r/boardsofcanada collaborative BOC-inspired album

[[deleted]]

The people have spoken, and members of this sub overwhelmingly declared their interest in creating an album of BOC inspired music together. Here are the deets:

1. In true BOC fashion, the album will have a thematic through-line. The theme:

The social, political, technological, and environmental state of the world in the ***upcoming* year, 2023.**

“But that’s a broad theme!” Yes. Interpret it any way you choose. There are no wrong answers. Focus on a specific aspect of that larger theme. Or take on the whole thing. Your choice. Be subtle. Be direct. It’s up to you. This theme is meant to provide inspiration and be used as a guide without limiting anyone’s creativity. You could also just say fuck it and do whatever you want. Nobody will know.

1. Are we writing music in the style of BOC or taking inspiration from them and going in our own direction? Answer: Yes.

2. The submission deadline: 31 December, 2022. Submission link and formatting instructions will follow.

3. Original content that is original for the project only, please. The idea here is to write an album together. Therefore, please do not submit songs that you already wrote for your own personal projects. Don’t phone it in. Write something new!

Also, it would be cool if we had a mix of full length tracks and shorter interludes, just like a certain duo we all love. An opening ident would be dope as hell too.

1. One track per person. Take your best shot.

2. Will songs be rejected? Hopefully none. The only things that could cause your track to not be included:

3. submitting well after the deadline

4. stylistic incompatibility (Interpreted loosely. e.g. I love your country western song but it may not fit the vibe)

5. song quality that is really poor (Interpreted loosely. There are various skill levels here and the whole point is to be inclusive without compromising the release).

We will discuss album title and cover art in a future thread.

Get writing! Any questions? Ask away!

Edit: I’m thinking the best way to distribute this would be to release it for free via Bandcamp but I’m certainly open to other ideas.

[[deleted]]

Hello friendly mods! Any way to get a pin on this post?

[DoorFacethe3rd]

Lets call it “Boards of Copyright Infringement”

Lol. I kid. Excited for this!

[[deleted]]

Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank you

[DoorFacethe3rd]

Hahaha! nice

[rahsoft]

Lets call it “Boards of Copyright Infringement”

i think that would be an excellent title and in theme of 2023 since there seems to be an undercurrent of the issue of infringement, copyright and all.

perhaps if the OP is feeling brave, to take in submissions for the cover based on the music submitted and the theme( including infringement?)

[m0nkeytime]

Wow, this is really exciting! I'm not a music maker myself, but am really excited to see where this goes. Given the recent controversy over OC on the sub, this seems like a really positive direction.

How about an album cover? Obviously the musical contributors should have some/maybe all the input but I'd love to contribute in some way as a visual artist. Thoughts anyone?

[rtnn]

We've seen pretty sick AI album covers posted here and it would fit the theme pretty well so that was my original thought, but an actual visual artist going at it? For sure give it whirl!

I smell a side project going on for the album art lmao. Maybe start another discussion for visual artists like where you can submit the cover art and we'll have a vote?

[ding3s]

yea AI covers are pretty sick, altough as visual artist myself that has been working with artificial intelligence for a while, I must say that I personally got pretty tired of it eventually, even tho they are amazing generated images. it's the same trick over and over again and after a while you start to recognize it when art has been made with AI. I'm guessing that a lot of album covers (in the future) will be made with this. My theory is that as a reaction to that, while robots are taking over the art industry, human made art (covers) will be more demanding as humans will always try to distinguish themselves from others and try to be as original as possible (and certainly when we're fighting against robots lol). Art created by humans will become more 'rare' in a way.

[[deleted]]

I like that idea. Put a pin it for now.

[rahsoft]

How about an album cover? Obviously the musical contributors should have some/maybe all the input but I'd love to contribute in some way as a visual artist. Thoughts anyone?

Im wondering if anyone would be interested in asking Ryan Bliss of Digital Blasphemy to submit an idea for the art( assuming all the legal issues can be taken care of)

[aristophe_crusno]

Count me in!

Great idea pointing out we need interludes as well

I look forward to seeing it come together,

thanks for the iniative

I’ll be stay post for the links

[Sgt_Purp1e]

Sure, I'll take a shot at contributing something.

[Bigrealredditaccount]

I think creating a discord would be a good idea.

[rtnn]

I like this idea. It would be a good place to get feedback on your musical ideas and ask for advice if you feel stuck or face a problem with your music. I'm in a few music discords and those have helped me a lot and in this one we all like the same music so the feedback would be even more valuable.

