JamGlue, one of the YCombinator companies, publicly launched today. JamGlue is an online community, similar to SpliceMusic, where you can listen to or mix music from a library of tracks and other mixes. JamGlue was originally in private beta with 2,500 members and a basic library of 1,500 tracks.
JamGlue, as their slogan suggests, is about providing “Remixing for the Masses” via their Flash-based mixing board. The board is a lot slicker than its Splicemusic counterpart. Key differences are that it expands to fill your browser window, allows you to add innumerable tracks to a mix which can be nested in groups, zooms in and out on tracks, and reacts to changes to the mix while still playing. JamGlue managed to do it all on their initial $18,000 budget and a bit of their own finances. Splicemusic, however, supports beatmatching and recording your own sounds within their sequencer.
Both sites allow you to remix other users’ mixes. JamGlue does this by generating an XML file representation of the mix that contains all of the edits to the original sound clips and tracks. When you’re finished, both JamGlue and SpliceMusic master the final mix and let you download your masterpiece as an mp3. JamGlue’s track nesting, however, makes it easier to manage additions to existing remixes or remixes made up of multiple remixes. Take a listen to some of my favorites from the site.
A community built around derivative works begs the big question: copyright? Close to Lawrence Lessig’s rip-mix-and-burn philosophy, both JamGlue and Splice use the Creative Commons license. JamGlue has it broken down into five different licenses that always allow remixing, but also control commercial use and modification of the original license. They also seek protection by respecting take-down requests under the DMCA “safe harbor” provision and user flagging.
For the launch, JamGlue is also holding a music mixing contest with the forward-thinking Nettwerk music label. The song “Peace and Hate” by the band Submarines will be put on the chopping block under the Creative Commons license for the community to mix and mash. The makers of the six most popular mixes will get prizes.
For more Creative Commons beats, check out ccMixter.org.
Good story Nick, however I think you meant to reference http://www.ccmixter.org (ORG) not .com (as this is parked site sure to make the owner very happy).
The JamGlue tool is very useful and would provide an alternative to apples garageband. Hopefully the online tracks library will become more comprehensive over time. The flash interface is cutting edge. Keep up the great work.
These are always nice as a novelty and to see how the web-end technology is advancing… but they don’t usually hang around for very long. Everyone of these I’ve ever seen has eventually dropped off the radar.
I like how these sites get your average musicians interested in sampling, sequencing and the like, but most of them move on to more robust applications. And most people won’t be content to work solely with samples.
Y Combinator has another winner at hand!
It’s kind of not my thing but looks cool. What’s interesting is that they’re offering prizes – it seems that incentives are becoming a bit of a trend right now (sites paying for content, prizes, etc). It feels very similar to ecommerce sites offering deep discount codes to drive business in retail space – it’s had a fairly interesting effect on consumers, retailers and brands (so much that it’s created a bit of disruption). I wonder what kind of effects incentives on Web 2.0 platforms will have in offering these type of things to readers/users.
Hmmm…was always fascinated with music and mixing the art of mixing…
Another great idea but will I have the time and patience at this age…hmmm
Should really be great though for the younger generation….great resource tools…music, mixers, listeners all in one place….really great….
Wow – another good one. Great story.
thanks sean
I actually like this site…interesting
first i play/jam/whatever…so i know the music industry and its tools very well; and the first thing i wanted to do…was create an mp3 from the mix. Couldn’t do it, or didn’t find the button.
other than that, i think most musicians will stick to fruityloops (free, and cheap version available) and the other stuff.
its a good idea, kinda, but if your creating music you want more cool/responsive/real tools…this seems like a good thing to goof off with.
i was disappointed i couldn’t creat an mp3. it needs something else if it is going to go somewhere. community is not going to work cause i don’t really wanna talk to beat makers.
i am being negitive, but i’ve been playing music since i was 14…and i’m not too serious about it, so that is why i think this is a great fuck-around tool.
Hi lemon obrien,
Thanks for your feedback — we definitely appreciate it.
There’s a download box on the left side of every track/mix page where you can get a MP3 of your mix. We automatically create a new MP3 for you every time you hit save in the mixer. Let me know if you see any problems with it…
We’re working hard every day to improve the mixer and make its capabilities closer to what desktop software provides. We’d love to hear more specific comments about what you think Jamglue is missing so that we can focus our development efforts. Thanks!
Matt,
I don’t think it’s a good idea to compete with a desktop software – go for the social/community aspect instead!
Jack,
We’ll absolutely keep working on the social/community features (my personal favorite part of the website). Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day to devote to all of the requested features. Know any good engineers?
whats the point?
when there is tones of free software doing the mixing job much better who will need sth like this?
can u imagine one day tiesto will open JamGlue in firefox and start his show?:)
I came up with a really good thing you could do to make jamglue way better…but i wanna get paid for my idea; stock would be ok.
Pretty amazing that they managed to do that all on so little. Hope they can continue to survive till the money starts coming in.
I agree. Don’t try and replicate desktop software… you’ll never win. Desktop software will always give you greater control. The last thing you want is someone comparing a Flash app to Garage Band, or Acid. Great Flash interface. Impressive. Although the mixing experience is too free form. There is no musical integrity in the tracks being mixed (when you choose from community tracks), which means that unless you have perfect pitch and your brain works like a metronome, aggregating random tracks from random users will most certainly result in a musical mess .
I can see this type of community really taking off. Beck was just talking about this type of creative work flow in a recent issue of Wired, (he is on the cover).
The other thing that is interesting is Wired even hinted that record companies were going to be cut out completely. This just hands the songs and music from the bands right into the hands of the fans who want them.
Given there are lots of these sites popping up (jamglue, Mix2r.com, Splice music, ccmixter), it would be nice if the owners got together to adopt a common metadata format and way to use clips, loops and tracks across all the platforms. Individually, they are doing good work but together, it might be strong enough to start to change the music industry.
That’s a pretty nifty tool!
Good day! motilium
rip gurl i luv ur songs