could still be a good place to start.

 

[RossF]

It looks like many of these are on YouTube. I had an audio ripper at one point on one of my machines that would pull and download just the audio from a YT video. I may have to look for something like that to pull just the audio. It will also need to be a decent quality of audio. This could still be a good place to start.

I didn't post a link, but if people search YouTube to MP3 there are reputable sites that will do it for free.

 

[Moondog Wily]

Sounds like fun! I am in!! Happy to provide site to upload material to as well (backing tracks and outputs). I have a server with unlimited storage and bandwidth ;~)) Also happy to put together backing tracks now and again if necessary!!! I think it will be interesting to see different members driving down (with their renditions) the same streets (the backing tracks) ;~)) Maybe we can call it "Beats With No Names"!

 

[gush]

Cool idea

 

[DreamTheaterRules]

Just catching up here now. I did note in the other thread, that that whole things started by using free backing tracks. Guys would just pick one from the free BT sources, and put it up. And they didn’t do all the same thing, so it wasn’t “Metal in drop D” every week. The mix of styles was always interesting as guys got out of their normal zones. I see someone put up a link here already to go that route initially, and yes, it does take the pressure off of a BT Creator to record and mix a track on a time frame. We can find some to use, and then whenever someone creates one, we can use their’s that week once it’s done.

And, we probably need to nominate a “thread mod” or something like that. Someone has to pick the backing tracis. We can’t just suddenly open the forum on Friday night and see that 5 different people have uploaded a BT to start working on. The flow that worked well there was one track per week. You can play/record any instrument OR sing, on any one, or every one. If some are just too far out of what you want to do, you are never obligated to do any of them so do the ones you like, do the ones you can, etc. Ideally, we would have enough participation and interest to bring some real excitement to the forum.

And then, everything Jason said. Be positive, help those who need help, encourage everyone, keep it positive. I REALLY need to get back into recording and this may be the push I need to get up to speed on Reaper and recording.

 

[Aahzz]

This could be fun

 

[aphantomvaper]

This is me and my Looper on a nightly basis. Make a track, then jam on it. By the end of the loop I usually can't remember all I laid down, so it keeps it fresh.

I think this is a great idea, JasonE. I'd be fine with sharing, and my concern is the track could be be found inspirational for someone and it turns into a copyrighted song.

I'm not sure if this is Lazlos concern, but he does get paid to record for a living.

Standing by, still more for it than against!!! It would be great to have my stuff out there.

 

[JasonE]

It looks like SoundCloud could be an option here. You can create a free account and upload up to 3 hours of music. Since these tracks will be within a few minutes long everyone should be able to put quite a few on their account without paying anything to use it. If people want to pay for the service it is $8.25 per month, or $99 per year. You can also privately share the songs so anyone that isn't ready to release their work to the world can keep it more private.

I completely forgot that I even had a SoundCloud account. I never uploaded anything but discovered when I went to create a free account that I already had one.

 

[JasonE]

I am thinking about doing a video meeting with anyone that wants to be involved in helping run this thing. I can set that up but will need email addresses for those that want to do it. I will do it using Google Meets. What do you guys think of that? I was thinking it would be a way to talk though the ideas and nail some things down as well as get us committed to this before we "get too busy" to pull it off. I know if I jump in and make commitments, it will be more likely that I do my part in making this happen. One of my strengths is building and organizing things. However, I need help in keeping it going so I don't get buried under it and end up having to find time to keep fitting it in. I think a few people could get this going and make it work. It could be a lot of fun and a great way to get to know each other better.

 

[DreamTheaterRules]

I’ll be glad to help

 

[JasonE]

It looks like Audius may be a good option for storing the recording and sharing. I had not heard of this one before. Looks to be free. You could sell your songs if you make something you think will sell.

Audius - Empowering Creators

Audius is a music streaming and sharing platform that puts power back into the hands of content creators.

audius.co

 

[JasonE]

This was a tough weekend. I got my recording desk all cleaned up and everything hooked back up. I started to fire things up and of course the OS had a big update so I had to wait that out. Then I was having issues with both the mouse and keyboard. I discovered that the batteries had blown up inside of both of these things. I got them out and used contact cleaner in them and cleaned them up the best I could. I really hate when this happens. it happened to the mouse one other time. I didn't think I was going to be able to revive it either time. There was a ton of junk in it. I got both back up and working. About the time I started getting somewhere the mouse up an died. I ordered a new one. This one has a rechargeable battery in it. Those tend to hold up better. It showed up the next day. In Apple fashion, they sent a cable to charge it with that I don't own one thing that it will work with. I had to order a new cable. That showed up today. I found a USB mouse of mine and plugged that in so I could at least get into some things.

I pulled up a song that I worked on earlier this year. I had it farther along than I remembered. I tried everything I could think of playing wise and I had zero creativity in me after the mess I went through getting everything up and running. I didn't even have the will to want to touch it today. I guess I will see how this week and weekend goes. At least everything is ready to roll.. Now I just have to get me ready to roll.