Loop Loft Art of Brushes and Anything But Sticks

Need some fresh sounds? Want to show off your sound design skills? Here's the place!
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ryanharlin
Reason Studios
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Joined: 23 Jan 2015

24 Jan 2015

Recently I've been spending some evenings playing with Take songs people have recorded and shared to Discover. The first thing I do is tempo map and retime these free-wheel recordings so they fit on a fixed tempo grid. Then I add instrumentation. In doing that I've used the Loop Loft's Art of Brushes and Everything But Sticks ReFills on all of them. The acoustic guitar recordings sorta lend themselves to these sounds. But it has reminded me how totally awesome these ReFills are. If you haven't check them out, they are some seriously organic sounding drums and feels that you just can't get any other way than recording a real player.

These are the three songs I've added instrumentation to:

http://phead.mu/s/be7bXaMl

http://phead.mu/s/JMsIKUgY

http://phead.mu/s/euxI7JBq

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BPGeez
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24 Jan 2015

Yea LoopLoft has some extremely legit rex! Top notch
Reason is my girlfriend. Sometimes she mistreats me, but I still love her.

Checkout my tunes made with Reason: https://soundcloud.com/geez-musicals

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offaxisdaddy
Posts: 57
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24 Jan 2015

Hey Ryan, you did a great job with these discover tracks! Excellent production, and I would expect no less from someone whose job it is to sell us on this new direction. But I do have some questions for you as to "ownership" of anything created in the discover platform.

Obviously, you are having fun with discover and offering your recommendations on Loop Loft which is cool. But, as a representative of PH, is this not for all intents and purposes "free" music used to advertise/promote your products? Who technically has ownership of the track - the original user who uploaded a skeleton or the man who turned it into the polished piece that is the end result? Can you sell this track to another company for use in advertising without the permission of / compensation to the original uploader? Can the original uploader sell this track with your additions without permission / compensation to you? Does PH even provide a method for the original poster and anyone who downloads content to communicate?

I have not made the move to R8, and am quite unsure of the direction PH is moving in right now. I have seen similar questions discussed in depth on the PUF, without any real conclusion to the legalities involved with using another's original idea and transforming into "your own" creation. Since PH is actively involved in promoting the platform using discover tracks, I would really like to hear from the source how the legalities square up.

I hope this does not come off as confrontational - that is not my intent at all. I am just genuinely curious. :?  



tmask
Posts: 4
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

24 Jan 2015

I was digging the brush additions in your Discover upload - I was going to ask you where you got them, so thanks for sharing. 

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ryanharlin
Reason Studios
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Joined: 23 Jan 2015

24 Jan 2015

offaxisdaddy wrote:Hey Ryan, you did a great job with these discover tracks! Excellent production, and I would expect no less from someone whose job it is to sell us on this new direction.
Thanks! I've said it before and I'll say it again here but eventually I'll stop saying it because maybe it's a distinction without a difference to people: I'm a Reason user and a musician first, a Propellerhead employee second. I joined the PUF before I worked with Propellerhead. I bought Reason, ReBirth, and ReFills before I worked with Propellerhead. And these tracks I've been playing with have been things I do in the evening for fun - not because I hope to sell anyone on a new direction.
offaxisdaddy wrote:Who technically has ownership of the track - the original user who uploaded a skeleton or the man who turned it into the polished piece that is the end result?
I'm glad you bring this up because I see a lot of wrong information. Discover respects ownership. Who owns the song? The person who made the song. That's how it's always been and Discover makes no attempt to redefine that. In fact, it's built into the Discover player to say "Based on..." with a link to the original song. Right now there's another thread about the Beatles and the genius of George Martin. Who owns those songs? Does anyone think the answer is George Martin? No. And similarly, why would I own Faustine's song because I played guitar and mellotron over it? I don't.

Discover is a central location for people to showcase their work, share their work, and find people for collaboration. It streamlines a process that's already been technically possible. I'll give you a real-world example.

