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DMusic Collaboration Discussions...

onewhodreams	Date: January 27, 2005 @ 11:08 PM Now that the DMusic Collaboration Contest songs are in, I thought it would be a good idea to start a discussion of online collabs and our experiences. I know I myself have had wonderful collabs and not so wonderful collabs and there are issues that I have come across that I would like to hear your opinions on, as well as hearing about your experiences, whether good or bad, to help make all future collaborations better for ourselves and others here at DMusic. I'll start off by saying that there are many topics that I think are important, such as etiquette, respect to your fellow musician, and copyrights. If you put your heart and soul into your music and you decide to collab with a complete stranger, you have to be prepared that it's a possibility that you may have a bad experience. Even by someone you respect and trust, and yes, even here on dmusic. It's a risk we all take I suppose, but something to definitely think about and consider when you are preparing to collab. I've found in my experiences that being as open and honest as possible will get you through with little problems, if it's on both ends of course. And maybe even more important, being flexible, patient, and having respect for your fellow musician will make not only the experience a more positive one, but also the song usually ends up better than you expected. I've also come to realize that discussing each individuals part in the song before you even begin to write, is detrimental to keeping the peace. Decide who is going to mix, produce, and arrange, as well as letting your collab partner know what kind of writer you are in advance so there is no unnecessary frustration. Also, talk about what your plans are for the song when it's finished. If you want to upload it on other music sites, get your collab partner's permission first. Be respectful. Remember, we are musicians some of the most sensitive people in the world . On the issue of copyrights I am no expert, but I have had the awful experience of collaborating with someone here, and then having them turn around and recording the song on their own. It's not a good feeling and I know that we have rights as musicians and writers, and afterall, this IS cyberspace, so everyone who takes their music seriously should at some point in time take these thoughts into consideration. I hope to hear some of your experiences and how things went for the contest as well as anyone who has collaborated before. I have truly been amazed at some of the music that has come out of my own collabs as well as some of the collabs I have heard here on dmusic It is truly a fascinating experience and I believe a road in the future for all music.
GTLive	Date: January 27, 2005 @ 11:29 PM Hey I get to respond to this first! I can speak only from my side of things but I'd like to start with a big thanks to Diane who obviously is putting her into this awesome idea and making it happen. Hug: My perspective is that I got lucky, because I was partnered with Engine11, we got along right away, and decided who did what first thing. That was no problem, because we compliment each other well, so the next thing was I sent a quick down and dirty accoustic track to him as an idea. He liked the idea, so I assembled my side of it based on what we originally discussed, fired it over to him for his input and mastering, and the project was completed very quickly with zero hassle. I found my E11 collab buddy to be a pleasure to work with and look forward to other collaborations in the future, so look out. I have not done very many collabs yet, and for the most part I have had good experiences with them, so I consider myself fortunate. There's my collab spin, now I have a whole lot of songs to listen to!
hueseph	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 12:37 AM For myself this was a first. The learning curve was short but steep for me. As much as from my point of view it was a bit rocky at first, the learning experience was well worth it. As regards my partner Little Red King, I have to thank him for his patience as I have a tendancy to be over critical even thogh I'm hardly a perfectionist. Though we have similar musical taste, I think our thought processes are very different which brought a whole other aspect to the composition. The experience as a whole has been encouraging and I look forward to other collaborations in the very near future. All I can say is: thanks for letting me play!
