I’ve got the chance to collaborate with a singer halfway across the world. At the moment she doesn’t have any home recording devices other than a phone/ computer.
Seeing as how right now is the best time in known history to do this, I’m wondering what the best practices might be— either free or low cost.
Software, Interfaces, bang for the buck mics, file sharing, etc. I’ve heard good things about Izotope Spire, and am thinking GarageBand for its integration. I’m using Logic and Dropbox for sharing.
Any other tips and tricks/ words of wisdom as far as collaboration goes?
I can spitball some ideas. Never had an opportunity to make tracks, but I had a vocalist that flaked last minute.
Just a regular Shure mic. Had him go into a closet and record multiple takes while we Zoomed together, so I could give notes.
I use Logic, and he had GarageBand, and I would drop in a rough mix so he knew what he needed to tweak with each take.
I found that he needed to listen to headphones and sing off his phone while GarageBand just kept recording for a bit.
The less time he had to mess with recording the more time he had to sing.
But in the end, he never finished everything and I had to move on.
I wouldn’t worry too much about recording quality if you can isolate the vocals, because you will need to EQ anyways and I found that it’s better to process vocals with effects no matter what.
Just my experiences even though nothing came of it.
The takeaway is Dropbox and zoom and GarageBand and a shure mic while singing in a closet is all the vocalist needs. And an audio recorder.
Even just singing into a phone mic if you process a bunch could work. Don’t know what your going for.
you can get surprisingly good recordings with just a phone these days, depending on the phone the vocalist has and depending on their comfortability with recording themselves, it may be the best option.
in fact, if she already has the knowledge of proper recording techniques, she will likely get an even better recording out of her phone.
Pro Tools has a dedicated cloud-sharing service which is exactly for these types of things (Avid Cloud Collaboration). I cant vouch for it, because I haven’t used it myself, but it allows multiple users to actually work on the same session.
I don’t know where your project is going, but this is a bit more professional as a workflow than recording on a phone and listening via Zoom.
Pro Tools is a subscription service these days, which can be annoying, but on the other hand you can use it for a month or for the length of the project for just €9/month per user.
Awesome! Yeah, that’s more what we’re going for, the spirit of the session. I actually have one of those Shure iOS mics, and it’s great for usable quick recordings.
Thanks for sharing your experience as well. It’s tough when both parties aren’t dedicated, disappointing for sure. I think we’re both dedicated and driven, and I’m just trying to capitalize on the good energy, get a little foundation laid on which to build.
Definitely true. I think we’ll shoot for vibe and atmosphere, and strangely enough there are some field recording qualities in her phone recordings. Character driven, and where on the same page about that.
From memory Dropbox has a free amount of space, so we’ll probably stick with that. I’ve used pro tools in a studio, and I’m glad to hear they’ve expanded their format. Sounds like a great idea to enact, especially given the amount of file sharing happening in the biz.