Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

The 9 Pound Hammer

#81

I uploaded a new version of the base track. I added clicks for the ending and dropped the volume level a bit during the vocal verses to serve as a feel guide.
kompoz.com/music/collaborati … e/409072/2

To help you place markers in your DAWs, here’s the approximate time for when things happen in the track (based on the latest information).

From whenever he wants to start until measure starting at about 0:22- (Break 1) Dave: fiddle kickoff and break
measure starting at about 0:22- Ozi Vox: traditional first verse (is a little to heavy for my size)
measure starting at about 0:42- (Break 2)Jesse: GTR
measure starting at about 1:01- Ozi Vox: Long way to Hazard verse
measure starting at about 1:20- (Break 3)Larry: Dobro
measure starting at about 1:40- (Break 4)Ben: banjo or mando
measure starting at about 1:59- Ozi Vox: Up on the mountain verse
measure starting at about 2:18- (Break 5)JW: GTR
measure starting at about 2:37- Ozi Vox: Make my tombstone verse
measure starting at about 2:56- (Break 6)Ben: banjo or mando break
measure starting at about 3:16- Ben: ending lick

The above times are not intended to be walls for the breaks, they are just to help identify the start of the first full measure. My point… feel free to extend the breaks to lead in or hand off to the next section (I think that’s a great feature).

I am getting pumped about the project… I might be able to squeeze in a little recording before my in-laws arrive :smiley:

If anyone wants to change anything, that’s great. I just wanted to get something out there so we would have a feel for the layout. I don’t want Ben to record his stuff then have to re-do it, so once we settle on a tempo and such, we’ll get the scratch track adjusted accordingly and I’ll ping him and tell him it’s ready for him to do his thing.

#82

Went to the new kompoze & jumped all the hoops to get it going. Paid so I can upload wave files. Then find out I need to get a newer OS on my 'puter.

Tried to download new OS and need to do so through “app store”. hmmm…no “app store” on my computer. tried to download new version of app store and can’t find a place to do that.

thought to go back through time machine to when old version of appstore disappeared and can’t get external storage to connect.

3 hours later I’m about all in and giving up for a while.

I’m hating computers today. Wonder if I can fix it with a hammer! (how I fix most things)

#83

Wow, Kompoz sure is different. Just when I was figuring out the old version.

I jumped through the same hoops as you, fiddlewood, but I’m still on the free version. I haven’t tried to do anything with it yet, but I hope it doesn’t give me problems. Think I’ll go try to download Mike’s new scratch track.

#84

I was able to get the scratch track downloaded, but they don’t make it easy do they?

I set up the Konnect app and then used the Back button on my browser to get to the 9#H scratch file but it kept taking me to the Konnect download page over and over. Finally, I searched for the scratch track instead of using the Back button and it worked fine.

Fiddlewood, if you need us to upload the scratch track here, we can do that until you get your OS situation worked out.

#85

I haven’t run into the Konnect app yet. The upload didn’t require anything new (it just had a different interface). If Kompoz ends up being too much of a problem we can look for a different solution.
Was the OS upgrade required for Kompoz? If so, that’s pretty nuts.
The new interface is about as counter-intuitive as I can imagine. I’m not sure where they got their advice for the interface facelift, but I hope they didn’t pay much.

#86

To be honest I’m completely confused now. Been at it too long I guess with no successes. No longer know what I have or what I need. upgraded OS to something…leopard?..that I needed to get the net thing, then downloaded the next thing and it won’t go into the machine. Says not compatable but the instructions all say it is?

Think I’ll just take a break & watch a movie or something. Might just drop it at the local computer repair place and have them deal with getting things going. Need the battery serviced anyway…for about the last year :unamused:

#87

I guess to be a musician these days you have to be a computer engineer too :question: Nice job Kompoz! I can’t even get the track (or stem whatever it’s called now) to even play. All I get is the long rectangular box that’s empty except for a circle in the middle. It’s like it’s in non stop buffer mode. I tried to download but all I got was a wave file or something, not the mp3 and that won’t open up in Reaper.

Thanks for the comments on the practice track. I’m with you Oldhat, 200 seems a little slow. I’m good with kicking it up a little. Mike may be right though, once we get the other rythym and fillers in, it might not seem as empty. Whatever everyone agrees to is fine by me.

When you’re finished with your hammer Fiddlewood, drop down a state to my place and see if you can “fix” my computer too. I’m feeling kinda like you right now. It seems that playing music has become the easiest part of making music. And the most enjoyable.

I really hate computers sometimes, but without them along with technology we wouldn’t be doing this project at all. You’d think they could make it simpler though.

J.W.

#88

If Kompoz is just too problematic we could just get some remote file space and pickup/drop files on there. There are a ton of places with cloud storage available. We could coordinate what is going on here on the forum. I am not sure that we would lose any functionality other than it wouldn’t be out where others may want to join a project. Since we typically recruit from within, I don’t see that as a real downside. The other thing is we would need to name and manage the files well to keep it easy, but I think we could do that.

As far as the speed goes, like I said… whatever you all decide is fine with me.

