You mean, like, a band with boys in it?
So, last Friday, I found myself in a FAWM boy-band (later named “SugarKrew” based on our song lyric), to represent against a FAWM girl-band (“The High-Fructose Corn Syrup Girls”). As for the boy/girl-band controversy, hat’s a story in and of itself, which I’ll let Deborah tell.
Anyway, between Friday night and Sunday night, we built this song, exercising numerous tubes of the Interweb in the process. It’s been a blur, but here’s a roundup of the tools we used and some of the events that tied into it:
Friday
FAWM chat: P.J., J-Cro, and Errol were trying to rally a team in FAWM chat. That’s how I found out about, and joined, the cause.
UStream: I started a UStream video broadcast in my “studio” room, while Pigfarmer Jr (hereafter, P.J.) and John Crossman (hereafter, J-Cro) were typing lyrics. I slowly tried to find some adequate drum+synth sounds, and a way to start shaping the verse music/melody. I was a bit slow, but by the end of the night we had a verse and a bridge. Other chatters offered contributions to the lyrical flow. I believe Stephen Cope suggested finishing “Splenda is bitter, Equal is dry” with “get off the sh*tter and zip up your fly”. Sad to say, we didn’t use that couplet.
Google Docs: At some point, I took my collection of chatroom lyrics and notes and threw’em in a Google Doc to share with the team. They could edit and share doc with anyone else, which made it really smooth to pull other members in. Lyric editing became breezy; throughout the project, I’d look at my Google Docs window to find someone added lyrical gems, polished others, or offered alternatives. I didn’t even have to refresh my window or worry about having two windows open. It just worked. Slick.
Saturday
FTP: Okay, I got old-school. Verse and other team ideas in hand, I recorded a demo of the song structure, and FTP’d 2 MP3s to my Web site. One MP3 had the demo with heavily-autotuned vocals (to reference the melody), and the other without vocals. I linked the MP3s from the Google Doc and sent an e-mail update (via Google Docs) to the team. Google Docs knows the e-mail address of each collaborator, so I didn’t have to keep a special mailing list, or worry about including everybody. So easy.
Stickam, Google Talk + Video: We didn’t have a chorus yet, and I was ready to give up (writer’s block). Errol saved the day by writing lyrics in no time, but I still wasn’t sure on the melody or chords. We knew we wanted to use the “reverse sensitive female chord progression” somehow. We ended up on Stickam w/J-Cro. It worked okay for group video chat. I had some mixer issues such that Errol had the honor of hearing not only my voice, but my echo of his voice. Once J-Cro had to go (yes, that rhymes), we landed on the Gmail-based Google Talk + Video. The biggest benefit: less latency than Stickam. It was easier to go back and forth with chorus ideas and iron something out. And a chorus we had! “Huzzah!”
Fun fact: if you use the “pop out into a separate window” feature, and close your main GMail window, you lose the pop-out window too.
Sunday
Anyway… we had a plan. By then, as if by magic, PJ had added another verse to the Google Docs. Fantastic. I updated the demo with the new structure and vocals, FTP’d the new demos, updated the Google Doc’s MP3 link section (poorly at first — I changed the text but not the link — oops), and re-emailed the team.
We recruited more peeps for vocals, and asked everyone to mark the section of the song they’d be sending parts for. I’ve encountered some difficulties/FAQs on past collaborations, so I added the following checklist to the lyric docs:
- Everybody gets a lead part. Stake your claim below ASAP so nobody else takes it
. There’s room for everyone. [Plat] will take what’s left, or cover if someone doesn’t submit. - Record your vocal tracks. Don’t forget to include:
- Your lead part (feel free to vary from the demo’s melody — this is your spot!)
- Your chorus take (please stick to the melody so our harmonies don’t clobber as much)
- Your “final chorus” take (it’s all transposed a semitone higher, and ends on a different note too), or else I’m processing your other take .
- Anything else (feel free to improvise on the other stuff too (e.g. harmonies or whatever)). I can edit them in/out as appropriate .
- Export and e-mail them to [my e-mail address redacted].
- 160kbps MP3 or better is great; will also take WAVs or anything else.
- If you want to overlay vocals, please send them as separate tracks so I have a better chance at processing them (e.g. autotune, compression, eq).
- Please use as few tracks as possible (e.g. if you have several takes that don’t clobber each other, send’em as a single track)
Honey, does this list look anal on me?
G-Mail: Maybe our team just rocks. But it worked; the “YOURNAMEHERE”s turned into team members’ names, and song parts started rolling in via e-mail. That might not seem like a big deal anymore, but it wasn’t too long ago that Web-mail sites had low mailbox size limits, and even lower e-mail attachment limits. I rounded up the new tracks (including unsolicited surprises) and added them to the project. So much fun.
While waiting for the final puzzle piece from J-Cro, I FTP’d up a 3rd demo mix that included the latest parts. I’m glad I did; J-Cro now had a full view of the existing chorus harmonies and was able to fill in the gaps with precision; he hits the high note at the end of the chorus, which made a huge difference in the dynamics. Keep in mind, everyone else submitted their chorus takes blindly. They heard the original melody, and submitted something based on only that. It worked out far better than I had expected. These are talented folks.
I really appreciated how quickly broadband and audio compression let us shove sounds around the globe.
FAWM: By about 12:15AM Sunday night, the first mix was finished. We uploaded that sucka’ to the FAWM Web site, about an hour after the prolific High Fructose Corn Syrup Girls had uploaded their second track to taunt the previously-non-existent boy band!
Of course, this wouldn’t have happened without FAWM. It was FAWM that spawned the girl/boy-band controversy, and its unofficial chatroom that pulled me in (thanks, Mal!). But FAWM also completed the cycle of magic. So, we posted the song, right? Well, somehow on a late Sunday night, a number of gracious FAWM visitors heard the song and commented on it shortly after. Nearly-instant feedback and gratification, from artisans whose work I know and deeply admire. Can’t beat that.
Outro: That’s the end of my technology round-up. I could rant on so much more, like the unreal team effort, Ben’s being attacked by our reprise, Charlie’s taunting radio intro, the emergence of Whambi, or the magic disappearing rap track, but I have to draw the line somewhere. A 6-member team cranked through a song in about 2 days start-to-finish, which sets a new record in my “collaboration recordbook”. (Don’t think I have one? Remember I drew up that task list!)
The track wasn’t perfect, but it was great fun, and a FAWM crowd-pleaser. Now I just stay up at nights, chewing my nails, waiting for The High Fructose Corn Syrup Girls’ next move. And I don’t even need technology for that.