Follow Ups:Category: Collaboration
From: pan (Perry Leopold)
To: hhutton (Henry Hutton)
Date Posted: December 28, 2001 at 21:44:57
Subject: Re: Online Musician Collaboration?
Reference: Online Musician Collaboration?
Hey Henry ... nice site you have there! Good work!The PAN Network has been encouraging this type of thing for years. Our current Songwriters Collaboration Network, which is more of a one-on-one "matchmaker" kind of deal, was preceeded by our MIDI Collaboration Network, which dates back to 1986 (approx when SongFileFormat was implemented so that sequencer files were standardized). The idea was to have folks submit a tune, or a fragment, upload it to the database, and others could download it, add their licks, and re-upload it. There were some pretty cool sessions that resulted over the years, but by and large, we've found that the best players/writers don't participate (for a variety of reasons). So at the end of the day, it boils down to a database of mostly mediocre stuff that no one except those participating cares to listen to.
And by the way, it *can* be spontaneous (i.e. interactive), but at the present time, there's still a latency issue that limits synchronization. If everyone's track isn't right on the beat, it sounds like mud (technically speaking). But it's worth pursuing if you're interested.
Keep us informed of how things develop. You're on the right track! (no pun intended) ...
* P *