The professional sound developer normally makes acid and ambient loop recordings, which can be used as samples, with his band Ma Ja Le—something they've been doing for the last 13 years.
But when he wanted to collaborate with a jazz guitarist on some of his new ideas, the Milwaukee-based musician found slim pickings locally.
In the past, Short would have been left with little recourse but to place a want ad in the usual publications and hope someone nearby would fit the bill. But instead he turned to indabamusic.com, a startup online music collaboration service that allows musicians to post files of their work, listen to other musicians' posts and create private sessions through which multiple parties can collaborate on a specific project.
Soon, Short found a kindred spirit in Canada, and the pair began collaborating on an experimental piece titled "Satanic Concertos for 200 Double Bass."
The Internet has already proved effective as a means of distributing and promoting music. Services like Indaba and others are now transforming it into an outlet for creation as well.
The combination of today's sophisticated home recording products like Garageband and Pro Tools with the ongoing advancements of broadband Internet accessibility and proliferation of Web-based applications can now provide musicians playing different instruments in different areas of the country a virtual studio.
Indaba launched the beta version of its service in January and has since gained 5,000 members, primarily professional session musicians and hobbyists. It joins a host of other collaborative services that have begun popping up in recent months that include JamGlue, Mix2r and Splice. One of the oldest such services—myvirtualband.com—was acquired by NetMusicMakers last September and now counts some 20,000 members.
Most are free up to a point. Indaba starts charging a $10 monthly subscription for members who use more than 250 MB of storage and transfer, while NetMusicMakers charges the same once usage surpasses 500 MB. Eventually, they hope to become profitable through a Web advertising model.
Some also allow professional studio musicians to charge for their work—Indaba has a barter function that lets members work out the details themselves and submit payment via PayPal and even has an eBay-like reputation system. Indaba counts 25% of its members from outside the United States, while 40% of NetMusicMakers' user base is international.
None, however, allow live collaboration. They're more like project-management systems optimized with music-editing tools.
Enter JamNow—another startup poised to launch its beta service in late May. The service will allow artists to jam together privately, invite others to listen in and even charge tickets for virtual "concerts." All sessions are recorded into files that musicians can then mix, mark and save as master files.
This isn't the first attempt at virtual jamming. A company called eJamming AUDiiO is operating in beta mode, charging $15 per month, per person. One of the principal founders, Alan Glueckman, is the cousin of Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer.
The risk with live jamming services like eJamming and JamNow is that Internet connections can still be dicey, causing a lag in audio streams that would basically ruin the experience with pauses and skips. Anyone using Internet phone services like Skype or Vonage know the drill.
The founders of eJamming, for instance, warn against using the service if members are further apart than a few hundred miles. Another live jamming service, NINJAM, limits the "live" jam to just a measure at a time.
Lightspeed hopes to get around this problem by building its own network, backed by such tech heavyweights as Schuyler Quackenbush (chairman of the MPEG audio subgroup and contributor to the MP3 and AAC formats) and networking expert Ted Darcy.
Eventually, all these services—both live jamming and not—hope to convert their systems into a consumer business as well. NetMusicMakers already airs several Internet radio stations exclusively featuring the music created by members, while Indaba and JamNow give artists the option to open sessions to fans at their discretion.
The idea is to offer emerging acts a forum to gain an audience, while more established acts can give fans a peek inside their development process.
"All the other [services] out there focus on a finished product to promote," Indaba founder Matt Siegel says. "One of the things we think is really unique about our product is that you can actually engage with musicians as they're creating things."
Will virtual collaboration ever replace the traditional concept of live collaboration? Unlikely. But for hobbyists to aspiring musicians to professional artists, these services are slowly establishing themselves as yet another digital resource redefining today's music industry landscape. ••••
<byline>For more on musicians making money from the Web, see "Cashing In," page 28.</byline>
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