ShakerGreen	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:10 AM I've been waiting for this discussion for some time now, First off let me point out that the one and only collab that i attempted taught me alot about myself, and My abilities, But to set the picture for you, our shaker Green colab started with asking for a female vocalist to sing one of our songs, which we submitted for her approval, and then the fun began, after asking our partner for at 2 different vocal tracks, we were given only one? of varying audio quality, so right from the start we had to fix the submission, our collab partner, did like the song we wrote even suggested we should copy write it, as she was wanting to express her ideas she wrote the lyrics to the verse she was to sing, but openly admitted that lyric writing was not her strong point! going as far as to suggest i write the word, of which i did, pretty much 97% of them , I wrote the music, and our band recorded it. then sent a rough copy for approval, the music was accepted and her 1 voive track was sent back to us for insertion to the song, which if any of you have attempted this, is no easy feat, when the vocals are in 4 sections, but we managed. and then got to work with trying to add my own voice, as per her request, was not working , our vocal pitch was too similar, so again reminding our partner that a second vocal of hers was needed, but nope was never an option i guess, anyway aftr changing things around as best as we could and submitting for final approval , it was becoming clear we were dealing with the wrong type of collab partner, We were the song writers, and musicians, and our partner somehow figured she was our producer, needless to say when her comment of "whatever" to our final version came we called it a day, but the funny thing is, our collab partner felt she owned the song. I'll point out that as far as copywrite goes, the writer of the song owns the copy write, and you can not copywrite ideas, thank goodness for that!!! point being we took our song and finished it shaker green style, and I guess our Collab partner could not deal with this, Well We at Shaker green say GET OVER IT, and I challenge you yo dispute any of the fact openly on this site, I'll be more than happy to post the notes! this contest proves that 50% of the collabs did not come to fulfillment, thats life, If our Collab partner was actually inour town and came for a tryout to join our band, she would have been Kicked out as soon as her Diva attitude came out, Now I'm sure this longwinded comment will create nothing but grief for little ol shaker green, But guess what, We don't give a shit, we play real music in a real world, and Thats it, simple,
tsand19151	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:25 AM although i couldn't be a part of the contest, I'm no stranger to collabs around here. My very first collab was not planned, it happened by chance. I had heard another artist track and something hit me. I couldn't control the music that wanted to come out. So I asked the artist would they mind if I added some stuff to the track. They said, "sure, knock yourself out," Well it turned out to be a huge (DM) hit. From that moment on I had a big desire to collab with more of the wonderful artist here. Today I have a whole bunch of collabs uploaded. Each one has been a positive experience, thankfully. If I'm collabing with a singer I'll give them two or three ideas and let them pick one (they usually pick the first one). At that point I'll shape and mold the music to fit the need. This is where my partner has to trust me. Once they are happy I give them complete and total control over any and all vocals. This is where I have to trust my partner. They usually let me mix and produce the track although there are a couple that were mixed by the singer. I don't mind either way. When we both agree on a mix, we present it to the world. This model has worked just great for me. There has been times when an artist and I couldn't get past stage one. None of my ideas fitted none of there lyrics/vocals. Result? No big deal. We just agree to try at a later date. I LOVE all my collabs here. I think it's wonderful when I hear how another artist has blended with something I've done to create something entirely new. Diane is right, musicians/artist are a weird bunch. I've seen some nasty "collabs" in my day. But my experience here with collabs has been very, very positive. The list of my possible collabs isn't getting shorter, it's getting longer.
onewhodreams	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:49 AM Wayne, I never mentioned your name publicy, and I never would have. What happened between us is between us and it was over long ago. This is a private matter that ended and you bringing it up like this in this thread and threatening to share private notes and calling me names is not a sign that you are "over it". We both know how it went down and the last thing you said to me was "me and the boys are going to record the song live", which obviously meant without me. I had a right to be upset, and I got over it. And as I already said, I would have never mentioned your name here.
Buzzard909	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 2:02 AM Diane, Shaker, the pair of you - cut it out for christ's sake. Go outside and throw your handbags at each other. And as you say, GET OVER IT - so less of the bitchiness kiddies, you are soooo lacking REALITY.
independentm...	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 2:18 AM I really don't like to see two of my favorite dmusic artists fighting with each other... IMHO, anything potentially inflamatory that they say to each other should be done in private... HOWEVER. The TOPIC and ISSUE brought up by this thread is one that really NEEDS attention. Whenever anyone does a collaborative work with another it is best to "hash out the details" beforehand. This is dangerous teritory folks! I urge all dmusic artists to "play nice" and "play fair" with regards to the collaboration/copyright issues. Let's all try to get along and not act like corporations/nations do whenever there is a squabble. Let's try to work things out. Respect each other.
GTLive	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 2:34 AM Recently a very smart friend of mine compared DMusic to a small sample of the the real world. Nowhere is that more apparent than right here in this very enlightening thread. Far as the collab experience goes I feel luckier by the second. Far as the infighting goes, it shouldn't. Bravo to you independentmusician, respect is the word to live by.