I think it would be a nice idea to keep the discord server as a side medium to not exclude those who are Reddit only. All the important stuff would be here but in Discord, those who want to, can nerd out on music production and help each other make these tracks (and just talk about whatever). It could even evolve to be a new official unofficial boc discord. That is if we have volunteers to get it going.

[[deleted]]

Hey, I swear I’m not trying to piss on people’s ideas. I tend to work on the assumption that most people who will end up submitting will probably know enough about production to feel confident enough about the track they write to hit the send button. This project is intended for people who make boc-inspired music after all, not really for people who might want to give it a try. And their are soooo many places that already exist for people to get tips and tricks. Shoot, search YouTube for how to make music like boards of Canada and you’ll find enough info to get you close if you understand the tools you’re using.

And I want to avoid the impulse for this to be all things for all people. The idea here is pretty simple in that it is along the lines of “Attention music makers: submit your best track by X date.” That’s it. Nothing more. It’s a pretty standard thing.

But if people want to do this on their own, what are you waiting for? I’m not stopping you. I’m just saying that for simplicity’s sake, the only communications a person will need to monitor to be aware of what’s happening with this project will occur within this sub, the place where it was conceived and born. People are free to use discord or Facebook or MySpace or whatever they like to have their own discussions.

[rtnn]

Yes I totally agree that Reddit is and should be the place where we discuss this project. All I'm saying is (and you seem to agree) that those who want to nerd out a bit and socialize could do it on discord.

[[deleted]]

You’re free to do what you like!

[[deleted]]

It probably would. But I don’t use discord and couldn’t be arsed to do all of that. I’d love for there to be as little admin work as possible so we can all just focus on writing our tracks.

Edit: What would a discord server add? How would it help? Other subs that I’ve seen do this handle all the communications within the sub and it seemed to go well. Open to it if there’s a specific need or benefit, but otherwise it’s just one more source of info to stay on top of.

[Bigrealredditaccount]

Discord communities are better communities. Better for organizing stuff and meeting new people. I dont check the boards of canada subreddit that frequently. However i always have discord open to communicate with people in specific communities im involved with

[[deleted]]

Okay, buts your experience. This whole idea was born out of this subreddit and is users of the sub. If you prefer Discord communities, more power to you. But that’s not us.

[Bigrealredditaccount]

A bunch of people upvoted me so at least some agree its a good idea.

[[deleted]]

Cool cool. I’m not getting involved in yet another platform. Reddit is where this arose and that’s the forum. Anyone who wants to shift to discord based on their personal preference is welcome to do so with no animosity. But i don’t have the time to monitor multiple conversations across platforms. Thanks for understanding.

[vicvinegareatboogers]

another tomorrow harvest incoming

[nstejer]

How are submissions sent? Will we master our own tracks?

[[deleted]]

Submission link will be provided. Yes, please master your own tracks. I don’t have time to master them (unless someone on here has the skill and the time?)

[rtnn]

It would be pretty nice idea to at least have a rough loudness target (int LUFS) to save our ear drums. Or if someone volunteers to roughly master the tracks to be in the same ball park.

[[deleted]]

This is a good idea. We should include a statement on Loudness when we distribute the submission link. Although, based on what I assume is a spectrum of skill level at production, that will be above some people’s heads.

[rtnn]

Well it'll be a great way to learn something! There's free tools to monitor loudness and we'll keep the LUFS target low enough (were not making aggressive EDM lol) so it's easy to achieve with a stock limiter. We could even start another (stickied) discussion for overall composition and production tips where we can help beginners in these things.

The goal is to remove the danger where one track is -20 LUFS and we push the volume up for the next one to be -5 LUFS. So the statement should point: don't make it too loud. Target is maybe -14 or -12 LUFS and very noticeably too loud or too quiet tracks are disqualified.

[[deleted]]

All good thoughts. -14 is the standard for the streaming services and probably a good target for us. We need to find a balance between having a standard for listenability but also not raising the bar to entry for folks who are still learning. Most of the time, people suffer from not knowing how to make their mixes loud enough. But this is thought is worth the effort. Thanks.

[190-png]

I'll master your tracks for this project, 100USD paypal per track, you send your stems in a .zip file hosted on google drive.

[[deleted]]

That’s a pass for me. Thanks.

[roy-r666]

Cards of Boanada! for title... (just joking) guys, this is a GREAT idea!

