| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: Demo Exchange
by Bill Morse | 05/07/01 at 07:04:15
It feels like I've stumbled into an alternate universe! I founded an online group called Demo Exchange back in 1995. It began as a forum on America Online. The idea was, home recording artists would exchange our home "demo" tapes. Right from the start, we steered away from much discussion of the business side of things, how to get a big break, etc. We just critiqued each others' music.
As foundr, I soon realized that everyone was sending their tapes to me. I wanted more cross-pollenation, so I put together a compilation tape with everybody's two best songs, and mailed them off to everyone. We contributed critiques, and our little "community" became close.
In 1997, we decided we'd like to meet in the real world. Fifteen of us traveled to Philadelphia, home town of the member who hosted the affair. We socialized Friday night, rehearsed like Hell all day Saturday, and went into a pro studio on Sunday. Using each other as session players, we recorded one original song by each of the fifteen attending members.
The results blew us away! We couldn't believe that we, who had never met or played together before, could create something that sounded so good, in just a weekend.
We didn't use any overdubs or take advantage of multitracking possibilities, just recorded two-three-four takes of every song, then moved on. It was live to stereo DAT.
At the end of the day (well, it was late night by then), the best takes were chosen, and CDs burned for everyone.
From that point, our compilation "tapes" were replaced by CDs, as burners became more affordable. That Summit was such a hit that we've had several more since then, in members' home towns. We've had them in Tucson, Springfield MA, Nashville, Chicago, Brockton MA, and we're heading to Portland for one in a couple of weeks.
As pleased as we were with the results of our Summit recordings, no one's kidding ourselves that they sound totally professional. They sound REALLY GOOD for a group of semi-pros, working fast over two days. But a handful of us began to wonder what we could do if we narrowed it down to fewer people, dedicated players, and took ten days in a pro studio. THAT CD really does sound totally professional, no compromises at all!
If you'd like to find out more about the Demo Exchange group, or hear one-minute MP3 files from that professional CD, go to www.demo-exchange.com. On the home page, you'll find that it's a three-way site. Click DEMO EXCHANGE to go to the Demo Exchange section, which includes our complete history, a listing of our compilation recordings (we're up to number 15 now), photos from the last Summit, and the heart of the group, our message board.
To check out the professional CD from the home page, click DEMO X CD. (The third part of the site is my own online portfolio, for my illustration business. I figured, since I'm paying for the site, may as well use it for business.)
So I hope some of you will come check us out. We're always looking for new talented members. It's a very laid back group. Lots of fun.
Bill Morse