On Tuesday 13 November 2007 12:46:52 Ken Restivo wrote: If the license to be used is Free and preferably copyleft, YES. Other than that, not sure. Well, I can supply lyrics right away. Can perhaps record some beginner harmonica tracks. Other than that, very busy this month participating in NaNoWriMo. http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/47354 http://dangernovel.blogspot.com/ all the best drew

On 13 November 2007 at 20:44, Svend-Erik K Madsen <sv-e(a)sv-e.dk> wrote: :) indeed. For recording instruments, I can't really see any other way to go. I'd say we just try something, expect to fail, and try again after learning about why. Email won't work for the size of files which can be generated. But, way back when folks would break up large (at the time) files, uuencoded them, and transfer the pieces over phone lines. We could even adapt that model, if we had to. However we do it, if computer recording is where we're going, someone needs to ship a master click track to the others so that our audio will align. -- Kevin

On Tuesday 13 November 2007 15:21, Alexandros Vichos wrote: I started messing with some scripts a couple years ago and registered the domains musicvs.com and .org (as in "music versioning system" but I didn't want to reuse "MVS" even if it were available), but then my partner's heart problems got worse and my free time disappeared. I haven't let them lapse if I remember right, but I'm still kinda picking up the pieces and doubt I'd get anything done with it for months at least, if not more. It kinda started with my desire for a license for music that was like the GPL. No, not the CC-Attribution-ShareAlike license, because that doesn't require you to release your source tracks. I'm no lawyer, so rather than conceiving yet another new half-cocked license I started thinking about creating an environment where that kind of sharing would be easier. My idea was basically to have projects on this site like cvs or svn would, but with a timeline and audio tracks instead of a bunch of directory trees, and participants could be granted read-only or check-in access (no access by default because of the bandwidth involved), they could upload their tracks in some lossless format, subject to CC-By-SA, and I was going to use one of the non-GUI sound libraries/languages to allow for effects and (though I hadn't heard of the term yet) Ajax waveform editing with streaming audio for previewing, and there'd be some way to distribute tracks or mixdowns publicly automatically via bittorrent, and it was all probably way, way more ambitious than I could have handled by myself. But maybe someday. Rob

On 2007-11-14 10:21 am, plutek-infinity wrote: Yes, some great ideas in this thread. That is very likely, it partly depends on the policy or scope of the particular project or musical piece. I suspect, especially with this collaborative kind of approach, that a song or piece may never be truly finished so forking off many variations is very possible and encouraged. I'm sure there are many possibilities. FWIW I have set up a bare Subversion repo that anyone is welcome to use if anyone cares to try svn out. The URL is ... http://markconstable.com/jam/ or curl http://markconstable.com/jam/README All I have done is add an initial README with a few instructions to get started. Just reply to me personally (not the list) with an email address and password and you can svn commit to the above repo. Anyone is free to checkout or export the contents via svn. --markc

On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 21:04 -0500, Frank Pirrone wrote: This is a good idea but it will quickly eat up hard drive space and bandwidth. I can volunteer both from two different servers if needed. Not so sure about the subversion support though. I'm interested in ideas for how to split the load efficiently. An social network for music creation will definitely be good for promoting Linux audio and open source software. Please keep us informed of the progress as this could be a very powerful idea if it is managed well. I can see a roll for the consortium in this project but we will need a way to make it pay for itself if it does get some momentum as the costs will be pretty massive on a large scale. Maybe we should be distributing via bittorrent like eletricsheep http://electricsheep.org Why make the server handle all the load when it can be a simple database engine instead. Cheers. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Tuesday 13 November 2007 21:04, Frank Pirrone wrote: One who immediately sees it as a more marketable spelling of the word "googol". Where I got stuck, and the reason I came up with all those ideas about streaming mix previews and bittorrent mixdowns, is where the bandwidth comes from. Not in terms of "OMG we need a business model ASAP", but in terms of "how can this be made efficient enough that it can be kept a community effort and not just a deluxe mp3.com?" I mean, if some big benefactor like archive.org gets in on this, sure, you can just start checking in WAV files willy-nilly. Maybe even some European equivalent of the NEA (since obviously sharing music is communism even it's your own, and thus my own government would have nothing to do with such an endeavor.) I always envisioned just having all the tracks out there, and having any contributor able to make a mix (in EDL form) from whichever source tracks he or she likes. Rob

