World Wide Collaboration

Scenario 1: You’ve nearly finished producing a killer track. All it needs is a screaming eight-bar organ solo, but when it comes to your keyboard work, you’re more of a Trent Reznor than a Joey Defranceso. Oh, and your deadline is in 48 hours and you don’t know any organ cats who live locally.

Scenario 2: Your car broke down in Nashville and your band’s in New York, preparing for the Biggest Gig Ever. You have a laptop and MIDI controller, the hotel has Internet, and you all need to go over that tricky outro before stepping onstage. About 100 times.

Scenario 3: Your keyboard idol gives lessons and you’re dying to hear his or her thoughts on reharmonizing that great ballad you just wrote. If only you both lived in the same city. . . .

Scenario 4: You have to prep for exams, can only take ten minutes here or there to do anything that doesn’t involve cramming, and love blowing off steam by making music. It sure would be nice if you could find a way to get your jam on without leaving your room during those precious study breaks.

Scenario 5: You love making music, period. You want to try something new and work with cool, innovative folks around the world.

Thanks to a growing list of increasingly sleek Internet-based music collaboration tools, a high-speed connection and a little know-how will take you a long way towards solving each of these conundrums. And from hobbyist to professional applications, the list of cool ways to augment your music-making with the Web could go on for pages.

Turnaround is rapid and ruthless in the e-world, and new collaboration portals and utilities seem to burst into existence with surprising speed and regularity, while others fade into darkness just as quickly. Rather than trying to cover every music-making hub on the Web as of publication, we’ve instead chosen to give you a cross-section of diverse, intriguing resources that will help you get your feet wet in the ocean that is online collaboration. From the most basic Web utilities to the most streamlined all-in-one sites, the services featured here offer amazing possibilities when it comes to music creation, and we hope you’ll find inspiration to take a dip and give at least one of them — or something similar — a try.

In traditional Keyboard fashion, we walked the walk before writing the talk; read on to find out what we learned by getting dirty with each tool, and how each Internet collaboration apparatus helped or hindered our creative processes. Much of what we discovered transcends any individual service or utility, and will apply to any type of Web collaboration you may attempt.

In the following articles (linked in the sidebar to the right), you’ll find:

Put ’Em Up

Veteran session cat Scott Healy has been using FTP sites to make music remotely for years. With the right tools and a little homework, you too can trade large files, interface with clients, and work with collaborators, regardless of location.

Do It Yourself . . . With Others

Using Max/MSP and Pure Data, Peter Kirn opens up the world of completely customized tools for networked music creation.

Wisdom from Afar

Jazz pianist extraordinaire Andy LaVerne gives lessons to students around the world using the Internet. Here’s what you need to know to get started teaching or learning on the Web.

Space Jam

Put the speaker-phone in the drawer — there’s a better way to cut away the miles and jam with players who don’t live nearby. Michael Gallant and members of the Keyboard community take eJamming for a spin.

The People’s Republic of Groove

Post your own project or play on other people’s tracks; Mitchell Sigman gets cozy with the social networking, e-commerce, and realtime teamwork hybrid portal, DigitalMusician.net.

Floops Well With Others

For electronica and beyond, get started collectively crafting tracks online using FL Studio’s Collab tool. Peter Kirn shows you how.

Free Trade Funk

The old way required lots of phone calls, schedules, hotel rooms, airplane tickets, studio reservations, and prayers that everything would work out. The new way to record with top session players of your choice involves a web browser, your credit card, and eSession.com. Michael Gallant takes a song from the first rough demo to the polished master.

To Infinity and Beyond!

Check out these links for more online collaboration possibilities.