I had an idea, but since it involves playing musical instruments and coding and I have no skills in either of those, I thought I'd see what other people thought.

 

I was thinking that since there are so many musically-inclined people on here, they could make a song. Everyone could make a track - say, 4 minutes long? - of them playing an instrument. Then all the tracks get laid on top of each other in the hope that it isn't just a cacophony.

 

Obviously, people could make more than one track, but it should be kept to one instrument per track. Then someone could write something that would let the user choose which tracks to play. And maybe fade tracks in and out at set times.

 

Any thoughts? Has this been done before (I'm sure it must have been)? Should there be a starting/reference track (maybe drums, or bass guitar) so that people can have something to aim at? Anyone mind doing all the coding? Is this a decent stand-in for the Xmas compilation CD that we don't seem to be doing this year?

Didn't Dave!! do something like this some time ago? Possibly not.

Yes. No. Maybe.

I once wrote a song a bit like that, it was called 3 minutes of chaos and just had various drum loops, keyboard demos, me playing Bontempi instruments and sound bites from Spaceballs all layered over each other.

 

It sounded alright in the end.

Or at the end, possibly.

:'D

The easiest way to make sure it all sounds okay together would be to do it in turns, with one person recording something and then giving that to the next person to record over the top of. The last person would have pretty much a whole song to add their bit onto.

Can I go last? Although I possess instruments, I have no musical talent, I can only play what I've studiously remembered through scouring tabs.

 

:/

That's kind of the point, though. Everyone does their own thing, and then the listener has the choice of which one or ones to play at any point during the song.

I'm out, my guitar will be sold in 28 minutes.

This sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind doing some drums, although I could possibly do bass/guitar/keyboard.

I kinda confused then, does everyone get to hear what the others have done before adding their own or not?

No. There'd be a reference track (drums or something) as a starting point, but after that the players are on their own to do whatever, so long as the track is a fixed length. Then there'd be an interface that lets the listener play all the tracks at the same time, or just play some of them, or play them all but have the individual tracks fade in or out at points that the listener defines.

A Wiki style song writing tool? Like it.

Mine was a solo effort. 24 hours none-stop of writing and recording 20 minutes worth of music. Damn good fun it was as well, if a bit tiring!

Saying that, I'll happily contribute to this! Keyboard is my strongest instrument, although I could also add bass or (keyboard played) drums.

I'd play ukulele on it. I'm not very good at all at this kind of thing but I do have a reduced sense of shame.

No, it's a catastrophe!