ChaosSurfer	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 3:09 AM In summary, some collabs don't go so well Actually, in all seriousness I think that discussion just demonstrates the point. Sometimes there's the kind of chemistry that leads to great songs, and sometimes there's no chemistry at all, which leads to that discussion. What I think you need to do up front identify the rules of engagement and work from there. I do feel someone needs to 'own' the creative control over the song during the creative process, because that person needs to recognise when it's not going in the right direction and to end it. Once all contributions are in, if there's genuine creativity on all sides, then there's shared ownership from that point, but before then I think someone has to hold the vision. Up to the competition I've been very lucky with collabs, but I suspect I've worked slightly differently to others in that I tend to post a finished backing track and ask for contributions. My vocal partner will then write and record the lyrics and vocal melody and we have a song with a 50% split in writing credit (in my opinion). I guess if I’d rejected a contribution I'd have had some problems but that hasn't yet, and my collaborators have always ‘offered’ their contribution rather than insisted on it. Personally, because this is collaborating over a wire, I haven’t figured out how it would work any other way. Usually song writing teams sit in a room together, and can exchange ideas in a free flowing forum so the collaborative process can be much more interwoven. Some of the best songs happen in a moment that you have to capture before it passes, and I think that’s more likely to happen in that environment. That’s not to say DM Collabs can’t work, but I wonder if we’d have ever got ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ or ‘Penny Lane’ if John and Paul were always on opposite sides of the world when they worked together… For the record, for the collab comp my approach didn’t work. I agreed with my partner we’d work the same way – so I posted some tracks and he selected one to do the vocals for. But he had a nasty case of writers block so a few days before the end of the deadline I stepped in and wrote the lyrics and melody and posted a guide track. Unfortunately by the time I got his vocals I’d run out of time to suggest changes or do a mix that would do the song justice so I had to withdraw. In this case I should have stepped in earlier so we had more time once we’d resolved the problem, but I’ll mark that up to experience. So I guess I have to end somewhere so I’ll say this – my take on DM collabs is their supposed to be fun first and foremost. I go in expecting to make a new friend, share an artistic experience and maybe get a song at the end we can both be proud of if we’re really lucky…
hueseph	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 3:12 AM Hey my collab didn't go the way I wanted it to either. And, i'm pretty sure it didn't head in the direction that LRK intended it to but it's done. Sometimes you just gotta go with it and accept what comes out. You can't take it so seriously when it's a first go. Bands are built on relationships much longer lived than these collabs and you can't expect a collab to be as well set as that sort of marriage.
kyodylee	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 3:16 AM Slide on outta here now ... :)) ;) " id="125431"> Well, my only itty bitty tiny teeny weeny tiny itsy bitsy skoshi(did I mention it was small!) contribution to a collab was a total blast! My friends still get a kick when they hear me in the tune! Thanks to Jennae and everyone else on the composition. Ok, guess I'll just Slide on outta here now ...
ChaosSurfer	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 3:25 AM Hey, no shameless plug!
gravy426	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 3:57 AM that was pretty slick, i can see why they slipped
MindSculpture	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 6:28 AM I guess I must be lucky. I've had 3 collabs so far, all with really open minded and talented musicians. I think we've all been happy with the results. I think there are different types of collab. There's the kind where the song is one artists baby and the other is simply contributing some additional vocs or something to that effect...then there's the type like Halaka & myself had for this comp. When we started off, we just decided to fire a couple of ideas each at one another until we naturally settled on the idea that seemed to suit both our styles. We then fired files back and forth numerous times until the song seemed to grow into a monster! I truely believe this was a 50-50 collab, and feel incredibly lucky to have been paired up with Halaka - who's constant enthusiasm and hard work inspired me to push myself for this project. I know we are both well happy with the result, and hope that some of you will take some pleasure from it also. Big thanks to Diane and Woof for an ispired idea, and to Halaka for making it such a great experience.
