This is monkey business.

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:02 am

Move along, nothing to see here.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:14 am

I think it's a cool idea. It seems useful for working out a rough version of a song while at work, for me.

Bug report: I tried to add a new chord while the song was playing but it kept overwriting my first chord instead. When I stopped the song I was able to add a second chord.

EDIT: It kind of sucks that the entire thing is a Flash app. It would be great if you could at least make the navigation non-Flash.

ken · Post by **ken** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:47 am

I'm glad Sam posted about this because I actually checked it out and am now in love with it. I would use this all the time at work to demo ideas, since I can't install a bunch of music software. Is there a way to have it export the track to take home and add vocals to?

Ken

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:29 am

that's awesome fun!

anti-m · Post by **anti-m** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:34 am

Super cool! What a great idea!

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:35 am

Okay, I realize you're just getting started and it's taken a lot of work to get to the point where you are, but here's my impressions from a quick test drive:

I guess this is a flash issue, but it's a shame you can't move the instruction / help screen entirely off the main window so that you can follow the instructions without having to move it around for each step... (okay, I was able to do that by making the browser window really big, but I have a really big display here, too...)

Essentially, it seems like it only plays one "style" of music - you can modify the way a particular guitar is playing, but you're not changing the fundamental beat of the song. (suggestion: in addition to adding 3/4 rhythms, add the option of "swing" or "straight" beat - that might actually be more useful than 3/4 rhythms). Yeah, okay, I see there is a "choose style" page "coming soon..." but hopefully that will eventually grow into 20-30 "country" styles to pick from, 40-50 "rock" styles, etc.

When I click on the little "b" or "#" above the quick chords, it applies those changes to chords other than the currently highlighted chord. But what I WISH those buttons would do is to let you set the KEY SIGNATURE for the song and then (a) the "quick chords" would be the ones for the selected key, and (b) any chords already entered would be transposed to the new key (with user OK). Edit: okay, I see, it's basically just handling the enharmonic spellings of chords. Relatively useless feature compared to what it could be...

I'm comparing this to what I can do with Band In a Box (which offers hundreds of "styles" and the ability to create your own styles). One advantage yours has is the ability to define multiple song sections and then an order to play them in. But BIAB lets you go way more complicated in terms of the arrangement, turning instruments on and off, changing tempo, # beats per measure, etc. at various points in the song.

I don't know if you're planning to eventually allow users to enter notes and lyrics and print out a "lead sheet," but if you are, I wish somebody would develop a program that let you type in the lyrics FIRST and then put the notes over the lyrics, instead of having to do the notes and then attach words to notes. Maybe there are reasons why it has to be that way...

On the instrument style choices, it would be helpful if there was some way to look at all the acoustic guitar choices with a short description (soft fingerpick, phased strum, power chords) instead of just browsing. And to have a lot of variation available, so that I can make the instruments sparse and soft on the verse, more full on the chorus, and full-on for the instrumentals, etc. With appropriate drum fill / transitions when we change styles. By the way, maybe I'm being too picky, but if I had recorded that "Guitar 1" track for a song I was working on, I would want to go back, tune the guitar, and do it over...

The place where I can see a program like this being useful would be for church worship leaders who want to put together "trax" for the songs the band is doing - create the instrumentation in this program, download it and record vocals on top and then bounce to files that can be used to write a music CD. The problem I see right now is that all the songs would sound very much the same.

I thought I saw somewhere on the site that "Saving" the song would cause the program to email the song to you. I signed up and tried doing that and nothing ever showed up (although I do have a song under "My Songs" now on the main screen). I'm wondering how that's going to work, are you emailing a medium-fi .mp3 file? It might be better if there was a button to "download .mp3 version" (in various quality levels, depending on how long the user wants to wait for it) of the current song. I'm assuming that you're NOT messing with MIDI files here, since it seems like the whole point is going to be that you've recorded real instruments. (Also, how about "download individual instruments as .mp3 files" so you can load 'em into a workstation?).

