Music collaborations occur when two or more musicians from different groups or locations work on one piece. Usually, multiple parties, including songwriters, singers, lyricists, producers, and composers, come together to ensure that the created song is nothing short of perfect. Over the years, collaborations have brought forth massive hits such as “The Girl is Mine” by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney and “Endless Love” by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. Even legendary groups like “The Beatles” steamed from several parties choosing to profit from working together. Music collaboration trends have continued into the digital era. Thanks to the internet, it’s now possible for different musicians to work together through online music collaboration.
With the rapid growth of technology, collaboration practices have changed immensely over the past few decades. Whether you want to collaborate with a creative-minded individual a few miles from your home or half a world away, distance is no longer a barrier. Working online is cost-effective, not to mention that it’s now more accessible and more convenient for busy professionals to collaborate from any location across the globe.
- Benefits of Online Music Collaboration
- Best Practices for Online Music Collaboration
- 7 Top Tools for Online Music Collaboration
- Conclusion
Benefits of Online Music Collaboration
Making music is and has always been a communal activity. Even in the present times, musical projects always involve various collaborative interactions when writing, recording, performing, mixing, mastering, or distributing music. In the past, collaborations took place around tribal campfires. Today, they occur online where it is cheaper, faster, and more convenient for creative minds to meet and work together irrespective of their geographic locations.
Independent artists are today on the frontline of taking full advantage of the latest online working models. Generally, Indies are changing the narrative of music-making with online music collaboration. Other prime benefits of such partnerships include:
- Sharing ideas and tapping into each other’s skills
- Increased productivity
- Mastering of new techniques and aptitudes (better musicianship)
- Receiving and sharing constructive criticism
- Enhanced networking
- Increase of the fan base of each collaborative partner involved (greater recognition)
- Increased music sales and revenue
- More gigs and opportunities to work with more prominent music artists
Best Practices for Online Music Collaboration
Unfortunately, online music collaboration is not a walk in the park. With the parties already divided by geographical locations, proper planning is necessary to ensure a music project is a success. If you lack a plan, rules, and clear goals, you risk wasting time on a collaborative effort that cannot yield the intended fruit.
Let’s have a look at some of the best online music collaboration practices that can help ensure your project is successful:
Accurate and Transparent Communication
As aforementioned, online music collaboration makes it faster and more convenient for different parties to work together. Unfortunately, the improper transfer of messages can lead to unwarranted misunderstandings and misplaced assumptions. Ultimately, this can make it challenging to achieve the desired outcome.
Preventing such a hurdle is simple—accurate and transparent communication. Make sure you define your song ahead of time and decide what message you want to send. It is also imperative to be clear on the genre of your music right from the onset. It ensures that all collaborating partners understand the intended outcome before work begins.
Online Music Collaboration; Take Advantage of Suitable Platforms
Again, it’s a digital world. You can find numerous great tools and platforms designed to make online music collaboration easier. For instance, you could use Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox as your preferred file sharing and storage platform. Anyone within the team can access various music files or even add WAV files of tracks or lyric sheets. Moreover, everyone in the group will have corresponding permissions to view edits and the history of any changes made. With the right platforms, you can even integrate your emails or live chat to facilitate ongoing communication.
Moreover, you can use platforms like Tunedly as your professional online recording studio. This platform makes online music collaboration easier because it doubles as a file-sharing platform and an interactive tool that allows video and live chats. The best part is that using the platform is dead-easy, and you don’t need to be tech-savvy to make maximum use of all the available features.
Decide Who Owns What
Another vital online music collaboration practice is to declare every party’s copyright. Unlike the old age where only a few parties would receive credit for a song, it is today quite common for a list of composers, lyricists, and producers to receive credit. For instance, “work,” a song by Rihanna and Drake, gives credit to all the nine collaborators. Ideally, defining who owns what ensures you don’t get into loggerheads when sharing royalties and payouts. The last thing you want is for someone to blow into public theatrics right after you have released your project commercially.
Typically, the input and output are limited when more people collaborate on a song. However, this doesn’t mean you cannot work out a cooperative agreement that stipulates each person’s percentage. Again, deciding on the matter at the onset helps alleviate unnecessary stress and misunderstandings once your product is ready for the market.