BlackMage	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 7:02 AM I send an FL file to Milesov. He records guitars. He sends me the file. I tell what to do and what not to do. He sends another version. I tell some more. He sends me some more versions and I approve one of them and upload it and that's how we got "Dark Moon Rising" with Milesov playing real guitars.
kingo	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 9:25 AM One of the things that has made collaborating online almost entirely pleasurable for me, and not harrying or bothersome, is that i'm not concerned about copyrights or attribution. I just do 'em because it's fun, and because if I can have any part, even the smallest part, in the creation of a piece of music I can enjoy listening to then I feel my time's been well spent. That being said, the collaborations I've done here have been with people who were a pleasure to work with and whose music I was excited to be a part of. I've been lucky to have gotten to work with others who have been very receptive to my criticisms and very understanding of my shortcomings. I got lucky as hell in the random pairing for this recent contest; Sphinxgod's an amazing musician and his music impressed me right away, so I was very excited to get to try working with him. The actual process of working on that song turned out to be very enjoyable, too. Something else that's been very helpful is having easy access to an FTP site on which to trade files back and forth. Being able to do that gets past a lot of technical hurdles, and I think the more technical problems you can avoid along the way the more enjoyable the entire process will be. Thanks Diane, Woof, and DMusic for coming up with the idea of doing this this way. I think it's been very enlightening and fun. And all of the collabs that came out of it that I've heard were worth the struggles to get there. At least from where I'm listening.
cosmicearthgirl	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 11:07 AM My experience with this particular collab was as easy and enjoyable as all the others I've done. We talked up front about our abilities, he made a couple of tracks, I picked one, did vocals, we liked it. All the musicians that I've worked with here have been incredibly talented, open minded, tolerant, laid-back and just in general awesome. And I've made some very good friends! I'm with Halaka on this, I've never worried about who "owned" the song. The pure pleasure of making it happen was more than enough. As far as the technical aspects, we usually trade mp3's via yousendit.com and I'm always willing to let someone else do the mixing since I have very little experience with that. I've rarely been unhappy with the results. Diane, Woof, this has been the coolest of experiments. A big to you both for making it happen.
onewhodreams	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 12:28 PM The reason I bring up the issue of copyright is because you never know what the outcome of a song will be. What if someone wants to publish it? What if another artist wants to cover it? What if someone wants to put it on the radio? If you want to leave the door open for any of these possibilities you need to think about copyrights. All I'm saying is that you just never know and it's best to protect yourself and your music.
kingo	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:07 PM All of the music halaka does, and by extension all of the music I do myself, is open to any all forms of stealingness, sampling, rescrambling, remixing, re-singing, redoing, distributing, etc. You can bootleg it, sing the lyrics on a different song, sing the song on a different lyrics, take a song as-is and play it to a party full of your friends without the express written permission of the NFL or anyone else. The door is open for every possibility. Of course if Habibi Telephone ever turns up in a Nike commercial I might regret the decision we made to approach music that way, but for now I don't. I am protected, I have a condom over my whole self. My music, however, is bareback all the way. Naked in the rain. In fact I'm pretty sure halaka's music has every known VD. And a few unknown ones, too. So when i do a collab it's always up to the collab partner to be as tight or loose with the results as he or she wants to be. If he or she wants to claim that he or she did the whole thing by his or herself. (NOTE: I'm not advocating this approach for everyone. Obviously there are people trying to make a living doing this shit. I'm not one of those peoples. In fact the reason I'm not one of those peoples is that I've always wanted to create music without concern for any of that crap about money, so I've made a conscious decision to keep the influence of commerce away from my stuff.) :hat: :meatball: :ear: :llamachicken:
ChaosSurfer	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:25 PM Before I go on, I must say, I worship at the church of Halaka Ok, so when I said 'own' (someone did that quotey thing above so I figured I'd carry on the 'tradition'), I kinda meant someone needs to be the team leader, but the team is a totally democratic thing, and every contribution is valid and meaningful even if it doesn't get used. And I'm talking about just the creative process. Once the thing is done, and it's out there, as far as I'm concerned you can subject it to as many of the things Halaka described as you like, and some he didn't. I'm envious of anyone collaborating over the internet that can create something musical in a totally organic way. I mean, at least someone has to call the key, right?
kingo	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:47 PM You're right; if nothing else there's someone who's mixing. In the case of a collab like this I think that function is more a part of the creative process maybe than it might be in a more standard situation. Not that it's ever just a given. But in the case of this kind of collab someone has to be responsible for pulling all the pieces together, mixing, listening to everyone else's input, remixing, etc. But even then, the mixer isn't necessarily the prime stakeholder. But, uhm... what key? Who the hell said anything about a key? Man, the last time I saw a key I nearly broke both my legs trying to get as far away from it as I could.