So, yeah, again, I understand you're just getting started and there will be lots of enhancements still. I'm not sure what your business model will be; the one thing I see here that is an advantage over Band In a Box is that you have real instruments playing. Maybe you could do something like, "when you're satisified with your song, for $20 we will send you an audio CD with a CD-quality mix plus CD-quality .wav files of all your individual tracks." You also should think about and state clearly what the deal would be for somebody who wanted to use your tracks on a CD they made and sold, do they have to pay you royalties or does their purchase of the song include the right to reproduce?

Charles

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:39 am

I'm glad you guys are checking this out.

Sam: I'm not a fan of the way the staff window works right now. I am pushing for a reworking by V2.0. I think it would work best as a drag-and-drop box. Just drag your chords onto the measure and you're done.

I believe there are plans to release a standalone version. This would eliminate load time when changing patches or tempos.

Ken: Right now, I believe the 'save' function is working, though I'm not positive. That way, you can at least save the progressions and instrumentations you've made and load that up from another computer. I'm also pretty sure there are plans to have an 'export wav' function on there.

We have a lot of cool stuff planned for V2.0, like mid-measure chord changes, which will open up a lot of songwriting avenues. I'm also pushing for adding 7ths, 9ths, and so on.

With the exception of a couple guitar and keyboard samples, everything you hear on the website comes from me. How about that?

Also, if you are going to pm me about contract work, please include a couple links to music that represents your current production capabilities, so I can pass those along to my boss. Again, the opportunity will likely only come up if I'm gone for a week or more (we're lining up a month-long Mediterranean tour for the fall, we'll be doing long AFE tours again soon, and I might have overseas club med gigs here and there).

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:43 am

I'll second the neat idea and fun comments. Good scratch pad, too.

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:48 am

Charles, you bring up a lot of good points, many of which I hadn't really thought about.

Expanding the available style choices is a big priority right now. I'll be recording new stuff for months.

I guess the 'save' function isn't working right now, and I'm not sure how it'll work, really. I'm just the music guy.

I like your layout and interface ideas. I will definitely be passing this thread along to the developer.

After going through it a little more, it looks like a lot of my work has yet to be implemented

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 11:29 am

You're welcome.

I'm assuming that somebody in your organization has already looked at Band In a Box, as one of your main competitors. Probably a lot of my suggestions would be things that BIAB already does, so it's best if you look at it yourselves and decide what you can / can't make similar in your program. The big difference I see is the use of real instruments, balanced by the fact that the user can't go in and tweak what those instruments are playing.

I can see this as a songwriting / scratchpad tool - if I was in a hotel somewhere, I could crank out a quick arrangement, play it on the laptop speaker and sing with it into my little handheld recorder; then when I get home, I do a real recording of the song. In terms of generating "tracks" to go behind already written songs, I would suspect that there will be a lot of cases where the available soundfiles just don't fit the song, the song has a couple odd-length bars or a keychange or something.

In terms of "styles," you might find it more useful to focus on one general style - provide enough different variations of "country" that a country songwriter or singer could really use this thing, and leave the jazz styles 'til later. I'm thinking country because there is a lot more "this guy is the songwriter, and he needs to produce a rough demo for this other guy, the performer" (with layers of lawyers in between) than in jazz or even rock where the writer is more likely to be a performer.

Take a look at contemporary church worship music, too: there are a lot of people who would like to sing a solo in church with a backing track but have no way to create the track other than crappy MIDI, and there is also this thing where the songwriter isn't necessarily the performer. Something that would be cool in the worship music field: if there was a way I could save an arrangement of one of my songs so that somebody else who would like to do my song could use my arrangement to create their own backing track, maybe in a different key. The whole worship music field has come up with some interesting solutions to the copyright issue, such that a worship song writer can make money by having people perform their song even if the people didn't buy a songbook or CD from the writer. See http://www.ccli.com for info on the CCLI process.

Or, alternately, go for the hip-hop "beats" market. (Musical prejudice showing through here, but...) You might find that a smaller number of "style" types would cover a greater percentage of the songs people want to record...

Charles

drë · Post by **drë** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 1:15 pm

The Sober Irishman wrote:With the exception of a couple guitar and keyboard samples, everything you hear on the website comes from me. How about that?

