about fukisuki and what we do
FukiSuki.net is a forum-based online singing community!
Who runs this community?
I am iceymoon, I created this community and run it myself. Though I expect when this community grows larger I'll be needing a lot of help! ^^; I will be on the look-out for active members who are responsible, level-headed and have leadership qualities to help me run this place as smoothly as possible. 8D
What is an online singing community?
Exactly what it sounds like -- a group of people who get together online to sing because we enjoy it. Most of us are not professionals or involved in the music industry at all, it is simply a passion or hobby that we enjoy and want to share with others! However, you would be surprised just how much talent you can find around here despite the fact that most of us haven't had any professional training at all. Give us a chance!
Why do you do it?
For fun! There is no profit of any sort involved. We do not send our releases to the music industry as demo tapes. We don't sell our work. We simply love to sing and think that a karaoke machine just isn't good enough sometimes.
We also love to have the chance for other people to listen to our work. So if you have time, please check out some of our latest releases, look through the discography sections, or take a listen to our radio!
What does 'FukiSuki' mean?
The name FukiSuki came from the Japanese word fuki [不羈] meaning "freedom/independence" and another Japanese word that I'm sure many of you are familiar with, suki [好き] meaning "like/love." Although it's missing the "ga" to make it grammatically correct (Fuki ga suki!), FukiSuki can be translated as "I love freedom!" or "I love independence!"
What kind of music is covered?
Generally speaking, we don't do original music. There are very few composers in communities like these, so we tend to just cover music by our favorite artists. xD
All genres and languages of music are welcome! However, in most singing communities j-pop (Japanese mainstream music), Hello! Project (a less mainstream, more niche-audience type of j-pop) and anime music tend to be the most popularly covered. Hence, Japanese is the predominate language in most singing communities. Even so, it is my hope that people with various kinds of music interests will join and make this community more diverse in the type of music it produces than other communities. So if you're not interested in j-music, I encourage you even more to join and bring along friends who want to sing the type of music you want to sing! Help expand this community!
What are your requirements to join?
As long as you have a microphone that can connect to your computer and some sort of program that allows you to record yourself singing (I recommend the free program Audacity, but if you have a Mac be sure to check to see if you have GarageBand installed already!), you have met the requirements to join FukiSuki. ;] That's right, NO AUDIIONS are required.
If you want to audition, you can always post your audition song in the appropriate forum for other members to listen to and comment/critique! ^_^
Why are no auditions required?
I created this community with the mentality that anybody who wants to should be able to sing here. All talent levels are welcome, how else is someone supposed to get better if they can't practice and get advice on how to improve?
How does this all work, exactly?
Well, first of all most everything is handled on the forums. Forums provide a great way to get organized and keep in contact with other members about our projects, as well as a perfect place to release them once they're finished.
The process itself has a number of necessary elements, as well as some elements that are just traditional for singing communities.
Project Leader -- a project leader is the person who takes care of most or all of the organization process of any given project.
Color-coded Lyrics -- once a track list and members participating have been decided for a project, lyrics will be color-coded to clearly represent who will be singing what parts of the song and then distributed to the members participating.
Lines/Parts -- each member uses the color-coded lyrics and sings their lines/parts on a recording program (most often Audacity). Usually members wear headphones while singing along to a song so that the microphone doesn't pick up the music when recording. They then turn in their lines/parts to a mixer, which ends up as a file (usually in mp3 form) the length of the song with nothing but the member's voice being heard (no music) on their appropriate lines/parts.
Deadlines -- Deadlines are crucial when it comes to finishing a project. An online community has the disadvantage of having people from various countries, lifestyles and time zones, so it would be impossible to pick day and time to get together and sing. Deadlines are set so everyone can record their parts when they have time, yet be done within a reasonable amount of time so that the mixing process can begin. On average, members get 1 month to record their songs (though there is a lot of problems with people missing their deadlines).
Mixing -- The mixer takes all the members' lines/parts and puts them together on a program (again, Audacity is often used for this), and adds an instrumental version of the song that was recorded for the backing track. Mixing often involves more complicated adjustments (volume control, quality adjustment, careful syncing of the instrumental & voices, added special effects, etc.), but this varies per project.
Releasing -- Once all parts for a project have been received and all songs mixed, it is ready to be released! This being the most rewarding part, it is traditional among singing communities to create cover art to go along with the song(s) that are uploaded and provided with download links on the release forums. We also like to keep to common practices of the music industry and release them as albums or singles.
Even with all the effort we put into our projects, there are common problems that pop up when it comes to online singing. There are usually timing issues, which occur because we cannot practice together to make sure we are all perfectly in sync when a lineis being sung by multiple people. Also, microphone quality varies greatly from person to person, and so do the acoustic values of the spaces we sing in. Because of reasons like this, online singing communities will never be able to match up to the quality that you get with professionally recorded music. But we sure try our hardest, and that is something to be proud of. :]
How can I join?
It's really easy! Read about it here.