How did you make it possible to work simultaneously from two hours apart?
SE: For anything "final" we used ftp to send WAV files compressed with a program called Monkey's Audio. We sent MP3s back and forth for test mixes, and we emailed lyrics and MIDI files.
How did file sharing benefit the production process the most?
BD: We helped each other with sounds a lot. If I had this thing that I needed to be doing and I couldn't find a sound I liked, I'd upload what I had and we'd wonk up sounds for each other to use. At one point Scott sent me a MIDI file and said, "Hey, I wrote this on a piano, but I don't want it to be a piano." So we both took stabs trying to create an artificial instrument that would function like a piano but would be something custom. For electronic music, I would say that's on par with playing instruments on each other's songs.
Did you do this with "real" instruments too?
SE: Oh yeah. Drums, obviously. Kate Cronin's voice went back and forth over the wire a lot. For one song, after I dropped a string part in place they sounded all weird and naked and incongruous, so I sent them to Brad and he sent them back all gooey.
How did your long distance method differ from a more conventional recording/production process?
BD: Well, it's the way we ended up working as a coping mechanism. I don't know if it's the way we would have worked entirely if we did live in the same town.
SE: Yeah, it's hard to say. Early on Brad sent me an audio file and I asked him to send me the MIDI file because I had some ideas for it. And it was like I touched him in a bad place.
BD: Did I? [laughs] I would do the same thing today.