On 14 November 2007 at 12:00, Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com> wrote: What's "EDL" format? -- Kevin

On Wednesday 14 November 2007 04:37 am, Kevin Cosgrove wrote: wrote: Edit Decision List. http://quicktoots.linuxaudio.org/toots/ardour/Basic_editing_howto.html If that's what they meant... drew

Hi again! About that EDL: I think we should not absolutely rely on it. It sounds as a nice optional thing, but I don't see a good possibility to use it myself. Remeber I'm blind, the console is my world. But I think it's not necessary: Just give tempo in BPM, bars/measure and if you want to empty measures before the original track sets on. That's enough in my book. So I could upload my track and just give it a short readme like: 135 BPM 4/4 - 2 measures adein or punch-in What about it? Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Hi Rob! But as I understood it: this project was called "virtual CHILLOUT band", which indicates to me, that first we'd start with more simplistic songs, staying at consistent tempo. Anyway: There should be a simple application-independent way of giving information. BTW.: Why should the server have to internally know about things like tempo. As I understood so far, the server is mainly used for more or less clver storing. Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Actually not to plug something thats not finished... but I'm building a site for linux multimedia users(video and graphics too) as a means for new users to 'ease the pain' of converting. The site is using drupal on a home server and is in testing at http://track100.com:8080 ... so no way would I host files yet ...I have a Windows driver site for now defunct Aardvark Audio soundcards (http://asg.hopto.org) ...and that can eat up a couple gigs of bandwidth a month alone... - but linking is definitely doable...and wav isn't so unreasonable only 20MB-40MB per-track - only a couple minutes with some sort of peer to peer thingy... I'm not sure what the legal requirements would be for keeping copyrighted stuff off the site though... I spent most of the weekend looking at COPPA junk... (and found some vandalism on some government sites privacy acts :) ) But I have a friend with a good site homerecordingconnection.com and the paid members ($24 a year) get 24MB of space... collabs have usually had a 'leader' responsible for selecting performers and stuff...people just load their versions into their profile or link to it... and the leader assembles and mixes everything. peace Sam Javor zekthedeadcow(a)hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!  Play Star Shuffle:  the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_oct

Hello! One question about the tracks: I thougt we best upload them raw. Meaning if there's guitar take most probably record it with the necessary distortion/drive (or other special sonically important effects), but besides that don't use reverb, compression, EQ and the like before uploading. Probably give some ladspa or other linux-effects you'd think very wise with their settings in a kind of accompanying readme (see my last posting). So it could read: EFFECTS: LADSPA 1950 (g2verb) room size: 25, reverb time 1.3, input BW 0.65, Damping 0.55, dry sound 0, Reflections -22, Reverb tail -28 Of course as I said, if you can use something like EDL upload one as well, but never leave it to the EDL alone, so we can include people with all kinds of restrictions, and so everyone can stick her/his personal choice of tool. Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

In Nov 14 A.D. 2007 Paul Winkler scripsit: Godd thinking. My hole point is: Let it be really open! And let mixes arise from really source-material. Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de