DaveWL	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 1:51 PM hmm - Both parties playing in the same key I knew there was something I was meant to discuss with my partner. I’v never worried too much much about copyright either, I’d be quite flattered if someone tried to rip my track off. I’m glad some people take the view that collabs are about having some fun. I think that particularly was the point of the collab competition. It’s like party games or one of those end of term sport’s days. You enter the 3 legged race, maybe you get paired with a Olympic sprinter, a 300 pound giant or maybe just someone who is nice to be tied up to. If you make a fool of yourself well hell it’s just one track. It looks like some guys got paired with people they could really see eye to eye with and were able to push on and create something special. But the chances were if you entered the competition you were going to get paired with someone very different to you. So you would have to compromise and see the funny side of some playing a bagpipe solo over your rocking blues rhythm guitar. That was the appeal of the competition to me. Thanks to Diane for the organising and Woof for the great idea. By the way Halaka I'll swap you a brand new potatoe for the complete rights to your music.
ChaosSurfer	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 2:18 PM Can't wait to hear the one with the bagpipe solo
GTLive	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 3:42 PM Hell man, I hope somebody takes my tunes and makes money off 'em. That would be cool as hell, would love to interrogate them and find out how on Earth they did that. I leave the legalities up to the legal people, I just wanna sing my thing.
moam	Date: January 28, 2005 @ 6:41 PM Fun contest
Traf	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 7:52 AM I think Halaka's approach is spot on... and I think it was a great idea doing this. Not because of any prizes or hopes that a masterpeice might evolve, but for the fact that we're working with other musicians that we mormally don't work with, and no-one could fail to learn something... even if it was about themselves.. I've made a great new friend in Sween and I thoroughly enjoyed it.. and from the other collabs I've listened to so far, there 's some trmendous music been created here.. that can't be bad..
Spydah	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 11:04 AM Cool
freddemillio	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 11:41 AM The collab contest put me together with someone (hueseph) that I might not have gotten together with otherwise. It motivated me to listen to his music and I got to enjoy some fine tunes that I had not previously discovered. We came up with a song that probably neither of us would have created alone. As hue mentions above, the collab did not take the path I had envisioned when I was thinking about it alone in my corner and he feels the same, but I am happy with the result for exactly that reason. I learned to look at the music through his eyes and that is nice gift. That is what I appreciate about collaborating with another. Talking about collaborations in a more general sense, I think something that is important when working with someone is defining if you are seeking some specific contribution or if the project is really a collaboration. For me the difference is that with a collaboration there is a necessary give and take and you need to let the creative process take the song in a direction that you might not have considered before. You leave yourself open to synergistic interactions. That can be scary because you are giving up control, but I find that the rewards repay the effort. On the other hand, if the project is YOUR project and your goal is to realize it true to the form in your mind, then you should be clear with that and work that out with the other artist. In that case, you are searching for a certain contribution that you are not capable of realizing yourself even though you have a very clear and definite conception of the content. You are subcontracting out a piece of the project. You have a specification for what is required and are seeking the artisan that can supply you with the missing piece in-spec and on-time. Neither the subcontract nor the collaboration style of working is better. They are both valid ways of creating a work. It is just a matter of everyone understanding and agreeing to the method that is being used. If one artist is coming from the subcontract view-point and the other from the collaboration view-point, then that is probably a recipe for disappointment. I'm here on DM for musical companionship. I love music (listening and playing) and it is great to have found a community of like-minded folks. For me, music is play and not work so I really do not worry about the issue of the copyright of the music that is created by either me alone or with another. However, I can easily imagine that if music were my profession instead of my hobby, then I would feel different about issues involving the ownership of the work. In that case, it is best for the two parties to lay down their opinions and come up with a consensus decision on the issue. Traf said it very elegantly - there's some tremendous music on DM and that can't be bad.
