

Show HN: BandHub - The Internet Recording Studio - PabloOsinaga
http://getbandhub.com

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brunorsini
I'm a musician/producer, just got to test this. I think it pretty much nails
it for dead simple, fast and furious music collaboration. The interface makes
it pleasant to lay down multiple tracks, working well both for people who have
used DAWs before and for recording newbies, and while on ideation stage video
beats just audio because you can immediately recall exactly how you played a
given part (by looking at your fingers/mouth/etc).

I think this has a lot of potential, and one possible use case would be for
bands to engage with their audiences directly, asking them to contribute parts
to their new songs.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I think this has a lot of potential, and one possible use case would be
for bands to engage with their audiences directly, asking them to contribute
parts to their new songs."

I think that's something you'll get very strong opinions on. I personally
couldn't imagine anything worse. I like the idea of bringing music creation
more public (live streaming recording sessions/producing, releasing works in
progress as you create something etc.) but actually crowdsourcing material
doesn't make sense to me as a creator or a fan. What I mean is that when you
create art a lot of the decisions you make are based on your emotions (e.g. if
I'm sad I write a sad song about the thing making me sad). Bringing other
people into that confuses things and as a listener I think I'd notice that in
the song. I'm not saying the music created would be bad (popular songs
nowadays tend to have a LOT of songwriters working on them) I'm just saying it
feels wrong to me.

~~~
PabloOsinaga
that's interesting

after you make a first crack at your song wouldn't you like to have awesome
session musicians play parts?

~~~
k-mcgrady
I didn't think of it like that. I was thinking more from the perspective of
having fans of your music actually contribute parts (i.e. lyrics, a verse, a
bridge etc.). The session musician idea is an interesting use case and one
that I like.

~~~
brunorsini
I think you have a valid point, but then the same could be argued for
Wikipedia vs. Encyclopedia Britannica or pretty much anything else that's
successfully crowdsourced online.

Of course the artist would have to curate at the end and only pick parts he
loves and fits his vision for the song, I just know for a fact that there
isn't an objectively "right" part for any song, so an amateur kid in a remote
country might actually create a bass line that fits the artist's vision for a
given song better than what a professional session player has come up with on
that specific day the artist had to work with him. It won't _sound_ as good,
obviously, but then the artist can re-record it properly. And the positive
side effect is, of course, a lot of fan base engagement.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I don't disagree with you. It really just depends on your personal
opinion/definition of art. I don't think there is a 'right answer'.

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PabloOsinaga
BTW - if you install the app, you can open this song:
[http://getbandhub.com/?s=524e26a8cc8d46e238000001](http://getbandhub.com/?s=524e26a8cc8d46e238000001)

And experience:

> Andrew Mason (Groupon co-founder) > Adrian Holovaty (inventor of Django web
> framework) > me

All somewhat related in this song:

[http://getbandhub.com/?s=524e26a8cc8d46e238000001](http://getbandhub.com/?s=524e26a8cc8d46e238000001)

~~~
pault
I've always felt like the world was missing a platform for remote musical
collaboration. This is a huge pain point for electronic music producers
without access to session musicians or complex recording setups for acoustic
drums. As far as I know the only current solution is to buy generic sample
packs (yuck) or put out an ad in craigslist and hope someone local responds. A
micropayment platform on top of this would be huge. Think odesk for session
musicians.

~~~
PabloOsinaga
Certainly. For now the micropayment amount is 0 and you can already find
pretty decent musicians there.

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MarkHarmon
I'm a person that has spent lots of money on low-latency digital audio
interfaces and know from experience that every millisecond counts. It seems
like this type of technology always suffers from latency issues. How are
latency issue overcome by BandHub?

~~~
PabloOsinaga
BandHub is not real time, but rather async. You lay down a track, then someone
else lays down another and so on. You record on top of what's already been
recorded. It's like a multitrack YouTube so to speak.

EDIT: new tracks show up after ~30 seconds of being recorded by other users.
so you can use it for real time production

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dec0dedab0de
This sounds awesome, please make a linux version. Or maybe use a format that
wouldn't require a specific client for advanced users that already have a
favorite client.

~~~
PabloOsinaga
That is interesting and opens the whole debate of whether it's best to let
people integrate their tools vs having our own experience.

We'd love to find a way to let people use their tools - however, the type of
UX that we are going after is 10x simpler than any DAW or recording software
out there.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
It seems like you're really creating two products, an editor and a
collaboration platform. Imagine if Github forced you to do all coding with a
custom IDE. That said, the simple UX sounds great, and I wouldn't even have
brought it up if there was a Linux client.

~~~
hisham_hm
> Imagine if Github forced you to do all coding with a custom IDE.

