Desktop music-mixing software like GarageBand has liberated musicians from the sound studio. Now Bojam wants to liberate them from the constraints of geography or the isolation of their rooms. Bojam is a Web-based sound studio that lets musicians practice playing music, find other musicians around the world to jam with, and lay down tracks together on the same song.
Bojam is a fully functional music mixer. You can adjust the volume on each track or add effects like distortion and reverb. CEO Andrew Greenstein claims that Bojam has “all the advanced features you would find in a studio recording mixer, but all on your browser.” During the demo at TechCrunch50, he showed how a drummer in LA, a bassist in Tel Aviv, and a keyboardist in Tokyo recorded a song together on Bojam. (Unfortunately, the song they chose was Toto’s “Africa”).
Beyond being a collaborative tool, Bojam is also a community for musicians. It is a place where you can find other musicians to play with anywhere in the world, asynchronously. Once a song is recorded, other Bojam musicians can check it out, watch a video of the original musician playing, along with music notation streaming across the screen so they can learn to play the part as well. Or, they can change the track. If a song is really good, the musicians can decide to sell it on iTunes or Rhapsody for 99 cents. Music teachers can also use the service to auction off their services (as can studio musicians half-way across the world).
One of the company’s founders is Eyal Hertzog, the founder of video-sharing site Metacafe. And it was built for about $100,000.
Panelist Q&A:
Joi Ito: Who owns the music?
Greenstein: Everyone will own their own rights.
Ito: Is it clear to the user?
Greenstein: This is contract law, not copyright law. Users will have to let others collaborate, but don’t have to let them distribute it.
Horowitz: I really love it. It seemed to me that something like this should exist. One thing that concerned me was your choice of “Africa” by Toto. I felt like I was trapped in an elevator for eight minutes.
Robert Scoble: Can a music teacher auction off their services and make a business?
Greenstein: Absolutely, musicians can auction off their services, teachers can auction off tutorials, music schools can use it..
Ito: The interface is new, but not the idea.
Scoble: Have you thought about tying it to Rockband or a video band
Greenstein: Rockband is interesting because it shows that people want to interact with their music, but Rockband is not for serious musicians.
Ito: Is this a production tool, a learning tool or a game
Greenstein: this is a production tool, also can learn. Ultimately want to see music being prodced and sold. Some songs are going to be really good.
Click here to watch video of this demo.
I liked this site/service… and will be trying it out. Earlier this year I was trying to write a song per day and this would have been fun to use.
The answer to the question is NO.
This is awesome.
How is it different from the over a dozen other sites that already do this?
For example eJamming?
Is the innovation replacing the “e” with a “bo”?
it’s very different. This is a recording studio online, where the user can record straight from his professional audio interface to the web. there is no other service like that.
Couldn’t they have inaugurated it with, I don’ t know, some Elvis Costello or Johnny Cash? Otherwise, looks pretty great. I particularly the part about enabling musicians to sell their music.
It was a great presentation, but I agree, I think we’ve seen this before.
- Ejamming
- Indaba music
Did I miss something? I’m not a musician, so maybe this is just that much better?
it’s very different. this is an online recording studio that let’s you record directly from your machine to the web.
Add TuneRooms to that list
I’ve been using kompoz.com, and love it. Not sure if real-time collaboration like Bojam proposes really works. Others have tried it, like ninjam, and always the latency and other issues prevent it from wide-scale adoption. Sites like kompoz take a different (and in my opinion) better approach. With Kompoz, you record with your favorite desktop software (like Pro Tools, garageband, Audacity, or whatever), then share the tracks and collab online. It’s a better approach for me. It lets me noodle offline and perfect my track, plus use the power of my desktop record software, then collab on my time.
Toto is awesome. They’re some of the most talented musicians to play. Former session musicians. ‘Nuff said.
@ DennisSC — Johnny Cash is dead.
If this works it is cool. Ejamming and Indaba music really REALLY blow.
You should not limit this just to Rock n Roll —you should include all kinds of music –from Symphony Orchestras playing so-called classical music to Jazz. You will make much more money by being inclusive of everybody. Also please turn the volume down—-I do not need you blowing my speakers or my sound card.
Wow, I think I’m actually going to try this out. This is pretty cool. I know someone who had a startup like this 10 years ago, started with major top 40 musicians. It was one of those cool innovations that arrived too early.
Google doesn’t think much of the idea… check it out. It’s been blacklisted.