I want to make an open source album in the style of the blender movies like Big Buck Bunny. It would be made with ardour on linux with only open source plugins, and mastered with open source tools (even if we have to make them) before a final release in patent-unencumbered formats (like ogg and flac). The result would be available as both a mixdown and as the full session in Ardour format, and the album artwork would be created with open source software like GIMP and Inkscape, with all the source files for the art readily available as well.
I’d like the album to incorporate different musical genres, and especially to use some electronic elements (to use midi), but also to be something that people would enjoy even if they were not into the FOSS world.
I’ve searched around a bit and can’t see that anyone else has done this. Not only would it be something to brag about, but would help countless others who can’t afford a secondary education in music production.
As an added incentive, I’d like to start hosting this project on Kickstarter once we have preliminary discussions down, and share the proceeds between the creators and the software developers without whom we couldn’t do it at all.
If you’re interested in helping with songwriting, production, session-playing, engineering, graphic-design, web-design, promotion, or anything else you think needs to be done (or know anybody who is), contact me at dick@dickmacinnis.com
I actually have done similar things or am doing similar things, from putting together sessions for my class and mixing them down so my students can reference(Can’t release those sources though they are available online for free) and see ways to work, to working on Tube. I wouldn’t mind helping but I am a bit busy on time these days, but feel free to drop me an email when you get a schedule together and I can respond then.
I think this is a great project! I play guitar and some klav. You can check my souncloud to listen to some of the material i made. http://soundcloud.com/
michel-declercq
I had the idea of an open source album. I make beats in LMMS and was going to release my songs as complete, then each song will have a directory containing each instrument track/vocal track. I’m a rapper/instrumentalist/singer (youtube.com/nickgee667 and soundcloud.com/nick-germaine ) this project still ongoing?
I really like the idea of an all open-source project, it’d be nice to see programs like ardour being used by huge artists and I think showing people how well some of the open source programs run is a great way to get the ball rolling.
I am still finding my feet in Ardour but that’s only due to having to work with not so decent hardware at the moment, but here’s my soundcloud; www.soundcloud.com/csosnsw
Very eager to see how this goes, great work!