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-   -   >>> Netphoria Xmas Song - GOGOGO!! contributions thread (http://forums.netphoria.org/showthread.php?t=111484)

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:50 PM

>>> Netphoria Xmas Song - GOGOGO!! contributions thread
 
Netphoria Xmas Singalong/Jamfest 2005

The votes came in, and it was Wham!! or whatever by a nose. So we're doing Last Christmas


Everyone can contribute. Actually I hope everyone will contribute something, so it ends up a real community thing. What the hell we're doing
I've thrown together a backing track with the basic song structure - what you guys need to do is decide what you want to add to the song, and record it using the scratch track as a guide. Simple, yes? Then I collect everything, mix it together and we get the best song ever.

There are lines to be sung, there's music to be played, noises to be generated, whatever. I'd really like some people to contribute music and singing, because there are a lot of talented people around here and it'll make up the core of the track, but you can do anything. If you aren't confident playing, you can still knock out a twinkly chord to lead into the chorus - if you don't really want to sing, you can deliver a line how you want. This is meant to be fun you assholes! Obviously other random stuff (like mistle munching xmas cookies) is encouraged.

Yes Ammy you can just sing if you want yes

The song
The song's nice and simple - it's Dsus / Bm / Em / A (or thereabouts) over and over throughout the whole thing. I'll break the structure down in the next post, but I extended the ending a bit to give people the opportunity to mess around a bit more, and instead of a fade-out it slows down at the end for a final chord where people can shout 'Merry Fucking Christmas' or whatever and clap and blow party whistles and stuff. Some facts!:

key: D
tempo: 105bpm
solo melody: A A A - A B C# D E D C# B - A F# D B G - B G E C# A



standard tuning
-----5---------------------------
------------------2-3-5--3-2-0---
-2-------2----2-4----------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------

-5-2------------------7-3-0------
-----3-0--------------------2----
---------0--------------------2--
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
---------------------------------



Gifts for you - and you can open them now!
Here's some stuff you'll probably need

Backing track - this is just the basic drum track and vocal melody to use as a guide. As we get more contributions they'll be layered on top of this until we can remove it, et voila! Best thing to do is have this playing in winamp or whatever while you record your stuff.

Split stereo backing track - this is the same as the one up there, except the drums are on one side and the vocal melody's on the other. You can use the balance control in winamp or whatever you're using to make one side louder than the other, just in case you need to hear less of the drums and so on.

Backing track with chords - if you need some chords to follow then use this - it's the same as the first link only with some guitar chords thrown in. They're softened to stop them coming through on your recordings.

Original Wham song - for, uh, inspiration



If you don't have a recording program:
Audacity is a nice free program I use, and it's good for basic recording. Get 1.2.4 (not the beta version). Macs I don't know about, I'm sure someone will chime in with a suggestion (LDS I'm looking at you! Meaning I'm looking at the floor)


I just recorded something awesome! Where do I send it?
This hasn't been finalized yet, I'll update this bit when I know for sure. If it comes down to it we can just use yousendit, but hopefully I have a better solution. DON'T PM ME THAT'S NOT GONNA WORK

EDIT: I think the best thing to do is to upload it to yousendit.com and post the link in here

Oh yeah, give it to me as a WAV, OGG or FLAC file if you can - try not to do MP3. If you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry about it!

Try not to pick up the sound of the backing track when you record if you can help it
It may be quiet on your take, but the more people who do it the more it stacks up until it's pretty damn loud. Just do your best not to get any of it on your recording, thanks!

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:50 PM

Song structure

Here's where we can work out who's doing what - I'll fill this in as people say what they want to contribute. It follows the original exactly, except the outro's longer. Here's how it breaks down

00:00 - 4-bar intro

vipbrj with the 'aaaahaaah' bit

00:18 - 4-bar chorus 1
Last christmas - RopeyLopey
I gave you my heart- RopeyLopey
But the very next day you gave it away - RopeyLopey /Nimrod's Son backing vox
This year - RopeyLopey
To save me from tears - RopeyLopey
I’ll give it to someone special - RopeyLopey / Nimrod's Son backing vox

christian zombie vampires on piano backing
RopeyLopey on accordion/e-bow and backing vocals
vipbrj humming into the mic

