I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog …

WeMix is not really a technology company like the other ones in the story. We take more of a record label approach to the space – we’ve built an incentive and promotion model to spark collaboration – which in turn has enabled us to rapidly build a robust song catalog.

The comments about marketing and promotion are spot on. At the end of the day you need to build a real value proposition for artists to monetize their creativity, otherwise the collaboration is just a pastime.

We’d love to partner with companies like Minimum Noise to fuel the process and help build the emerging “middle class” of musicians.

I actually think this is kinda cool. Imagine the possibilities? The fusion of influences, the collaborative works.

Let’s give them sometime…

Nick Batt over at Sonic State suggests that the future of download music is multi-tracks:
http://www.soni...s-multi-tracks/

…and really, it seems like this could be a section on iTunes or Amazon at some point in the future.

In addition to MixMatchMusic, CCmixter and the other sites mentioned in the comments, existing sites in the same ‘collaboration’ mode include Beatport and http://www.acapellas4u.co.uk

I can’t understand what Minimum noise is doing, sadly. The whole “make an offer of money” to get people interested in being part of your project is kind of strange to me. I prefer to be able to create a project and ask people to add their samples, takes, etc. on what I am doing. I don’t want to offer money for people to take pot shots at my project and maybe get me what i’m looking for. Furthermore, the implications of legality of if someone really made a beat that you “buy” from them, etc. is quite dire. I applaud them for trying to come up with a different model and give musicians a way to sell their services, but I think it has to be done differently than this.

Just my thoughts, from a guy who’s been doing this for over two years now on the net.

When the Beatles released their “new” tunes to coincide with the documentary, people said they were not authentic because they just added themselves into old recordings by John Lennon. However, Paul McCartney argued that, on the later albums, that’s how Beatles songs were made anyway. They never saw John. They just came into the studio and would work with whatever he left them.

So this was probably inevitable. I don’t think it is the best thing to happen to music or the worst. It’s just part of the continuing story.

So, while online music collaboration isn’t for everybody, it should definitely appeal to the millions of unsigned, emerging, and bedroom artists around the world. The key, I think, is to make sure that there is a proper rights management system in place, that tracks how works are used, attributes authors, and ensures that the music made is commercially viable.

I’ve made some great music over at MixMatchMusic.com, which is a community where musicians can collaborate online and make money from not only their songs, but also their stems, ideas, riffs, and works in progress. Musicians can choose to actively collaborate, or they can crowdsource music “passively” by contributing to the community “sample” library and seeing how others use their work. They can even make some money off their contributions, while be notified of usage and attributed to resulting creations. Or, they can find parts that work well with what they’re doing and add them to the song they’re working on.

A particularly interesting application of music crowdsourcing is that it can give artists a new way to engage with fans by letting them interact with and experience music creation. Crowdsourcing a song can give fans an interactive, “behind-the-scenes” look at how the music is made, and can bring in fans to help create the song (much like Weezer and third eye blind have done) before its release, or to remix it after the release. MixMatchMusic’s Remix Wizard (remixwizard.mixmatchmusic.com) is a great way to do this via a customizable (and free) widget that any band can use to host a remix promotion or to otherwise crowd source the music creation process for a particular release.

Calling this a music collaboration site is inaccurate. This site is more like 99Designs.com in that it allows a music producer to solicit parts of a project based on needs.

It’s like paying someone to sing the song you wrote; or paying someone to come up with a funky bassline. It happens all the time on the ground.

Neither the idea, it’s specific twist, nor the site design will determine if this site makes it. It will be the founders ability to build a community that will make or break this site.

It looks like a fine idea, though.

- Curtis
http://ShipItOnTheSide.com – Learn to ship profitable software as a side job.

the music business is all about the song not the technology.

while i’ll agree that the interest, tools and bandwidth needed are more or less easily available to the mainstream here in north america to make this concept work today. being a musician / song writer and having had the opportunity to test this space out for myself over an 18 month period with a similar start-up venture as well having followed several of the other sites mentioned in this blog, i concluded over a year ago and still hold the opinion that the business model of “crowding” song writers / musicians who may or may not know each other to collaborate online in the hopes of “one-day” monetizing the investment required by way of revenues derived from managing a profitable song catalogue or publishing company (cc, rev sharing with the artist or otherwise, etc.) is not very likely i’m sorry to say.

the bottom line in all this remains the fact that discovering and marketing a new “hit” song, talent, band, etc. which btw is the only true measure of success in today’s music business and what is needed to attract a “crowd” of recorded music buyers to make this all pay for itself is too unpredictable. but to then duplicate that initial “hit”???

lastly, do not even get me started on thinking that a starving could or any successful artist would pay to be included such a service today or after the freeium and advertising models have failed to produce any results.

my 2 cents on the subject…

http://www.indabamusic.com