One of the best parts of being an active musician for me these days is collaborating with others from all over the world. I routinely communicate with world-class musos and a common sentiment is “Man, we should work together on some project…” sometimes they work-out…sometimes not.
I have done many remote recording sessions from the comfort of my home studio for years (Sending ADAT tapes through the mail in the ’90’s) but the internet has afforded us a good number of great tools to make this option easier.
Musicians typically have their favorite recording software that thy know and love. Whether you use Garageband, Logic, Digital Performer, Pro Tools, Live, Reaper or something else, these DAWs all have the ability to export your tracks to a format that can then be pulled into your collaborators DAW where work can continue.
There are several ou there but here are some of the tools I use and love for this type of project.
Dropbox. It’s a super-simple, cross-platform, free service that is GREAT for all file types that you either want to share, archive or sync across multiple computers.
SoundCloud offers an array of services. It’s fast, you can throw nearly any audio file format at it, it looks great and it just works. Make files public or private, share full mixes or single audio files, embed great-looking audio players anywhere on the web. Cool.
Sendspace. A new discovery for me. I used this on a recent project involving audio, video and text files and MANY collaborators. Put all media in a folder, compress it into a .zip file and send away.
Email. A useful and oft-used solution. Files can be too large for some email services and the back and forth nature of larger projects can make this a less-than-ideal solution.
FTP is an oldie but a goodie. May be a little cryptic for the noob but any file can be deposited for later retrieval by anyone you provide access.
IndabaMusic receives honorable mention here. Even though I have yet to try this service first-hand, it seems created specifically for remote collaboration. I’ll be keeping my eye on these folks.
Have I forgotten your favorite? Tell me about it in the comments. If you have another solution, I’m interested to learn.
Indaba is ok for collaboration but I think the site is more geared towards contest opportunities. The collaborative tools they provide are good though if you already have musicians you are working with.
Kompoz is a site I’ve used before that is really geared towards collaboration more than anything else. Musicians can start projects and define needs that will be searchable to other musicians looking for something to contribute to.
Both sites are free to use, but you can buy premium access (more storage, ability to post lossless files, etc) for a nominal fee.