freddemillio	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 11:48 AM By the way, the bagpipe solo over a rockin' blues riff has been done already: AC/DC, It's A Long Way To The Top If Wanna Rock N Roll (High Voltage). Pure joy - waves of Marshall EL34 overdrive and all those harmonics in the pipes
onewhodreams	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 12:26 PM I have had the pleasure of doing 8 collabs so far and all but one have turned out to be amazing experiences . Each one has been different in it's own way as to how the song was created, mixed, and produced. My very first collab was with Tim and he pretty much gave me the song and said run with it. Little did he know I was going to write words that were in jibberish, but he was very gracious about it when I sent him the files and he had full control over the mix and production. My second collab I had heard in it's instrumental version and asked if I could write to it. After sending in a sample to the artist, he allowed me to record and mix it on my own. I have done two collabs where I was told exactly what to do and what they wanted, which was only the background vocals, and the other a verse for Traf, but every other song I have been given open access to the creative process. One of the most amazing experiences was the 7 member DM collab with Trail Blazers. Chris had the song on his site and a few of us heard it and wanted to collab with him on it. He pretty much let us have the creative flow and after I laid down my vocals, Vickxxx recruited everyone else and put together a mix which he sent out to Chris and I for our opinions. There ended up being more mixes than I can count , but Chris, Vickxxx, and I worked together on every little detail and it even came to a point where everyone got so frustrated they decided to give up. In the end the song came out great though and knowing how rough it was and still finishing it, I think says something about everyone who worked on it. I'm really glad to hear most of your experiences for the contest were positive ones and I'm also glad so many of you have shared your experiences here with us all. I really do think collabs are going to be a part of the future of this music generation and it's really cool to be a part of it here at dmusic .
leplume	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 2:06 PM This has been interesting to watch. I listened to all of the results and it was really cool to hear how different people were able to work with each other. All of the songs were good and I have to be honest and say I have at least two favorites out of the bunch that I have been listening to. Virtually all of the work that Woof, Karena, Steve and I have done has been through collaboration. Other than Woof and myself, we have never met eachother...ever. It's the only way we work as a group. So for us I can say that collaboration has been an amazingly creative experience. Like Halaka we don't really worry about where the song goes once we finish it. I know Karena plays our stuff on her radio show in Australia and that's great but we never think about it beyond creating it. So, collabs for us have been the way to go and have opened us up to a world of experience we may not have had otherwise.
leplume	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 2:07 PM This has been interesting to watch. I listened to all of the results and it was really cool to hear how different people were able to work with each other. All of the songs were good and I have to be honest and say I have at least two favorites out of the bunch that I have been listening to. Virtually all of the work that Woof, Karena, Steve and I have done has been through collaboration. Other than Woof and myself, we have never met eachother...ever. It's the only way we work as a group. So for us I can say that collaboration has been an amazingly creative experience. Like Halaka we don't really worry about where the song goes once we finish it. I know Karena plays our stuff on her radio show in Australia and that's great but we never think about it beyond creating it. So, collabs for us have been the way to go and have opened us up to a world of experience we may not have had otherwise.
leplume	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 2:10 PM Whoops! Sorry about that. Computer had some kind of a hiccup and the darn thing posted twice!
GTLive	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 5:40 PM I have been on DM since August 2003, and have done 10 collabs so far, all of them were excellent experiences. My first two were basically a couple of my songs with the inclusion of amazing lead guitar by VictorsSkull. These songs would have been forgotten if not for those awesome additions. The next 2 collabs I did was with CEG - I did the :bluenote, she wrote the song and did the Wonderful experiences there. I did a very interesting joint collab with MOAM cowritten across the board. We threw this together in one take based on an idea & it came out awesome. Moving along, the incredible IMEMINE played the to an old blues number of mine and made it R+O+C+K - awseome experience there! I stuck my vocals on a DaveWL song, that was fun, kinda genre deviating for me! I always wanted to just sing, any band wants to spend the next forever backing my vox up, just say I had the incredible pleasure of two different collabs with Karen Davis, one original & one old time bluegrass tune (more genre deviating) our voices go together so well and she is a pleasure to work with. And of course this contest one with Engine11's Ron. I thank you all here at DM, I am 100 times the musician I was last August because of these experiences. I fully expect future collabs with every artist mentioned in this post, and maybe even some are under way already