00:36 - 4-bar chorus 2
Last christmas - Mariner
I gave you my heart - Mariner
But the very next day you gave it away -Mariner Nimrod's Son backing vox
This year - Mariner
To save me from tears - Mariner
I’ll give it to someone special - Mariner Nimrod's Son backing vox

christian zombie vampires on piano backing
RopeyLopey on accordion/e-bow and backing vocals
vipbrj humming into the mic

00:54 - 4-bar solo 1

Sammiches on synths!
Oblivious on tambourine
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

01:12 - 4-bar verse 1
Once bitten and twice shy - Geek USA
I keep my distance - Geek USA
But you still catch my eye - Geek USA
Tell me baby - yo soy el mejor
Do you recognize me? - yo soy el mejor
Well it’s been a year - yo soy el mejor
It doesn’t surprise me - yo soy el mejor

christian zombie vampires on piano backing

01:31 - 4-bar verse 2
(Merry Christmas!) - yo soy el mejor jczeroman
I wrapped it up and sent it - jczeroman
With a note saying I love you - jczeroman
I meant it - jczeroman
Now I know what a fool I’ve been - jczeroman
But if you kissed me now - jczeroman
I know you’d fool me again - jczeroman

refills 79 cents on vocals
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

01:49 - 4-bar chorus 3
Last christmas - jczeroman
I gave you my heart - jczeroman
But the very next day you gave it away - jczeroman / Nimrod's Son backing vox
This year - jczeroman
To save me from tears - jczeroman
I’ll give it to someone special - jczeroman / Nimrod's Son backing vox

refills 79 cents on vocals
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

02:07 - 4-bar chorus 4
Last christmas - Ensoul
I gave you my heart - Ensoul
But the very next day you gave it away - Ensoul Nimrod's Son backing vox
This year - Ensoul
To save me from tears - Ensoul
I’ll give it to someone special - Ensoul Nimrod's Son backing vox

christian zombie vampires on piano backing

02:25 - 4-bar solo 2

wangcomputers synth solo
christian zombie vampires piano solo
Oblivious on tambourine
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

02:44 - 4-bar verse 3
A crowded room - Mariner
Friends with tired eyes - Mariner
I’m hiding from you - Mariner
And your soul of ice - Mariner
My God I thought you were - Mariner
Someone to rely on - Mariner
Me? - Mariner Junebug
I guess I was a shoulder to cry on - Mariner

refills 79 cents on guitar
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

03:02 - 4-bar verse 4
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart - Mariner RopeyLopey
A man under cover but you tore me apart - Mariner RopeyLopey
Ooohoo! - Mariner RopeyLopey
Now I’ve found a real love - Mariner RopeyLopey
you’ll never fool me again - Mariner RopeyLopey

refills 79 cents on guitar
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

03:20 - 4-bar chorus 5
Last christmas
I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away - Nimrod's Son backing vox
This year
To save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special - Nimrod's Son backing vox

christian zombie vampires on piano backing

03:38 - 4-bar chorus 6
Last christmas
I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away - Nimrod's Son backing vox
This year
To save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special - Nimrod's Son backing vox

christian zombie vampires on piano backing

03:56 - 4-bar solo 3
A face on a lover with a fire in his heart
A man under cover but you tore me apart
(Maybe next year)
I'll give it to someone special - Nimrod's Son backing vox
Bla bla etc

Oblivious on tambourine
refills 79 cents on lead guitar
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

04:14 - 4-bar solo 4
Yadda yadda yadda - Ammy singing 'yadda yadda yadda' throughout

Oblivious on tambourine
refills 79 cents on lead guitar
christian zombie vampires on piano backing

04:33 - 4-bar outro

Oblivious on tambourine
christian zombie vampires on piano backing


I don't know where these bits are going yet

wangcomputers with synthy touches
noyen on loops
COG on synths
Mariner on percussive pants
Ugly on NOOOOOOO
sleeper on drums
Ensoul singing a chorus
jczeroman also plays mandolin
jczeroman may also play bass!