#89

I hate to load too many files on Ben’s dime, but since people can’t get it… here’s the scratch track (this is version 2) I put out on Kompoz. This is the one to which the above comments apply.
[attachment=0]9 Lb Scratch.mp3[/attachment]

#90

Is there any interest in moving to a generic shared drive space like dropbox? I have a dropbox account that I never did anything with and I can explore what would be involved.

#91

I’ve never used Dropbox, but if it’s free it might be good to have it as a back-up while we try to figure out how to use Kompoz. From looking at the feedback section of Kompoz, it seems like we’re not the only people unhappy with the changes over there.

#92

don’t know what it is but if it would work better for our purpose, and I could do it, it’s fine by me.

Think I’m going to be leaving kompoze, as it doesn’t work for me since they changed, and I’m not about to buy a new computer just to visit that site.

#93

I’ll get the dropbox thing going. I have barely used it, but it looks like there are two basic ways we could use drop box.

  1. We could use a shared folder. This is a bit different than how I thought it would work. In essence, whatever one person puts in there gets copied to other people’s systems within the shared folder. It sounds perfect, except there are a couple catches… it is really moving the files in and out of everybody else’s system. So for instance, if Dave and I share the folder. When I move a file on there it copies the file to the remote dropbox server and then it copies the file onto Dave’s computer. Why is this a potential problem? If you don’t have the drive space on your hard drive, it will fill your local hard drive and then you are out of space. I would encourage anyone who wants to share a folder to ensure they have at least several GB more space available than the dropbox account size (which is 2.5 GB to start). I suspect you can limit the amount of space DB uses, but I haven’t run that down. One other “feature”… let’s say I see a file that Dave wanted to store in the shared folder and I think it is an unused file and I delete it. It is now gone from Dave’s shared folder as well. The lesson there: don’t use the shared folder as the sole storage for something you can’t live without. As it turns out, there is also archival and recovery, so you can typically get the files back, but it’s easier to just not rely on that process. I learned about all these pitfalls the hard way in my first experience with DB. I think it should work well, but unfortunately, I misunderstood how it worked (and they don’t really explain it).

  2. I haven’t tried this, but I think we could also work without a shared folder and share links to files on the DB server allowing others to download the files. I’ll set up a test for us to try this. Even if some of us set up a shared folder, this would be the way we could distribute files to people who don’t have the hard drive space for a shared drive. I think in this way, people who don’t even have DB can receive files.

One last note. They have kind of like a friends and family thing. If I (or anyone else) invites someone to join DB and they do, we both get 500MB of bonus space up to 16GB. If anyone wants me to invite you to get the bonus space let me know. I don’t know that we’ll need more than the 2.5 GB (if we clean it up after a project is complete), but we could invite people in a chain so we all end up with a little more (i.e. I invite JW, JW invites Dave, Dave invites Jesse, etc). We’ll worry about that once we see if it will work for us.

I’ll go set it up so we can see how it will work for us. Be back in a bit.

#94

I installed DB on the computer I use for recording. I am going to try sharing a few links. This will be for option two above where we don’t have a shared folder:

220 BPM Scratch track:
dropbox.com/s/ufswdjyx406up … %20220.mp3
210 BPM scratch track:
dropbox.com/s/b6pcoktwyfbia … %20210.mp3
A folder with both the above:
*Edited out to make the folder private *

I am not sure if me looking at those does any good. If someone would, please see if you all can see and download them.

If someone else wants to be a guinea pig (please ensure you have at least 10 GB or so of free storage space), I’ll send you an invite for DB and we can try the shared folder.

#95

Here’s another test. I made a NetGrass folder. Within that, I made 9 LB Hammer. Below that I made folders for Seps, Mixes and Scratches. If someone would, please verify you can navigate down into scratches from the link:

Edited out to make the folder private

#96

I just accessed the netgrass folder, could see all the subfolders (though shouldn’t they be named stems, auditions, and bounces :laughing: ), and can download the files. This way seems easier than the shared folder that requires hard drive space from every participant, but what happens when someone wants to upload a sep to the project?

I have plenty of disk space if we need to test out the shared folder.

#97

Good deal Larry. Thanks for checking that it works. If someone wanted to do what I did (provide links for others) they would need to have DB installed. The shared folder is actually kind of interesting in that it just shows up as a regular folder. Pretty convenient in a way. I think if we go the DB route we might have a mixture of people using a shared folder and some not (and I think that is fine).

DB uses an email address for a user name. Did you want me to use the email that I have for you or would prefer me use a different one? If a different one is desired, please email or PM it to me (so it’s not in a public forum).

#98

Oh, and I’ll go rename my folders to stems, bounces and such… thanks for catching that :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

#99

Mike, I was able to download the two scratch stems from the netgrass folder you made with no problem. Both played just fine. I was able to download without having to sign up for anything or start an account or use a password, so that’s good.

Was the second version from kompoz 200 bpm’s or 210? I was thinking it was 200, if so that gives us three speed options to work with.

I put these in my"Kompoz to Reaper mp3’s" file that I made. I guess I’ll have to change the name of my file. I think Kompoz is turning into Kompost. :blush:

I don’t know anything about the dropbox. Hopefully we can keep it simple. Thanks for all your work in getting this going.

J.W.

#100

Glad you could get them without issue. The ones at Kompozt were 200 BPM.