There's a producer in the UK named Jakwob. I did an artist interview video with him a few years ago. He's rather successful now. But he got his breakthrough start by doing an Ellie Goulding remix.

No, he wasn't on an Ellie Goulding release. Ellie Goulding's people didn't contact an unknown college student to ask him to remix her song. He took her song and made what was called a "bootleg remix." He used her song - without permission - and made a remix that ended up getting millions of plays and launching his career as a live act and a producer. Did he steal Ellie Goulding's song? Nope. Did she still own the song? Absolutely. Did she make money off the success of his remix? You bet she did. Was it good for the both of them? Sure was.

The difference between the Jakwob example and Discover is that public tracks on Discover are there with the built-in understanding that people might use your tracks for collaboration. It's baked into the service from the get go. In a theoretical world, if Ellie Goulding had that song on Discover and Jakwob did that remix nothing would change in the publishing IP ownership of that song that existed from him doing it via a bootleg method. It's Ellie's song no matter how Jakwob got the audio to remix.

So with that in mind...
offaxisdaddy wrote:Can you sell this track to another company for use in advertising without the permission of / compensation to the original uploader?
No. First of all any company you would attempt to sell this to would have you sign an agreement where you certify that you own the publishing for the song you're licensing to them. Sure you could lie and say you do... just like I could do that with a song I find on someone's youtube channel... but it would be just as wrong in either case for you to claim ownership of something you don't own.

So Discover is about facilitating collaboration without claiming the ownership of songwriters' material.
offaxisdaddy wrote:Does PH even provide a method for the original poster and anyone who downloads content to communicate?
Not yet and I'm not directly connected to the development process for Discover but I imagine that is HIGH on the priority list and we'll see that. They have a lot of things they want to do with Discover and what you've seen so far is just the beginning.



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offaxisdaddy
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24 Jan 2015

@Ryanharlin:

Thanks for taking the time to address these questions - it's very much appreciated! I know that you are a musician/user first and completely respect that as separate from your employment with PH. I in no way meant to insult you or your work, an sincerely hope that you did not infer that as my intent. I'm genuine in my compliments and think the production is really top notch. :)

I'm just somewhat at a loss over being able to communicate with those who you are collaborating with as PH was already set up to facilitate communication between parties via the PUF.
:t0152:  
There are obviously real implications when it comes to professional usage that could benefit both parties... i.e. if one were to share a discover track they "remixed" via whatever web format they choose leading to a third party that is interested in licensing the track - how does one go about communication between all parties to make that happen? Forgive me, but IMO the whole "share & collaborate" seems more gimmick than useful with these limitations. Sure, it's fun to "sit in" with others to help an idea grow - but without communication it's no different than grabbing a snippet from the radio adding your own track(s) to it and sharing it with your friends. 

Maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned, but I've always found the best collaborations involve communication between parties on an intellectual level as well as musically. I guess I don't fall into PH's targeted demographic, yet to the contrary PH falls into my demographic of aging dudes who grew up with hardware and not only understand, but embrace the rack concept

Again - if my original post came off as snarky I apologize. You are known from the company you keep (work for), and the brick wall PH can at times be often leads to more questions than substantive answers. I appreciate you taking the time to address this beyond a 2 sentence reply. :)

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rvman
Posts: 125
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

24 Jan 2015

ryanharlin wrote:Recently I've been spending some evenings playing with Take songs people have recorded and shared to Discover. The first thing I do is tempo map and retime these free-wheel recordings so they fit on a fixed tempo grid. Then I add instrumentation. In doing that I've used the Loop Loft's Art of Brushes and Everything But Sticks ReFills on all of them. The acoustic guitar recordings sorta lend themselves to these sounds. But it has reminded me how totally awesome these ReFills are. If you haven't check them out, they are some seriously organic sounding drums and feels that you just can't get any other way than recording a real player.
I've bought several products from Loop Loft and LOVE them. I don't have those refills but was thinking of them today while working on my wife's songs which are acoustic.