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:50 PM

How to record shit

Earphones are microphones!
Without getting too technical, earphones and microphones pretty much work in the same way, taking either sound waves or an electrical signal and producing the other. The upshot is that you can plug earphones into the mic input at the back of your computer and they'll work like a microphone - not a great microphone, but we're not requiring studio quality here. If you have decent equipment, by all means use it. The mic input is usually a pink connector, and it has a (wow!) picture of a microphone next to it. If you're not using a real mic, you want the in-ear size of headphones - the big cans are too huge to work well, audiophiles.

Help!
Ok, here's the basics with Audacity, the one I linked to in the first post. It's basically the same for other recording programs, except you might have to set your recording source like Method 2 here. There's a longer walkthrough with Audacity here if you want to take a look.

Load the program, and get your ass over to this bit in the top right

That drop-down box lets you select your input source, nice and simple. Set it to microphone! That slider to the left is the microphone input level. Set it loud enough to get a good signal, but not too loud. Play the backing track in your music player of choice, hit record and do whatever it is you're doing. At the end, hit stop! When you're happy with it, go to File > Export as WAV (or, preferably, Export as OGG Vorbis) and save your awesome contribution

It sounds terrible!
Don't panic chief. Does your recorded file look like this?



If it does, turn that mic slider down dammit. That's clipping, where the tops of the sound wave are getting chopped off - it's digital distortion and it sounds like crap.


But wait, maybe it looks like this?



If there's clipping going on, but there's still space at the top and bottom, that means you're overloading your mic. Move it away a little from whatever's making the noise (the instrument, the gun you're firing, your mouth) and try again.


If it looks like this



then it's too quiet. Turn up your mic slider, and try getting closer to the mic. If you have to shout to make yourself heard, follow Method 2 here and when you get to the slider adjustment bit, click the Advanced button under the mic slider, and make sure the 20dB boost is enabled at the bottom.

If there's anything else I'll add it here later

And try not to pick up the sound of the backing track if possible. I forgot to mention this so I'm adding it to each post, but it would really help if you can avoid it being audible on your recording. Thanks!

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:51 PM

And I'm reserving this post for anything I haven't thought of

PS can someone unsticky the other one and sticky this instead?

EDIT: WHEN YOU RECORD, TRY NOT TO PICK UP ANY OF THE BACKING TRACK IF YOU CAN HELP IT!!!!!! please

ammy 12-23-2005 07:52 PM

that's too complicated!

i thought we were each gunna do like a line of the song or something. fuck this.

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!
that's too complicated!

i thought we were each gunna do like a line of the song or something. fuck this.

Fuck you, you did not just read all that in 1 minute. Because I SPECIFICALLY SAID PEOPLE CAN JUST SING A LINE IF THEY WANT

Are you trying to make me cry, ammy?

ammy 12-23-2005 07:54 PM

i skimmed it 'cause all the musical technobabble hurt my head!!!

i can't sing. fuck you.

ammy 12-23-2005 07:55 PM

i'll sing "yadda yadda yadda" kay? kay.

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!
i'll sing "yadda yadda yadda" kay? kay.
Where I wrote 'yadda yadda yadda'?

sleeper 12-23-2005 07:58 PM

i love the colours and everything. the effort you put into presentation is really great.

HOW TO RECORD SHIT

ammy 12-23-2005 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DeviousJ


Where I wrote 'yadda yadda yadda'?

entire chorus out the window - i'll just say "yadda yadda yadda"

wait, are there supposed tobe words there? cause the idea is that we i just throw a whole chorus or verse or whatever entirely away.

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sleeper
i love the colours and everything. the effort you put into presentation is really great.

HOW TO RECORD SHIT

I need to snare some pigeons

SO WHAT ARE YOU RECORDING? You should at least do some drumming for one of the choruses

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!


entire chorus out the window - i'll just say "yadda yadda yadda"

wait, are there supposed tobe words there? cause the idea is that we just throw a whole chorus or verse or whatever entirely away.

Oh, I get ya. Well at the end he's basically going 'whooaaaaaa! Hooooooo' and so on. If you want to do that for a chorus then cool - I actually think it would be cool if people kinda took over different sections, so there could be an S Tasty chorus with handclaps and people going 'uhh!' in the background

sleeper 12-23-2005 08:03 PM

youre so happy

its creepy

ammy 12-23-2005 08:04 PM

i just want a bit part :(

noyen 12-23-2005 08:05 PM

do you have a bar or loopy snippet recorded yet?

