MIDI Madness! Musical Midi collaboration
Hey all! I got the idea for this from looking at the thread asking the users what they want to see more of on Tildes. While I unfortunately don't feel I have much to contribute in the way of ~arts, ~books, or ~humanities, I do have a love of ~music! (And an electric drum-kit, that I hooked up to my laptop yesterday)
I remember there being a thread about music collaboration a while back, and while it looks like nothing came of it then, I figured the time was ripe for another try! My idea is this: People record themselves playing any instrument they want (or know how), and post that recording as a top level comment. Others in the thread download the format (midi, wav, whatever) and add their own instrument into the mix, posting as a reply to the top level comment. Think of it like crowdsourcing a song, I suppose.
To start us off, have a link to a google drive folder of mine which has a couple drum beats (3 wav, and 1 midi). Import those, riff off em, and post what you got! I'll see if I can do the same if anyone else has audio they'd like to share.
If this thread goes well, maybe we could make it a recurring topic!
For some background information if there's anyone who wants to participate but hasn't done something like this before; you're not alone - I started trying this out yesterday, several beers and a glass of wine in :D
First thing you'll want is something to record your instrument. For my drumset (which has a standard MIDI OUT port), I got the Roland UM-ONE. It's certainly not the cheapest option by any standard but from what I know of Roland, they make high quality items. If you have a non-electrical instrument, you'd have to go for some form of microphone to record onto the computer.
Next up is a way to record the audio and store it in a place you can share it with later. This (probably) necessitates using a DAW. Those who have Mac's are fortunate enough to have a very capable one called GarageBand. I'm partial to free, open-source applications so if you're running Linux it seems like Audacity, Ardour, or LMMS would be great choices. In the Windows world, some of the above options are also available, but if you don't like those I've tried out one called Soundbridge as well.
After that is all downloaded and set up, you'll be able to record yourself playing your instrument, alter it with some of the built in functionalities and send that to whoever you want! (Hopefully us in the thread :))
I would also recommend Reaper if you're under Linux. It's very powerful, and cross-platform, so you can collaborate more easily with people using different OSes