leflaw	Date: January 29, 2005 @ 11:04 PM First, let me say that I apologize to everybody for holding up the Dmusic Collab contest for two days. I had a vacation , another project, some family business, yahdahadahadda.... On the other hand,it wasn't fair to my collaborator Karen Davis to sit it out. So I used my connections and asked onewhodreams for a short continuence. Anyway, in typical bass ackward fashion, by the time I was almost done with the arrangement of Karen Davis tune "Wounded Wings", I had trapped myself into doing the whole track and singing the vocals, and I sing like a frog - a frog with pitch and tempo, but a frog. Too much smoke, talk, neglect on my vocal chords for too many years, I guess. I used to sing ok ( i.e. choir, bluegrass quartets, rock back rounds). Strictly a shower singer, IMHO What you are hearing vocally on "Wounded Wings" is me through a Neumann BCM 104 going into protools digi 002. AKG tight headsets, tons of software compression , reverb and tight short delay , with multiple sing -a- long tracks. The basic tracks were done on Garageband and imported into protools, for vocals and some auotomated mixing. Editing and mp3 conversion on Wavelab 4.0 on a Pc. everything else on a mac. Long story. It was a blast for me. Hope it sounds Ok. Thanks to Karen Davis for a great song, and will try to be more organized about it next time. Her voice sounds a lot better than mine, and that Neuman mike will make her sound like Faith Hill. Believe it or not, this was my first on-line collab ( without another person being engineer or working at the console or synth), and it was a blast. Did the whole thing from the ground up. First time on Garageband software. Cool stuff. On the copyright issues, this is most enlightening, becaue we have been thinking about that recently here at DM. dmusic.com/copyright is in beta testing, and is not yet done, but you can bang on it a bit. Let me know of errors, issues, etc. We are turning our attention to copyright matters presently because of these collaborations. It doesn't take much to be a joint work, so lyricists , arrangers and producers might particpiatem, whether it was anticpated or not. We better straighten that out. I will call a lawyer. Yikes! I am a lawyer! We are interested in any suggested groundrules. Anyway, great fun its been.
hueseph	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 3:32 AM I think that's great. Those forms, the generic examples, the guidlines are great. Will this be a paid for service. I assume so.
SilverShining	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 12:44 PM I think adding copyright is a good idea. It can't hurt for those folks who want to keep their rights. I've heard some amazing stuff here and some folks really should get their stuff covered.
Traf	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 3:08 PM I don't know whether this is of use to anyone, but here in the UK for many years, we have copyrighted material by sealing it in a registered package, having it stamped very clearly by the post office, posting it to ourselves and putting it away in a safe place. This gauranteed you had all the copyrights to that material, as it's not so much as who wrote it (as that can be hard to prove in a court unless you had someone witness you writing it), but that you had that material in your possession before anyone else did. That proof alone is all you need... Can I just add that in all my years, (and there's a lot of em), I have never known anyone have a piece of material blatently stolen from them.. that's not to say it hasn't happened, but I've never seen it... I know there are lots of places that will copyright something for you at a cost, but the above really is all you need. It's proof of who had the material first that's important.. Maybe I'm a bit out of date, and something has changed, but this stood fast up untill a few years ago.. and it's how I protect myself if I think I have something that's worth it.. (which isn't often these days ) Even the fact that your song was uploaded here on Dmusic on a certain date, would make it really difficult for someone else to convince a court that they had the song before you....
imemine	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 3:14 PM Curious, wouldn’t the same hold true with posting on the web? It would seem that the date the material was posted would hold as much gravity as would a postmark. Just curious. Funny how this forum evolved into the copyright forum.
Traf	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 3:57 PM Yes... exactly Ime.. That's the point I was trying to make in those last 2 line.. My fault for not wording it too well
Rodrica	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 4:59 PM Brief note on copyright. If you're a member of the Guild of International Songwriters & Composers, then they will copyright/witness an unlimited amount of material for free and will send verification by certificate/keep a cd copy on their files. This applies to both lyrics and/or music. They also provide much free legal advice.