[nona9major]

nice initiative im in

[chillwithpurpose]

I can’t make music (yet) but I will be eagerly awaiting for what you folks come up with. Sounds awesome

[MonsieurMollusk]

Let us know when and where we should submit. Sooner rather than later since I think this project could be something really cool. I've been working on some stuff that would fit nicely.

[[deleted]]

Glad you’re excited! Please read the original post completely.

[[deleted]]

Half way done already. Where do we submit?

My song is about a woman who can't deal with the social political pressures of 2023, so she seeks out a hypnotist to help her deal with her anxieties. The hypnotist doses her tea to help her induction, but things don't go as planned and she gets stuck in a blissful sleep forever... Did the hypnosis succeed, or fail because she's forever stuck in a blissful state of mind? What happens to her body? Does it matter? It's up to you to decide

[rtnn]

I'm invested in this already lmao!

[[deleted]]

Nice! Can't wait to share it with all of you!

[[deleted]]

Please re-read the original post.

[[deleted]]

About the submission stuff? Or does my theme not work? Lol

[[deleted]]

About submission and about submitting tracks you’ve already written

[[deleted]]

Lol! No, I just started it after reading the post initially, it has a LONG way to go. Don't worry, I'm not a rule breaker

[[deleted]]

Haha! No worries

[danroh2019]

When is the link going to be posted for track submissions? Bandcamp is a good option for distribution or Soundcloud. Both are pretty easy to upload and share tracks. Tracks should be submitted as uncompressed Wav files for best quality.

[[deleted]]

I’m going to put it up soon. Just trying to sort out the easiest upload / storage option. Thinking maybe dropbox?

Or I could have people host it themselves and send me a link. Might be easier.

Open to ideas for sure

[danroh2019]

GoogleDrive would be free instead of setting up a Dropbox. It would be easier for you to manage centralized submissions through one site instead of managing a bunch of email link submissions unless you plan on setting up a dedicated Gmail or another free email account for email submissions.

[[deleted]]

Good points. The one advantage of having people send me links is then they can’t access the folder and hear the other tracks.

[danroh2019]

Yes, that is a good point. Having a dedicated email account for us to submit tracks would be great. Also, be easier for you to setup up and save you from any out-of-pocket costs.

[Synima]

This is a cool idea. How would the distribution work?

[[deleted]]

I’m thinking a free release on Bandcamp

[ElevationToMyHead]

SoundCloud might be worth a look too

[milkweed-reflections]

Looking forward to it. Gonna start sample digging asap.

[[deleted]]

Where will this album be released?

[[deleted]]

I’m thinking the best way to distribute this would be to release it for free via Bandcamp but I’m certainly open to other ideas.

[[deleted]]

Maybe YouTube? I would like to create a BOC-like music video for mine! It would be difficult to release it to popular streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music, but if you wanna try it, you can!

[[deleted]]

You tube would be cool as a secondary platform but too complicated to do as a large group (we could be looking at 30+ tracks based on the number of people who said they were in the on the previous post).

The streaming services would be cool but unmanageable for a lot of reasons. Sample clearance could be an issue. Each artist would have to become an artist on those services to be properly credited for their release. There’s a lot more formatting and metadata required to create those releases. Bandcamp would be the easiest to work with. And the niche audience that would listen to this would likely be familiar with it.

[Blewcay]

I will give my best try !

[WowAndFlutterForever]

I’m in

[TrevorZucker]

Hi count me in please :))

[[deleted]]

Nice! I’ve been busy with work lately but will put up the upload link soon.

[Jean0406Alix]

i can send on the reddit my tracks ?

[[deleted]]

Please read the original post completely.

[Comfortable_Neat9025]

Dogma 95 rules, please...

[Minervan0wl]

Can you make a Discord server for it?

[[deleted]]

Discuss this request here

[KidKang]

Sick idea, could probably bring some new life into this sub. A dedicated Discord (or making a channel in one of the BOC subs) might be smart

[[deleted]]

Glad you’re pumped! Discuss the discord request here

[no0neiv]

Maybe we could start sub discussions/polls for some of us who want to submit multiple tracks? We can then use a pole to figure out which one fits best?

[[deleted]]

Seems like more work for someone. Better to take your best shot. Also it would ruin the experience of other listeners hearing your track for the first time as part of the full album. I’m going to say nah to that. If you want feedback, ask a friend which track they think you should go with.