Collaboration - Electronic Music

Just been browsing the internet to see what sites are out there for like minded folk to collaborate on making electronic music. Unfortunately most of the sites I have found seem to either be dead or into pop/rock/metal. I was wondering if any of you wonderful folk have found any good collaboration sites and what experiences have you had, good or bad.

Hi Adrian,
The only one I know is KVR (which I'm sure you've already checked out). Of course, most people over here are into rock based stuff.
Just curious, what are the things that EM musicians can collaborate on? Usually, isn't it more or less a one man show? (please excuse my ignorance.....I just don't know the details).

Mesh: Each to there own style. But if you think of people like Tangerine Dream, Ulrich Schnauss you probably won't be too far off the mark. Making EM can be a bit of a one man show but sometimes working with other like minded folks send you down paths that you may not otherwise explore.
 
Synkotron: I'm beginning to think you live on these forums :) I am just interested in seeing if working with other like minded folk will send my down a new path and broaden my way of thinking really.

biodiode
Mesh: Each to there own style. But if you think of people like Tangerine Dream, Ulrich Schnauss you probably won't be too far off the mark. Making EM can be a bit of a one man show but sometimes working with other like minded folks send you down paths that you may not otherwise explore.
 ...

Wow ... and Tangerine Dream survived for almost 50 years ... as a one man band?
 
Why bother naming it TD, when it should have been Edgar Froese? That is not the story that many folks in that band tell, btw ... although a couple did not get along with Edgar and have kept themselves off the market ... which kinda gives away their musical talent more than anything!
 
It is a single man show, when it comes to Klaus Schulze, because he does his own mixing live on stage while playing ... and no one can touch what he does ... even if some think it isn't as good, it is quite trippy, and his courage on stage (listen to Lisa stuff with) is not an easy thing to do, and was also well done with Manuel Gottsching and Arthur Brown. Sadly, these kinds of collaborations are not something that most music fans can handle, since their tastes RARELY go past 4 or 5 minutes, and this is the worst thing about electronic music ... a lot of it is longer than that, or it is just another New Age jingle by Chris Franke or Mike Newland!

Thanks for explaining....will check out TD and Ulrich S. I personally like mixing genre's and try to incorporate various things in my music (lot's of synths, symphonic instruments, electronic drums etc...), but being mostly a rock/blues influenced guitarist, that's also my strength and weakness.
 
Best of luck mate in the collaboration quest and if you ever do need some lead guitar work done, I'm certainly up for some improvisation.     

synkrotron

Mesh
will check out TD

Meshy! Checking out TD is a task in itself dood! Depends which "era" you start at...

Oh?
Where would a 'virgin' TD listener start at?

Hi,
 
wow Mesh ...
 
I have never thought of your ability to play guitar, or Strummy's or Bapu's or anyone else's, as a "weakness" or a "strength". That is not true in any sense of the word at all!
 
You have jammed and learned via rock music, but you never tried playing your guitar with the 1812 Overture, or Nights on Bare Mountain, or with Eroica, or with Vaughn Williams ... which would have helped you learn something else ... that would get away from the song structure idea and concepts that are only a few minutes long ... and you would teach yourself a few different things that would not fit the process of a rock song.
 
Jazz in America has a funny way about this, and sometimes a lot of lounge lizard jazz is just scales and notes on a theme, because the ability to fly around anything is different, and many times, the guitar is the lead instrument setting up the piece of music, and not exactly a piece of music that is a trip for all the players! Everyone is secondary to someone else, and this has a tendency to limit your ability to take off and experiment in my book, even though Miles made an art out of this and then some!
 
You might want to start checking out the stuff that Manuel Gottsching has done, for example, and if you want to see a guitar going crazy, just get "In Blue" with Klaus Schulze. Some might say that it is just a jam, but when you hear it, it doesn't feel like a jam at all. All of a sudden, you get a feeling, that there is more to an instrument, and music ... that is NOT a SONG ... and I think this is the only thing that you want to look at ... and at that point, is when rock/blues can either extend itself (progressive) ... or die doing the same thing.
 