Danm! That’s allot of recording.. Especially if you’re taking into account each tempo.

Pretty neat web app, Sober. Being a developer myself I can tell lots of work has gone into this, and it works great. (With plenty of room for improvement)
Am guessing the portal idea itself is still being developed, but to make the business model work (make money), you can not underestimate the power of fresh original frequently updated content. The cool flash app(s) will bring people in, but the content is what will keep brining them back and paying for it.
Looking at the favorite artist/video section and the screenshots of them it seems like the online music portal is a big part of the site witch will required allot of work.
I guess what am trying to defined here is what’s going to be the main product the site will ultimately be offering? An online music portal with a flash app that you can create songs with; or web base music recording software?

Now, to the look and feel.
Am guessing the overall look and feel of the site is still being worked out, as some of the fonts are just terrible.
Actually the entire site is lacking style and design, but that's usually left for last.
Keeping in mind a simple, easy to use interface and overall design is usually key.
What this usually means for early development is being flexible with colors and schemes. Not hard coding colors to components, and elements of the application.
incase you guys decide to change the look and feel from a black, green, & wood to something a bit more light and upbeat, its allot easier to change a couple of variables, than going through each element and changing them individually. Also makes it easier to experiment with colors and see what combinations work or not, but then again this can be easily figure out in Photoshop.

I definitely don’t want to underestimate the work you guys have done so far, as the flash app is very functional.

2cents.

GlennCase · Post by **GlennCase** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 3:32 pm

Testing this out right now, and writing a song with it. It's a cool idea.

ROCK!

Glenn Case

WesDavis · Post by **WesDavis** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 4:54 pm

I've actually seen another website do something similar, but I'm only goinng based off what I see there. I don't have time to mess with it right now but yeah it does seem a lot like this thing. It's still a very cool idea though!

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:59 pm

Yeah Wes, this certainly draws off of things that have been done before, the goal I think is to have everything done in an ultra-neat and easy-to-use package. That guitar thing you linked is terrible to use, for example.

As far as 'similar stuff' goes, there's also:

Punk-o-matic

and of course

One Two One Two

Project-D · Post by **Project-D** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 6:27 pm

That's a cool tool. I use Band in a Box, and although it has a bazillion styles I don't know if these two are meant to be point by point comparable. I like the fact that Chord Studio is web based and uses real samples. It kind of fits a middle ground between loop based composers like Garageband or Fruity Loops and BIAB. I only use the piano and drum tracks with BIAB, sometimes bass, but rarely. I put in some odd progressions on CS to see what the voice leading was like and it worked pretty well. I think it would be a good scratch pad or idea generator, or for a non-chord instrumentalist (like a horn player that doesn't play piano or guitar) to generate a backing track. I wonder if we'll hear it on the next Songfight entry?

Or maybe a Nur Ein challenge...

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 6:51 pm

Pretty nifty. I wish it was that easy to write a real song.

WesDavis · Post by **WesDavis** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:44 pm

The Sober Irishman wrote:Yeah Wes, this certainly draws off of things that have been done before, the goal I think is to have everything done in an ultra-neat and easy-to-use package. That guitar thing you linked is terrible to use, for example.

As far as 'similar stuff' goes, there's also:

Punk-o-matic

and of course

One Two One Two

Oh yeah, the one I linked is quite terrible, indeed. I was unaware there were other programs floating around like this online. I'll have to check them out!

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 3:24 pm

I made a "song" with no vocals - I may put words to it soon!

Here it is! - Chord Studio Song by JR

j$ · Post by j$ » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:14 am

Sound quality is good and the software seems to run pretty smooth, but there's just not enough variety - all the songs end up sounding pretty much the same, regardless of selections - like a late 90s manic Street Preachers b-side. This is, not in my opinion, a good thing.

So impressive, but maybe ... pointless?

Not meaning to sound mean, but you did ask what we thought.

Billy's Little Trip · Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:38 am

jolly roger wrote:I made a "song" with no vocals - I may put words to it soon!

Here it is! - Chord Studio Song by JR

I think that's the exact song I made while testing that site out.