7 best tools for an online music collab
Check out 7 of the best remote collaboration tools for musicians and producers.
With restrictions on travel remaining in place and many countries in some form of lockdown, musicians and producers are still on the lookout for how to collaborate on music remotely. Thank goodness for the internet – luckily there’s some great tools for online music collaboration out there.
Even before the pandemic, making music on your own was a lovely but lonely task. Some producers struggle to get inspired and motivated to push their creativity to the next level without input from others.
With that in mind, here’s seven useful tools for collaborating on music remotely.
Kompoz
Kompoz (pronounced “compose”) is a music collaboration platform where you can create songs with other musicians, wherever they are. Either public collaborations or private between your bandmates or other producers. You can upload whatever project you’re working on from your DAW to Kompoz.
Kompoz is free, and also offers premium options for monthly or annual fees.
If you’re missing the melding of creative musical minds, check Kompoz out here.
BandLab
Amazing free platform BandLab makes remote music collaboration easy with its combination of a DAW with a focus on social side of music creation. You can collaborate easily with other musicians and producers in real time, making tracks together and offering feedback. The social media-esque community are encouraging and inspiring.
BandLab is completely free – get started here.
Splice
The geniuses at Splice offer cloud-based music storage along with collaboration tools, competitions to enter and a big sample library. Sync up your DAW – Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro X, GarageBand and Studio One are supported. Splice also has a huge amount of high-quality plugins available to try for free and buy for a monthly fee.
Create a free Splice account here.
Satellite Plugins 2.0
Satellite Plugins 2.0 is a free plugin by Mixed in Key that lets producers work with anyone in any DAW, in real time. Audio and MIDI syncs automatically between DAWs. You can back-up projects to the cloud.
Satellite Plugins 2.0 is available as a free plugin for a limited amount of time.
Music file sharing
Not keen on signing up to any platforms? Good old-fashioned file sharing is sometimes the most useful tool for musicians who need to share projects with someone they’re collaborating with.
You just need a platform that allows large file transfers in an easy-to-use way. There’s so many out there – some good free file sharing and sending services include WeTransfer, DropBox and MediaFire, for example. There’s also good old Google Drive and iCloud for file sharing.
SoundBetter
SoundBetter connects musicians with professional audio engineers to mix their tracks. It’s a marketplace for producers, previously owned by Spotify. You can hire the best Grammy award-winning engineers, producers and musicians.
ProCollabs
A professional online platform for sharing and exchanging musical ideas in any genre, and earning money as an artist-for-hire. Using ProCollabs, studios can hire session musicians, songwriters can hire producers and audio engineers, and artists can collaborate with each other remotely. Collaborators download the project tracks to work on in their own time rather than in real time.
Find out more about ProCollabs here – memberships range from free to Platinum at $95 a year.