Dare I propose HAHA TAPE 3?

[The Masked Unit]

Well?

I only ask because I've had what I think is a good idea that is guaranteed to prolong the process for even longer than usual. The first person to go makes an original track and provides the stems for the next person to remix. The remixer then provides the stems of that remix to the next person so by the time we get to the end we have a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix of a remix.

Did I mention there'll be remixes?

[boki]

Kinda musical chinese whispers.  Sounds good.  Not going first, though, I ain't done anything in years.

[Petey Pate]

I'd be up for this.  An entire album of one track being remixed could go either way on the tedium to intriguing scale though.

[Beagle 2]

I'm in for a penny.

Could you go in opposite directions? So you would start with a beginning and end track, and it would meet in the middle, with whoever gets that middle track having to incorporate elements of both? It would speed up the process, but also rely on there being an odd number of participants. Might be a shit idea!

[The Masked Unit]

I'd be up for this.  An entire album of one track being remixed could go either way on the tedium to intriguing scale though.

What I'd hope is that the second track would take, say, the vocal if there was one from the original, but replace everything else. The person after that might take the drums from the second one but chop them up, pitch them down a bit, add some reverb and create a completely new rhythm and use that as the basis for something else, track four nicks the guitar lead from that track etc. I agree that if track one had a vocal and everyone subsequently used that, it would get boring pretty quickly. You could either just hope that doesn't happen, or specify that if you've taken a particular element as the main basis of your remix and don't intend to change it much, the next person isn't allowed to also use it. You can choose to define remix in whatever way you like: reinterpret a piano piece as a heavy metal track using just the chord progression rather than actually sampling the piano, for example. Given the various styles of the people involved, I can't see that things would get too repetitive.

[The Masked Unit]

I'm in for a penny.

Could you go in opposite directions? So you would start with a beginning and end track, and it would meet in the middle, with whoever gets that middle track having to incorporate elements of both? It would speed up the process, but also rely on there being an odd number of participants. Might be a shit idea!

Yeah, no reason that couldn't work, and would definitely give the person in the middle a nice little challenge.

[clingfilm portent]

Can someone please 'sticky' this thread or something please because I always forget about these collaboration threads when they sink out of the top 10.

[doppelkorn]

I'm up for this if we take into consideration the fact that I'm a bit shit at production. How good do you have to be at production?

[gabrielconroy]

I'm up for it too, even though all my attempts at remixes have all been awful so far.

[hummingofevil]

I'm in again.

[Birdie]

Ah, I just popped in to say I liked the last one - I've played Beagle 2's You'll Never Listen till your Life is Peachy (hope I got that right) a few times on CaB radio now. 

I'll look forward to hearing the result of this collaboration:)

[The Masked Unit]

I'm up for this if we take into consideration the fact that I'm a bit shit at production. How good do you have to be at production?

I'd suggest listening to the first two and deciding for yourself whether you think your own stuff worthy of inclusion, but as far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to have a crack is very welcome, and I don't think anyone would disagree with me there. When we did the first one I think there were lots of us that didn't think we'd be up to the job, but although there are clearly some people who are more accomplished than others, I don't think anyone who listened to 1 & 2 would say that anything sounds out of place.

[lazyhour]

I'm in!

My band was involved in a great project last year called "Collision Detection", where all of the acts involved provided a little sample/loop/snippet of their own design, but not a whole song. Once every artist had provided their snippet, a pack of the lot was sent to everyone. Taking this pool of snips and sounds as a starting point, we all then made a our own EP of material. Some people incorporated the samples heavily, while others took them more as inspiration and used these source sounds sparingly.

It was right good.

[Johnny Textface]

Yes I will play too!

[Johnny Textface]

What happened?

[The Masked Unit]

Well we've got 10 people saying they'll do it, so fuck it let's start, and we can always add to the numbers if more people want to join in as we go. Let's just have a quick vote on whether to have one person start from track one or two people to start with the first and last track, as suggested by whoever it was upthread.

Either way, we'll need at least one person to start asap anyway, so is anyone up for making a start on something now/soon?

My vote: start at both ends and meet up in the middle.

If you're reading, Nosleep, are you up for doing the executive producer/mastering honours again, and indeed are you keen on submitting a track?

[Beagle 2]

I vote to start at both ends, but having said that, I don't have time to do one of the initial tacks at the moment.

[Johnny Textface]

Vote for both ends. Could we use two tracks that are out of copyright? Just an idea..

[doppelkorn]

I'd say start at one end, as I'm not in a position to do one of the tracks from scratch and I'd rather not place a burden on two people when I can place it on just one.

[NoSleep]

If you're reading, Nosleep, are you up for doing the executive producer/mastering honours again, and indeed are you keen on submitting a track?

I can probably do this, yes.

Start in the middle and go both directions from one original track. At least that way there will be continuity with the benefit of half the time taken.

[The Masked Unit]

Vote for both ends. Could we use two tracks that are out of copyright? Just an idea..

The idea is for somebody to come up with an original composition to start with, this allowing the next person access to the stems.

[NoSleep]

Yes... and two people make their mixes from the same original piece one placed before and the other after, increasing production by 100%. We could even make it exponential: 1, 2, 4, 8 = 15 mixes from the original one in 4 stages.

[lazyhour]

I like the cut of your jib.

[Beagle 2]

Yeah, that sounds good.

[Petey Pate]

Bagsy not going first.

[hummingofevil]

I'll go first!

Immediately regrets post.

[hummingofevil]

But fuck it. I've had an idea for doing some more live stuff so I'll try to put something together with a bit more instrumentation and whatever. I've got a free weekend coming up and then a bit of time off by Easter. Is that okay? About 3—4 weeks?

So I need to make a track AND provide wavs of the individual parts for further remixing? Sounds straightforward enough.

[lazyhour]

Question: Do we have to remix, or can we just take a tiny element or two, or even just be inspired by?

[NoSleep]

It's up to you. Leave your mark. We obviously don't want to end up with a mix tape with all the tracks in the same key and tempo.

[NoSleep]

I do foresee a (quality) problem here.

It's hard enough ensuring that people provide a quality 24-bit/44.1kHz final mix (had a variety of "alternatives" sent to me). Now we're asking for hi-quality stems to be sent between participants. Well, that's a lot of traffic, which I don't want to monitor. It would be best if stuff is sent directly on to other participants. There needs to be an aspect of secrecy, so no public links; it maintains interest not to reveal complete tracks (or even stems) to everyone else.

Discuss technical requirements here.

Ideally all files should be 24 bit/44.1kHz, but 16 bit/44.1kHz would be acceptable. (The Masked Unit; I'm looking at you, Mr. 48kHz). Don't send stuff that's been compressed/limited to fuck. I've also received 32 bit and 64 bit files, but these are only acceptable when all else has failed. Any problems should be dealt with in this thread (or a new thread started calling on experienced users of the software you use).

There's probably no need to send entire files of things which loop throughout a track.

Probably best to keep things simple. Don't send stems of every individual component. Allocate them in groups, say; drums, bass, backing music, lead, vocals, etc. This will minimise the traffic while providing useful sources separated into broad groups.