Where musicians go for online collaboration: social networks for recording, remixing and mashing up tracks

Ever recorded a guitar riff that you really liked but just couldn’t find the proper vocal melody to make it come to life? This is part of my daily frustrations as a songwriter, and vocals are far from being the only ones responsible. The better question is: ever recorded anything that hasn’t reached completion due to lack of motivation or inspiration? I’m guessing the answer is yes if you have a recording setup and use it. Usually these incomplete musical extracts are left behind and stored in an amazingly disorganized bottomless pit of sub folders somewhere in one of your many hundred-something-giga hard-drives. In other words, they usually get lost and forgotten. You can always fall upon them one day browsing through your data and give them another shot, but chances are you won’t. What I recommend for these type of ideas is either hook-up whatever instrument you got on the spot and start playing experimental free-jazz to loosen up some ideas, or just upload your tracks to a remix and collaboration site like CCMixster.

Remix and musical collaboration websites are becoming extremely popular nowadays and CCmixtster is a well respected one. Very simple concept: upload your tracks for others to remix and arrange them. You can upload an a cappela track indicating the key and tempo in which you’re singing and have someone produce the instrumentals. You can upload that guitar track we were talking about and have a singer give it a try. Basically these sites makes it easy to get your music in the hands of others for the purpose of collaborating and sharing talents.

I would recommend checking out these sites as well:

• IndabaMusic: Incredible website for songwriters. Very professional approach to the musical collaboration process encompassing a dynamic social network. Create a session and invite people from the community to join and upload their ideas.
• Kompoz: Great website for music collabs. Simple interface, strong social architecture, this is definitely a place to start off.
• Wemix: Mainly focused on hip-hop artists for the creation of mix-tapes, WeMix was founded by Ludacris. The site has some powerful tools for remixing audio and video but lacks flexibility for its collaboration purposes. It has more to do with playing around with their audio/video editor then networking. Then again it’s  pretty fun, and it’s currently generating a lot of interest. Plus they just singed some deals to turn your phone into a microphone. Users will be able to upload their recordings directly to the site (if I got it right).
• Jamglue: Very interesting site with an integrated audio sequencer. You upload tracks and mix. You can also open other sessions and remix those.  Their simple interface makes it easy to get started in no time.
• Remix.nin: Nine in Nails remix site. Trent gives out some of his tracks so we can fool around with them. BradSucks is an indie artist who started doing this with his own music and got massive recognition from it. Great idea, all bands should do this!

This new approach to creating music goes far beyond just needing extra inspiration for your songs. It’s more about finding the right people to work with and creating real interaction with musicians from around the globe. You can see it as a supply and demand type of relationship. Whether you’ll need a tabla player, a swing drum beat, a guitar-hero style tapping technique for a tune, all these websites will make it a hell of a lot easier to come by. Heck, you planning on playing a show in a town and need an extra guitarist to fill up some songs, find one in your target location ahead of time and send him your tracks. This could be a great way to diversify your style and have him bring his friends to your show. Unlimited possibilities are coming our way so let us embrace them in the name of the doggy.

Mruff, miaou, roar.