Patrick Shirkey wrote: Patrick and the Band! I either didn't make myself clear enough or I'm not myself clear on the concept, but all that seemed to be necessary to explore this process is what I stated in my last message: * Song starts at a point in time with a designated originator's idea, perhaps the chap who raised this possibility. * He lays down a track on whatever instrument fits his conceptualization and playing skills. * A compressed file is uploaded to our server/repository along with a project file appropriate to our choice of application. * The relatively small group of participants downloads that track, which at a few megabytes and a limited number of downloads is no bandwidth problem at all. * Each downloader who comes up with something they like and feel is creditable simply uploads their compressed track. * Now there are two tracks on the server following the first upload. * Each track is aligned by virtue of the project file and will automatically register correctly in that application for everyone. * Tracks increase in number on the server, but only the new ones are downloaded - names with cat, instrument, and timestamp will make them clear enough. * People share two things as matters proceed - their impressions of the tracks being contributed, especially those duplicating a part, say background riffs, and also their impression of how the tune is developing. * A fork is both uneventful and consequential to the process. Anyone loving what they currently have in hand can simply leave it at that and take it from there. Don't like my guitar part or playing? Trash it and substitute yours. Love it? Okay, it's in. * To that last point, a call or even consensus can arise saying, "Awesome guys, that drum part is it- done, and so is the bass and the guitar. Thanks, no more submissions needed on those tracks.: * That's cool, my lead got in. Hmmm, I'm bored now. Wait, I'll contribute a backing or harmony line vocal track. * Finally, when a call or even consensus arises saying, "Damn, that tune's a bitch. Let's go with it." once agreement is established everyone uploads the higher quality tracks of the "winning" parts and things move on to the mixing and mastering stage. We'll argue over how to do that part when that bridge comes to us! Capiche? Trash my idea if it deserves it, but just be kind... Frank

Julien Claassen wrote: That's fine Julien. I think I allowed for that and asserted it as a consequence of the process, calling it a natural fork. If you like the collection as it stands any point in time, just enjoy it, fork it, you and your girlfriend enjoy it, fork your girlfriend, package it and mix it and continue to develop it and post it and sell it and you're your own boss. If you want a higher quality piece at any point when you're ready to take the ball and go home, just ask folks who contributed the tracks you like, or as you suggest all tracks, to post them in the high quality format if necessary, or leave them as lossy-compressed as originally uploaded. What I attempted to inject into the process was what actually happens in real bands. There are workups, takes, explorations, evolution - sometimes punctuated and sometimes cataclysmic, and at some point either a small voice from the group or a spontaneous consensus will arise saying, "That's IT!!!" Here, it there is to be an endpoint, and indeed the piece can go on beyond that as anyone interested has its component tracks, and if the - let's say - 10 tracks are simply bitching, the tune will deserve to be rendered in full fidelity and properly mixed and mastered. Then, if it is worthy, and ask me how surprised I'd be if it was, who knows what good things it might do. Maybe I should have named all this for what it really is to make at least what's swirling around in my head clear to everyone - and, no not that SecondBand (though I wasn't kidding about that being a kick-ass idea) or that MusicMash (again, not kidding - hosting/posting the pieces of CC music for folks to mash up, contribute to, package, share with friends, flag for listening, or even profit from is another kick-ass concept - I mean it would be like YouTube where the atomic elements of the videos were available for anyone to mash, alter, grow, whatever), but rather a: Musical Wiki Uhhh, I guess that would be a Muki (mucky, hmmm...) or a Wikic... Seriously, this is all just like a Wiki for music. Someone posts a topic or a skeleton of an explication of a topic, another "expert" comes along and adds something or makes edits, the page grows - sometimes in ways never envisioned by the originator, until a point of at least homeostasis is reached. This would be where the growth phase naturally ends and either that's it or minor ebbs and flows continue in a dynamic balance. Musical Wiki. Frank - sorry for verbosity, my playing is more spare and tasteful, unless I'm uhhh...

<snip> perfectly clear and sensible. it does bring up the question of what the objective is. your outline assumes a single, "finished" version of each of a number of songs, agreed to by all and then published somehow. my instinct is that that is somewhat limiting -- i.e. it eliminates alternate mixes, and requires concensus as things go. however, the more i think about it, the more it makes sense to give the whole endeavour that sort of structural clarity -- it increases the sense of a unified community project, and also increases the likelihood of actually getting something "done". 'course, there may be some rogue elements who drift into quirky, personal remixes... that's cool, too. they could be published separately by those individuals, or there could be a section of the main site reserved for such mutations. -- .pltk.