DaveWL	Date: January 30, 2005 @ 5:05 PM I was just about to post something about GISC Rodrica but you beat me to it. UK based organisation, membership £45 sterling for UK residents, £50 overseas. http://www.songwriters-guild.co.uk/services.htm#copyright
GTLive	Date: January 31, 2005 @ 7:33 AM Mailing something to yourself is a legally recognized date stamp. I took a bunch of pics of my old apartment when I moved in & mailed them to myself. I then made the landlord aware that I did this, because I knew he was gonna try & keep my security deposit. My attorney assured me that these pics would be accepted as date stamped by the court, but it became a nonissue when the landlord died a month before we were to leave. Regardless, if you mail the material to yourself the date stamp will be accepted as valid by the court.
zedsalt	Date: January 31, 2005 @ 11:04 AM I've never seen the self-mailing thing hold up in court. I wish I would've kept some record as to the number of times I've seen/heard of it failing, but I think I'm safe in saying it's more than a dozen, probably less than twenty. Resealing is just too easy and undetectable; if you're in a court that will give credence to a postmark, you're in the minority. I have one buddy who has his bank put his work in a safety deposit box that he's never opened. It might be a little cheaper to register the works one album at a time, but he had the safety deposit box already for other things he didn't need regular access to. In every case I've heard of involving a website so far, the testimony of "an objective third party" (webmaster) has held up. It's really not that expensive to register an album, and you KNOW that will hold up in court. In the U.S., a work is considered copyrighted as soon as it's "brought into existence" and it "cannot be made available" (profit is NOT a factor) "to any group larger than a reasonably-sized circle of family and friends" (what constitutes "reasonably-sized" is up to the judge's discretion). If there's a dispute, it becomes a matter of proof...who has it, what they're likely to do with it, and how the particular judge you get that particular day views it.
zedsalt	Date: January 31, 2005 @ 11:07 AM Um, I mean it "cannot be made available", etc. by anyone OTHER than the copyright holder without permission, of course.
JudgeMental	Date: January 31, 2005 @ 12:40 PM My 2 cents is... Seems like most here enjoy the collabs thing a lot. Thats good for community spirit and helps some artists who are not good at 1 aspect of music to call in somebody who is I think Shaker's maybe just trying to put the other side of the discussion forward. He didnt mention any names so I had no idea who he was talking about until the lady herself came forward. He rightly pointed out the negative side to balance the other positive comments. Working with people....well, treat others as you would want to be treated yourself. I didnt realize how diffrent things are when you write with the intention of radio play or to send to publishers until more recently. You have to have a formal agreement with your partner in those cases because people like stations and publishers place very specific demands on artists and songwriters and you have to conform, like it or not! If you mean business, then its best to sign a legal agreement in advance deciding who will do what, and who gets what percentage. Bear in mind you have to write to time restrictions, formats, subject matter, style etc when you deal with publishers. If you dont want those hassles then dont pick a partner who wants to get published (or played on radio)! Mailing yourself holds little legal security. Get a reputable organization to register the material with. Zed, Dave and Rodrica's comments are good advice
BOWILLIE	Date: January 31, 2005 @ 7:24 PM wow.some real deep truths about song collabs..first off..being secure with yourself is foremost with any writer/composer.before the computer days ,it was enough to just keep track of hand written lyrics let alone who might pinch your songs when they run across them..there has been times other (unnamed so called artists)would balk at even the thought of share-ing an idea with anyone..as for myself...words come to freely to lose a friend over.
GTLive	Date: February 1, 2005 @ 1:20 AM Folks I stand corrected. I mentioned that I was mailing pictures of my apartment to prove the move-in condition which would have held up in a Gary vs. Landlord security deposit suit as supporting evidence. It is not acceptable as proof of copyright. Here's an interesting article dispelling the "Poor Man's Copyright" myth. http://www.tmelaw.net/article113.htm
GTLive	Date: February 4, 2005 @ 4:52 AM This is an awesome thread, I can't imagine it's exhausted yet. I'm gonna bump it now to keep it going. Anybody out there wanna collab with ole GT? Or for those of you who did already, wanna share your experieces here tell the world how difficult I am to work with whatever...
ChaosSurfer	Date: February 4, 2005 @ 5:07 AM Not that I claim to know anything about copyright but Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org) seems to have got it cracked, and it appears to be free.
ChaosSurfer	Date: February 4, 2005 @ 5:08 AM Damn that link. Should be http://creativecommons.org
olethros	Date: March 5, 2005 @ 7:24 PM I've never collabed with anybody, though I was asked many. Maybe I suck.

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