I have a lot of refills and wav loops, but they are a little scattered about and difficult to sort through in a short time. Having those two refills would give me a wide variety in a specific location.
********************************
Reason 8, EZ Drummer 2, Loop Loft loops

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ryanharlin
Reason Studios
Posts: 230
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

24 Jan 2015

offaxisdaddy wrote:I in no way meant to insult you or your work, an sincerely hope that you did not infer that as my intent.
Oh no offense taken at all! I just have noticed a lot of comments recently of the "Oh well of COURSE you would say that. You're like the PR rep for Propellerhead or something." (I'm not.)

One guy thought the whole Discover thing was my idea, presumably simply because if asked to name everyone he could at Propellerhead it would be "Ernst, Mattias, Ryan... um..." :)

So I just sorta preface my comments with a reminder that I'm here in a Reason forum as a Reason user talking about my use of Reason in my off time and participating on the weekend. While I wish that I got paid to hang out in Forums and try and market Propellerhead products to a few hundred like-minded folks, that's not the case. If you ever hear about a job posting that involves doing that, browsing Reddit, and still being in your pajamas at 6PM on a Saturday... YOU LET ME KNOW! I'm PERFECT for that job.  :thumbup:

As for your other comments I'd say I don't disagree with them. Communicating is key and absolutely essential to meaningful work together that has any chance of seeing the things we all hope to see with our music - releases, tv syncs, or whatever.

In fact for the two songs I produced from Discover that were originals the biggest instinct and urge I had when they were done was "I gotta show this to the songwriter!" In those cases I was fortunate to find them via facebook because the Propellerhead username was their real name or artist name. So figuring out who user aarongirder was didn't require a code breaker... it was Aaron Girder.

So yeah... communication before and after. I'm right there with you, as I'm sure are the designers and masterminds behind what's being planned and implemented with Discover.

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pushedbutton
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25 Jan 2015

See this is the thing that people don't get about copyright lawyers. They only go after you if you make money or cause trouble, the most they'll do is tell you to stop promoting your bootleg. If you're selling it and it's blatantly someone else's work then that's another story but until money starts exchanging hands you've not really got anything to loose by sharing and having fun, as long as it's your work you're promoting, not just reuploading the stems unchanged. Chill out, they'll never catch you as long as you actually make it your own.
@pushedbutton on twitter, add me, send me a message, but don't try to sell me stuff cos I'm skint.
Using Reason since version 3 and still never finished a song.

Yonatan
Posts: 1556
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02 Feb 2015

Ryan, if it is you who makes video for Propellerheads, I must say they are so very well made! Enjoy watching them. 

Copyright...well, that issue do not have to stop us from collaborating. 

But, it do reveal some age old questions that may have caused a lot of conflicts in bands through the years. 

If the singer in the band comes with a song, that song will seldom sound exactly the same when the rest of the band gets involved. The bass may change, the guitars, a bridge might be added etc. All members will contribute in some ways to the end result. 
The players of instruments will more or less be formning the song, but if not substantially,
at least they get payed for taking part in the recording. But where goes the line of being a part of the more creative core ideas as a composer or co-writer?

If a new song is formed in the jamming, and the singer comes up with a catchy melodi and really good lyrics, but that was a result of an inspiring jam, started by the bass and drum, with added guitar phrases. Who is the creator of this song?
Common sense would be that in this case, the whole band are the creator.

But these questions are crucial to any collaboration. As long as there is only fun playing, none thinks of copyrights, but if the song become a huge hit and makes a lot of income, then I bet the conflict might appear, if not proper agreement have been made in the first place.

These things are not 100% avoidable, because it involves human communication and relations and a dose of common sense. As mentioned, who ownes copyright for what is not that important as long as there´s no or no amount of money involved.

In Dicover is written that whole world is your band. So, that sounds nice, but we need some ethics before we start, so all are playing with the same set of rules in mind.