Rockin' Cherub 12-23-2005 08:05 PM

deviousj is a sweet fellow. it's too late to record anything though

ammy 12-23-2005 08:06 PM

do you have gmail? just have everyone gmail you - i have like 500 million invites if you need a new acct. in fact, we could set one account only for submitting from, since non-gmail can't always send big files.. eh?.

noyen 12-23-2005 08:08 PM

shit i didnt read down far enough. ill do something that sucks

mercurial 12-23-2005 08:11 PM

sheeit - i thought the bpm was 107

i'll d/l now - this is my flatmates puter and i think it might be able to handle fruity loops or something (just)

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sleeper
youre so happy

its creepy

I'm trying to be encouraging

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!
i just want a bit part :(
That's kinda the idea for most people - people just do little bits, that way there's no pressure to make some big contribution, and it ends up being more fun and creative hopefully

Quote:

Originally posted by noyen
do you have a bar or loopy snippet recorded yet?
There's a scratch track at the bottom of the first post for people to follow. It would be cool if that was thrown out the window at the end though, so there aren't any permanent contributions yet if that's what you mean. Mark Thrillho's definitely down for a synth solo

Quote:

Originally posted by Rockin' Cherub
deviousj is a sweet fellow. it's too late to record anything though
IT IS NOT TOO LATE! I don't know why everyone is talking about this having to be done on xmas day, because it won't be. Stop with your rules and deadlines, man

And doesn't gmail have an attachment size limit? It would definitely be a problem if people send wavs. I'll sort something out for that though, it won't be a problem

ammy 12-23-2005 08:14 PM

i think the limit's ten megs.. that's not bad, isn't that like 3 minutes of song?

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by noyen
shit i didnt read down far enough. ill do something that sucks
Are you gonna precede it with you shouting 'BRIAN WITH AN I!!' into a distorted microphone? Because that would be pretty cool

Quote:

Originally posted by mercurial
sheeit - i thought the bpm was 107

i'll d/l now - this is my flatmates puter and i think it might be able to handle fruity loops or something (just)

Uh, well this one should be 105 (don't know about the original - the one I uploaded speeds up at one point, thanks random soulseek dudes) but if you find out different let me know.

And I hope I don't make you cry when I end up mixing this

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!
i think the limit's ten megs.. that's not bad, isn't that like 3 minutes of song?
Uhhhh, well it depends on the format and I don't want to make things any more complicated if I can help, that's the only reason I'm hesitant. Hopefully I'll have an ftp set up and people can just drag and drop things on the desktop, which will be a lot easier

ammy 12-23-2005 08:19 PM

i need to have more allong with my yadda's if anyone wants to do random noises or more music or something. i am not musically inclined i can not sing - there must be more to my secion than me.

Rockin' Cherub 12-23-2005 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DeviousJ

IT IS NOT TOO LATE! I don't know why everyone is talking about this having to be done on xmas day, because it won't be. Stop with your rules and deadlines, man

i meant that it's 1:30 am here and my parents are in the other room! thanks but no thanks!

ammy 12-23-2005 08:31 PM

ok this player thing audio wahtever is annoying.. how do i get it to play from a certain point? why can't i just drag the green pointer? ARG!

Nimrod's Son 12-23-2005 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!
do you have gmail? just have everyone gmail you - i have like 500 million invites if you need a new acct. in fact, we could set one account only for submitting from, since non-gmail can't always send big files.. eh?.
www.yousendit.com?

I want to do the backing vocals.

DeviousJ 12-23-2005 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KABLAMMY!!!
ok this player thing audio wahtever is annoying.. how do i get it to play from a certain point? why can't i just drag the green pointer? ARG!
If you mean Audacity then yes, it has some annoying quirks but hopefully people won't run into them just doing this. You click in the sound file to set where you want it to play from (make sure that in the toolbar thing in the top left, the top-left tool is selected).

Mike you want to do backing vocals all the way through?

Sammiches 12-23-2005 08:42 PM

I call the synth solo@!!


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