On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 11:17 -0500, Frank Pirrone wrote: I was taking the lead from Rob and it appears your thread was kindof hijacked. That why I started a new one but everyone has continued on this one... Cheers. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 01:02:17PM +0100, Julien Claassen wrote: flac does and cannot and will not handle with 32-bit float WAV files, which is JACK's native format and the format of all my mixes and multitrack files (i.e. jack_capture and in ardour). I don't advise using flac at all. I prefer wavpack, actually. Works swimmingly well with 32-bit float WAV's. ogg would actually be my preference for storage and bandwidth reasons. If this is just a huge group jam, I can live with a lossy format. - -ken

On Nov 13, 2007 10:48 PM, Rob &lt;lau(a)kudla.org&gt; wrote: maybe I'm missing the boat, but I assumed something like what I am understanding you to say, Rob. that is, I come up with a musical idea of some sort - maybe a song, maybe a riff or beat, and I post it. you grab it and add whatever the hell you like, and you post it up. maybe you finish the song out. maybe someone else grabs the track and only adds guitar. ...hmm, now that I type this out, it seems a little disorganized. still, what do we do if a track is dumped out there, and multiple instrumentalists want a chance at it? I know Restivo and I will be fighting over who gets to play the rhodes parts. :) -- Josh Lawrence http://www.hardbop200.com

Hi, Here's a more complete outline of one possible way to handle a virtual band. I am able to commit some time to one or two of the points but do non't have time to do the whole thing. 1: A person creates a session file in the app of their choice. 2: We have a custom app which reads the session file and creates a torrent with all the relevant files included. 3: The person then provides a name and various details for the torrent and imports it to subversion hosted online with the custom app. 4: Another person uses the custom app to get a list of updates from subversion and chooses to download the torrents they would like to hear or work with. 5: Once the torrent is downloaded the user can open the session with the appropriate editor/application and start editing. 6: When they are ready to upload they use the custom app to update the torrent by diffing the new session file against the old session file and packaging the relevant files into a new torrent with an updated version number and useful details which is then imported to subversion. 7: The custom app can either periodically check for new torrents or they can be pushed out by the server in realtime. The torrents will need to provide information on the torrent name, author, version number, files, number of ports needed on soundcard, number of applications required to work with the session... The user will have to register on the server to post a new torrent or update but downloading should be free to all. This is to ensure that people don't abuse the system to store malware or unwelcome torrents. As the contributions will be registered we will be able to provide a search feature on the custom app. While there are many seperate parts it could be made to work quite seemlessly. The main issues are installing the subversion, defining the user interface for the website, building the custom app. For the custom app we would need to parse various session files. The trick will be to make it a generic plugin so the application authors or people with interest could easily add new apps to the system. Maybe lash will be a good place to start for this? Cheers. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On 14 November 2007 at 17:49, Mark Constable &lt;markc(a)renta.net&gt; wrote: Add something like RSS to it so collaborators can know when changes are available for the tune[s] they're watching? I like the centralized organization of the small data component and the distributed storage of the bigger pieces. What do we do about long term seeders for various tunes? Should there be an archive of the big data when the tune goes dormant? -- Kevin

On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 01:43 -0800, Kevin Cosgrove wrote: Definitely. This could be distributed over a group of server to lighten the load. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd.

On Wednesday 14 November 2007 00:03, Josh Lawrence wrote: Luckily, there's a quick resolution: "you both do." Of course, as in a free software project, contributors whose egos are easily bruised when their work is overlooked should think twice before contributing. Rob

Does anyone remember that "ResRocket" site from back in the late 90s? That allowed collaboration on midi projects in a sort of chat-room setting. It was a really nice program. You could pay them for your own private "room" to collaborate with your friends, or you could use a free public room, with the understanding your work might not stay there for that long... It was a really nice program, and I have been dreaming of an open source implementation of something similar. If it had audio capabilities as well as midi, that would be even better (and perhaps feasible in these days of broadband)... although sound compression to ogg stream would be required I should imagine. I have been thinking of some community collaboration aspect to the buzz-tracker-alike "aldrin" for some time, but have yet to code anything. James