So I say ... learn to jam with something else ... put on Debussy! Put on the Cement Machine (Faust joke!!!), and later, you even learn to play sight unseen on anything ... you catch a chord, note or feeling and off to the races you are! 

Rubycon is a stunning album, that was my first TD record. Ricochet was pretty good too, got that afterwards.

Since the death of Edgar I have been listening to all my TD material, that's almost 200 CD's and 80 minidisc, yes I said minidisc, worth of live concerts. That's not to mention the DVD's and other video footage. Although the line up changed they were a prolific band but one of my favourite TD tunes is Straotsfear - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVtMITkdxRo&list=RDnVtMITkdxRo

I thought I was a BIG TD fan, but it seems my collection pales in comparison to some of you lot haha!
 
 

craigb
If I still had my gear and setup

What would it take to dust all your gear off Craig?
 
I've only just dragged out my JP-8000, OB-12 and Nova:-
 

 
Not exactly "classic" gear, but I'm enjoying rediscovering the hardware sounds 
 
 

Hi,
 
TD
 
I do not have a favorite, as there are too many nice things.
 
Phaedra ... and then check out the anniversary version if you think Analog is still not good, or used!
 
Stratosfear ... an excellent album, that stands out from all others. In some ways it was totally different, but it was totally far out.
 
Tangram ... very soft and melodic and totally pretty
 
Force Majeure ... progressive rock in some ways and very electronic. The visualization on this one is really strong!
 
Underwater Sunlight ... Very nice, though a few folks I met thought this was New Age stuff ... it was way better than any New Age music ever done other than Vangelis!
 
Melrose ... mentioned above. For my tastes, these are songs, not passages as before
 
Rockoon/220 Volt Live ... I like Rockoon, but it feels like far out rock songs. 220 Volt Live is a magnificent concert and I think this is the first of Linda Spa's albums with TD. She is a multi instrumentalist, specializing in composition and I think she helped define "song", into a more classically defined/designed piece of music. She spent more than 20 years with TD, and some folks did not like her saxophone playing though some solos (Jeanne D'Arc) are excellent.
 
2000+ ... there are too many things to consider!
 
LIVE stuff ... in the early days, synthesizers were very difficult and rarely would anyone be able to do again what they just did. Thus, any TD concert from the 70's and early 80's is a collectors item, and the number of bootlegs were insane. But they were all so different from each other and this is the appeal that the music has at that time. It really is a movie about the growing up of the synthesizer ... you can hear it fail, do the same thing differently and anything else in between that you can think of.
 
But remember that "experimenting" was also a large part of the time and place, and this band, and they had many moments in any piece where any of them could take off. In the past 10 years, I find less of these moments, but I can see that they colored what would be a jam part with even more effects and doodles on the music.
 
All in all, the different members did not change a whole lot of what Tangerine Dream did. There were some personality details here and there, but essentially, the main thrust and feelings remained constant, and it was a flow of music that went in many directions, via the effects and its evocative feelings. I think that the later works ended up featuring guitar, violin and saxophone, more as a different touch, than an improvement for the music, although I have a tendency to never think that any of these were not a part of the whole thing, and look at it as an "orchestra" playing classical music to my ears!

Hi Adrian
I just now listened to your music. Very nice!  I'm thinking you might want to collaborate with a photographer or videographer which would benefit you both.

I love electronic music (TD and especially Klaus Schulze) but to me it lends itself much better as soundtrack music. Don't get me wrong tho because I can listen to it by itself for hours on end but you kind of have to settle in and get in the mood.
 
For a more general audience (if that's what you're aiming for) adding your music to a nature video (rolling clouds, crashing ocean waves, whatever) would make both media more interesting. Star photography would be good too if the music is more spacey sounding.  

Again I'm reminded about how I screwed up last month...  I sold off all my DVD's (except music ones), but found that my Canyon Dreams three-pack was put in the wrong pile so it's gone...  That was exactly what you guys are talking about: Nature backgrounds set to TD music!  Bah...