If one person makes a beat, another ads a bass and a third brings in piano, voice and lyrics, who ownes that song? Everyone contributed just lika a jam-session or the first one that added a beat?
Another time it is voice, lyriks and piano, and then other ppl add drum and bass etc.

In fact it depends on the impact of an add. Some songs have their main identity through drums and bass, other songs, the drum and bass are just helping the main song, not being of any greater part of the identity of the song.

I do not believe there will be total justice to these things, am just putting it out as a food for thought.

With this said, I do hope Discover will evolve into a great plattform for producers, players, DJ:s and artists to meet and make songs that had othervice not seen the daylight.

 





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selig
RE Developer
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Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

02 Feb 2015

Yonatan wrote:Ryan, if it is you who makes video for Propellerheads, I must say they are so very well made! Enjoy watching them. 

Copyright...well, that issue do not have to stop us from collaborating. 

But, it do reveal some age old questions that may have caused a lot of conflicts in bands through the years. 

If the singer in the band comes with a song, that song will seldom sound exactly the same when the rest of the band gets involved. The bass may change, the guitars, a bridge might be added etc. All members will contribute in some ways to the end result. 
The players of instruments will more or less be formning the song, but if not substantially,
at least they get payed for taking part in the recording. But where goes the line of being a part of the more creative core ideas as a composer or co-writer?
Lyrics and melody are the only thing that' copyrightable, so if you didn't write either of those the line is pretty clear!
Yonatan wrote:If a new song is formed in the jamming, and the singer comes up with a catchy melodi and really good lyrics, but that was a result of an inspiring jam, started by the bass and drum, with added guitar phrases. Who is the creator of this song?
Common sense would be that in this case, the whole band are the creator. 
That's up to the person who wrote the lyrics and melody to decide, but at least in Nashville anyone in the room is considered a writer.
Yonatan wrote:But these questions are crucial to any collaboration. As long as there is only fun playing, none thinks of copyrights, but if the song become a huge hit and makes a lot of income, then I bet the conflict might appear, if not proper agreement have been made in the first place.

These things are not 100% avoidable, because it involves human communication and relations and a dose of common sense. As mentioned, who ownes copyright for what is not that important as long as there´s no or no amount of money involved.

In Dicover is written that whole world is your band. So, that sounds nice, but we need some ethics before we start, so all are playing with the same set of rules in mind.

If one person from makes a beat, another ads a bass and a third brings in piano, voice and lyrics, who ownes that song? Everyone contributed just lika a jam-session or the first one that added a beat?
Another time it is voice, lyriks and piano, and then other ppl add drum and bass etc.

In fact it depends on the impact of an add. Some songs have their main identity through drums and bass, other songs, the drum and bass are just helping the main song, not being of any greater part of the identity of the song.

I do not believe there will be total justice to these things, am just putting it out as a food for thought.

With this said, I do hope Discover will evolve into a great plattform for producers, players, DJ:s and artists to meet and make songs that had othervice not seen the daylight.
Again siting the Nashville way (the only way I've experienced writing professionally), you almost always split things equally in every case. Avoids petty arguments about splits etc, with the idea that if you do it long enough things will even out. Here's one example: I created an entire track, shared it with a co-writer and even helped with lyrics and melody a bit, then had that co-writers (un-beknownst to me) add another co-writer and also use a friend title. Ended up being a four way split even though I did much of the initial work. But that song it also got me signed to Warner-Chappel, so I didn't argue! Sounds almost EXACTLY like my demo, sample exact drum part, same guitars, same vocals -basically copied my demo 100%. Welcome to the music business - as you can see this song was extremely popular - 39 view, WOOT!!! (yes, this was the 80s - apologies in advance!)

Oh yea, I forgot to add that the guy who wrote the title got 1/4, and the title isn't even 100% original! Husker Du already had a song called "Pink Turns to Blue" about a year earlier (something I only found out about in the internet age of "google"). Hey, "I" could have stolen that title and kept that 25% for myself!!! ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_MUEtkg-LU
Selig Audio, LLC

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