Online Music Collaboration Tool; Opt To Work with Professionals
Here’s the deal, for an online music collaboration to make sense, every team member must have some value to bring to the table. It could be expertise in a specific field or equipment that makes it possible to fulfill particular roles. When you work with experts, you can trust that the outcome of each designated position will be nothing short of a marvel.
The idea of collaborating is to make one excellent piece thanks to different artists’ unique skills and talents. That said, a professional team will ensure top-quality audio, “killer” lyrics, and angelic sounds from various instruments. Anything less will make your collaboration a waste of time and resources.
Freedom of Creative Expression
Collaborations should help to enrich a song and make it a definite hit. After all, different artists are good at different things. Hence, it is good practice to allow free creative expression to tap into the skills and talents of each team member. Free sharing of ideas is key to ensuring your collaboration is a complete success.
7 Top Tools for Online Music Collaboration
Today, more than ever, collaborations are at the heart of creating “great” music. Such partnerships are seen as a necessity, especially for independent and upcoming musicians. The best part is that through online music collaboration, geographic locations are no longer a barrier. Musicians from all corners of the globe can use technology to connect, communicate and make great music.
There has been an upsurge in collaborative music tools with faster internet connections, stronger mobile networks, and an inherent need for people to work faster and conveniently. We searched the markets to find the top 7 tools that offer unrivaled levels of efficiency.
Online Music Collaboration Tool; Amuse Pro
Amuse Pro has a whole host of features designed to make online music collaboration a breeze. Some of the best features include team accounts, automatic royalty splits, and VIP customer support. Moreover, the app supports multi-artist profiles to ensure you keep everything organized for quicker releases. Another great feature of this Amuse Pro is that it allows you to distribute your music to various social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok.
SoundStorming
SoundStorming also ranks high on the list of top-rated online music collaboration tools. This social music app is designed to allow artists to upload lyrics, song ideas, and melodies. The best part is that you can dodge the hassle of recording riff ideas and themes on your iPhone’s Memos folder and conveniently use the app to lay the foundation of all your ideas. With this app, your uploads can be seen and heard by musicians across the globe, allowing you to benefit from constructive criticism and hopefully find a viable collaborative partner in the course of it.
Online Music Collaboration Tool; Soundtrap
Soundtrap is making a buzz for its user-friendliness. It is a tool owned by Spotify and stands as one of the best online digital audio workstations (DAW). Whether you want to create beats or record your music, the vast array of loops and instruments will make your work easier. Another prime benefit of using the platform is that it allows you to send and edit tracks with friends during online music collaboration sessions. According to customer reviews, the interface is ideal for beginners and even better for pros. You can start with the free trial for a month and then decide whether you want to upgrade to the paid version of the app.
JamKazam
JamKazam is yet another outstanding online music collaboration tool that allows you to play music with other creative minds from across the globe. With this app, you can opt to broadcast live performances or just pre-record our music. Compared to using other programs such as Zoom or Google Hangouts, Jamkazam offers faster connections making it an excellent tool for music rehearsals. Essentially, you can play with your team in real-time!
Endless
Another platform that must not escape your attention is Endless. While it is relatively new in the market, it is making waves for its ability to allow artists, beatmakers, DJs, and producers to collaborate in real-time. According to its users, this platform offers one of the best interfaces, perfect for beginners.
Online Music Collaboration Tool; Pibox Music
If you are looking for the best file-sharing tool ideal for remote music collaborations, we highly recommend that you check out Pibox Music. Some of its best features include video calls, live chat, commenting, and screen-sharing, just to mention a few. Another ideal component is that you can upload remix audio files with remarkable ease. Also, it allows you to dodge the hurdles of sending endless emails among your team of artists.
Avid Cloud
Lastly, we have the Avid Cloud. It is an excellent collaborative tool designed for use with Pro Tools. It allows a group of artists to share their contributions to one Pro Tools project. The in-built chat feature allows smooth communications between the team and giving or receiving feedback in real-time. Another outstanding feature is that once you begin a collaboration, the app saves your work automatically and reopens the project in the cloud for added convenience.
In a Wrap
Are you an artist interested in partnering with musicians across the globe to make great music? No problem! Physical gathering is currently not a necessity, thanks to online music collaborative tools. We have wrapped up 7 of the best tools that make remote collaborations a breeze. Whether you want to share files and tracks or simply want to brainstorm with your team, these tools have you covered. Better still, we have discussed some of the best practices to ensure that collaborations bring you personal satisfaction, endless growth opportunities, and success.