That's a great analogy. Github is a great model: I'd rather do as much as I
could in-browser and then only the stuff that requires local access to be done
from my tools of choice.

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esharef
So interesting to see start ups that help w this kind of remote collaboration.
An interesting example of globalization. Now a band can be in Toronto, DC and
Hong Kong at once. I wonder if the music will be more diverse and interesting

~~~
PabloOsinaga
I think there is a "long tail" tendency in all forms of art.

I.e., with YouTube/the internet you can now follow long-tail musicians that
you love.

And it will be the same for creation and not just consumption - you should be
able to find people to make music with that are truly compatible with your
interests/style/taste. Today you are kind of forced to make music with people
you meet in high school or whatever.

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mbrody
This looks like really cool technology to bring people together. I wonder if
it would be possible to make movies with too by shooting different scenes in
different locations and putting the audio all together.

~~~
PabloOsinaga
you can use it to shoot video clips - so when you are filming, you hear the
music - and it's easy to put all together nicely then ( 10x easier than using
video editing software )

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luisp128
Very cool, I had been trying to get together my old band from back in South
America but we had not been able to find a way for us to get it done. Looks
great, will give it a try this weekend.

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kgmpers
Typo on homepage:

"Contribute tracks to other people's songs. Open up _your_ songs for other
people's contributions. Clone/version/remix existing songs."

~~~
PabloOsinaga
fixed, thanks

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diegomay
I am a guitar aficionado... this app would be great. Remote collaboration with
high quality audio online can allow for interesting new music ideas to float.

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aneisen
Each track of the song is recorded separately? It would be nice to change mix
settings and replace people

~~~
PabloOsinaga
Yes, each track is recorded async/separately. When you record, you do it on
top of what's already been recorded.

You can change the mix, but only the original song "creator" can persist that
change permanently.

If you want to create your own mix, you can copy the song into a new one that
you control fully (mix, remove people, etc.). BTW you can do that with any
song already there.

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maxmem
I would have been all over this 2 years ago when my drummer lived 1200 miles
away.

~~~
PabloOsinaga
isn't it still useful even if he lives close by? aren't there times when it's
more convenient for you guys to each do your track at your own time / place ?

note I am not arguing against jamming side-by-side for real - which is
awesome. i see it more as a complement

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aneisen
Can I find other people there to make songs together?

~~~
PabloOsinaga
yes, you can browse "community songs" other people have posted and add your
parts to them

or you can create a new song, record 1 or many tracks and select available
musicians you'd like to record in it - or post it back to the community for
anyone to chime in

the end result is an awesome YouTube music video

EDIT: here is an example of an end-result YouTube video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUjxFWQSn9Q](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUjxFWQSn9Q)

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contextual
For recording audiobooks too, I presume?

~~~
PabloOsinaga
It is designed to record music, as it enable multiple tracks of both audio and
video to be mixed together.

I guess you could be creative and use it for audiobooks where you have a few
narrators that take turns :) -- but that would look more like a movie script
reading...

jokes aside, it is designed to produce music mainly

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robertomendes
Looking forward to the PC version!

~~~
PabloOsinaga
We are working on it and will have it ready in a few weeks... Ping me
privately (contact info in my profile) if you want to test our alpha PC builds

~~~
spurgu
And by PC are we talking about Windows or Linux or both? I really hope you
have a Linux version cooking.

edit: Didn't see the Windows logo besides the notification field. Guess my
hopes still apply, even though they might seem slim at the moment. :/

~~~
PabloOsinaga
We are working on the Windows version. We haven't started working on a Linux
version yet. But at some point we will start working on mobile versions too (
iPhone/iPad/Android )

I guess iPhone qualifies as Linux :)

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MarceloBirnbach
looks really cool. how does this compare to blend.io or splice?

~~~
PabloOsinaga
BandHub is not like a github in the sense of sharing / versioning of plain
files. it's an integrated product that makes it easy to produce music for both
the hobbyist musician (think YouTube musicians) as well as the pro. it is an
order of magnitude simpler than most digital audio workstations while
retaining 90% of their power.

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MarceloBirnbach
why not support for real time jamming?

~~~
PabloOsinaga
As much as we'd love to support real time simultaneous recording or jamming,
the latency in the internet makes it impossible (1)

We do support, however, real-time production. After you record a track, it
becomes almost-instantaneously available to other people, so they can record
their own on top, mix it, or whatever.

(1) To be extremely fair, you can achieve real-time jamming 1:1 if you buy
super low-latency specialized audio interfaces and are connected with someone
that doesn't live too far away in an area of the world where the internet
infrastructure is awesome. So it could work intra-city in the US or some parts
of Europe for example. But it would still be 1:1 and not really for "bands" in
the broader sense.