Hi, As a starter, I'd also like to be in :-) I can play... loads of stuff. Derbuka, digeridoo, Cajon, guitar, piano, recorder (heh, well... I've been to school :-) On Nov 14, 2007 8:59 AM, Mark Constable &lt;markc(a)renta.net&gt; wrote: MIDI could be used for collaborative composition, With a set of fixed downloadable instrument samples to work with. Then could the real recording/mastering part come. Another possibility I've been thinking about is a fixed database of wave files assembled in an ardour session. The ardour session could be edited in a collaborative fashion using SVN, while the audio would be out of this scope (audio files are just too big for SVN/GIT/CVS/WhatEver to handle) __________________ Marc-Olivier Barre, MarcO'Chapeau.

On 2007-11-14 19:49, Mark Constable wrote: It might be useful to post a simple howto here... * anyone can anonymously "checkout" the latest project(s) cd /some/where svn co http://markconstable.com/jam # then for future updates it's a simple cd /some/where svn up # or, for less data transfer (no hidden .svn dirs) but # then "svn up" does not work, but is good for tar/zipping svn export http://markconstable.com/jam * anyone who sends me an email address and password can have commit (upload) privileges, email markc(a)renta.net cd /some/where svn co http://your%40email.address:your_password@markconstable.com/jam cd /some/where mkdir myproject cp -a /current/audio/files/* myproject svn add myproject # recursively adds everything in folder svn commit # brings up editor for commit notes svn update # updates local view of central repo * for now, anything goes, just upload stuff and see what happens, it will become obvious what does, or not, work * anyone can zip/tarball/torrent any checked out project and host it anywhere else they care to * I will endeavour to put together a forum asap so that commit log/diffs can go into their own topic and thus have an RSS feed (most important way to stay uptodate) * I am enthused about collab possibilities based on SVN (or any SCM system) and recently set up a site to host custom Archlinux packages at... http://code.google.com/p/proaudio/ but there is 100Mb limit which is no where near enough space for audio. The intergrated wiki and google groups makes the above an easy no-brainer for collaboration * If Git was the SCM backend then everyone involved would have a "master copy" ... Git is truly distributed but, for now, SVN is readily available with plenty of support * the only requirement is that all material uploaded must be under either GPL or a very liberal OSS license Re licensing, I can suggest this as a potential license... YOUR_PROJECT - a brief description of your project. Copyright (C) 2007 YOUR_ID_EMAIL This project is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. This project is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. As a special exception, if you create a composition which uses parts or all of this project, and mix this project or unaltered portions of this project into a composition, then reuse of this project does not by itself cause the resulting composition to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this project, you may extend this exception to your version of this project, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. --markc

Am Mittwoch, 14. November 2007 schrieb Kevin Cosgrove: You mean bdiff? http://www.webalice.it/g_pochini/bdiff/ BTW, I play all kinds of (mostly acoustic) plucked instruments in different tunings, on amateur level, from baroque mandolin to (renaissance and baroque) lute to several guitars, I even have a piano and a spinet in my living room (can't play them well, but my girlfriend is piano teacher), I even play a bit recorder and sing sometimes, and I have a nice home studio with some external MIDI synths (KORG Wavestation, Roland GR-33, Roland SH-09 and SPV-355 analog synths via doepfer MCV4 MIDI-to-CV converter, a Yamaha FB-01 4-op F/M synth, and this crazy old E-mu SP12 drum sampler/sequencer. I'd be glad to take part if a tune matches my not-so-narrow musical taste and if my sparetime permits...

I might drop in some electric bass and/or guitar tracks depending on if somebody else gets the project started with something I like :-) I've got too much going on to take any initiative though. - PW On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 02:35:32PM -0500, drew Roberts wrote: --

You guys need a harp player? Some examples here: http://www.thecfband.com/Bio/Biscuit/Biscuit.html Jan On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 01:20 -0800, Kevin Cosgrove wrote: -- Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69 "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chardonnay in one hand, chocolate in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming 'WOO HOO, what a ride'"