

Paul Oakenfold crowdsources a beat on beatlab - jbaudanza
http://www.beatlab.com/ComeTogether

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JonnieCache
Before crowdsourcing this was just called a remix competition.

EDIT: I see that beatlab call it that as well.

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jbaudanza
If anyone out there is interested on working on beatlab with me, send me a
note. jon@beatlab.com.

Currently, beatlab.com is just me, but it is an incredibly fun project to work
on. I'm based out of San Francisco.

Of course, It's fun to get to do projects with people like Paul Oakenfold. But
it's also incredibly rewarding to interact with young kids on the site that
have no preconceived notions of how music should be created, and to watch them
progress on beatlab.

~~~
some1else
Hey Jon. Kudos for diving into this on your own and getting it off the ground
like that. I suggest you focus on a mobile/tablet app next, it seems like a
good fit for the product.

But one thing that precludes my own participation is, that beatlab is
essentially a walled garden :-S. While this may be a fun app that brings kids
closer to music, it's just impossible to attract serious musicians to a web-
based step sequencer with no download options whatsoever. The Facebook login
doesn't help either.

I've intentionally ripped the Come Together vocals and am going to use them in
a way that even YouTube infringement algorithms aren't able to fingerprint.
Just for the sake of truly creating something new out of the samples \o/.

I hope you understand that this is nothing personal, it's just the true
everything-is-a-remix mentality that's prevalent among music makers on forums,
SoundCloud and the like. If that's the crowd you'd eventually like to attract,
that's the mindset you'll have to get accustomed to and support with beatlab's
features.

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jbaudanza
Please feel free. Every mixed down track on the site comes with a download
button, but that may not be clear. I still don't provide a way to download
individual samples, but that's not because I'm philosophically opposed to it.
Lot's of people just "right click, inspect element" and that's fine.

I agree regarding facebook. I plan on offering soundcloud and google logins as
well.

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wwarneck
It's amazing how much work has gone into this site. Nice job.

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sc00ter
Fantastic job on the track editing UI! The thing I missed from the Explore &
Community pages is a progress bar for the currently playing track. I really
wanted to see how long the track was, how far through I am, and maybe skip
forward to see how the middle & end sounds (a waveform would be nice to let me
see where the peaks are, but not essential) without listening to the entire
track. I liked that starting a new track stops the currently playing one so
you don't get music hell - so many sites get that wrong! :-)

Oh, and congrats on getting Paul Okenfold on board, some coup!

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jbaudanza
Thanks sc00ter! I like the progress bar idea. I might also add a way to
comment on a track right from the play button. People love getting comments
and feedback.

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dkersten
Its nice, but I didn't like how "save" means "share". When I logged in with
facebook, it told me it wouldn't post to my wall or access my data, so I
wasn't expecting it to share my tune under my real name (I wouldn't have
clicked save if I'd have known).

~~~
jbaudanza
When you save a track, there is a little "lock" icon below where you type in
the track name. You can use this to mark a track as private. Sorry, that
should be more clear.

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dkersten
Ok, I see it now. I suggest a tooltip-style balloon popup that tells users
that they can change visibility by clicking the lock. Now that I know about
it, though, I'm pretty happy :)

One other suggestion tough, once a track has been saved, there doesn't seem to
be a way to change the privacy settings (eg, to make my track private, I
basically edited it, deleted the original and resaved - if there is a simpler
way, it isn't clear what it is).

Other than that, I like it. I think its still a little simplistic, but its an
excellent start and you did say that you have a ton more planned - great work!
I'll be looking forward to seeing this progress.

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wilz
Spent about an hour toying around with mediocre sounds and a really too simple
drum matrix. Then tried to save only to realize my work will be lost, since i
don't have a facebook acount (and don't want it). Yikes!

~~~
jbaudanza
Sorry wilz. I'm planning to offer soundcloud and google logins as well.

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benhebert
Would love to interview you about this on whiteraverrafting.com. We're an edm
blog and our audience will jump on this!

ben@whiteraverrafting.com

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wink
I haven't seen such a broken site (for me) in a few years.

a) I visit the page

b) I get redirected to <http://www.beatlab.com/flash_blocked.html>

c) I click on the blocked flash to unblock it, like on every other site.

d) I get a "Flash has been unblocked! You may continue to beatlab."

e) I click the link and end up at a)

:(

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mindstab
Sooo you come to a site requiring flash with a add on flash blocker and
complain it doesn't support you well... Maybe you're doing it wrong. If you
can't get your own custom modules to work either don't use them or figure out
how to use them better, don't get mad at someone else for not supporting your
custom setup better.

I could turn off javascript and spend all day criticizing websites, I don't
think any one would give too much care.

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nemetroid
The only thing that's "broken" here is that the site redirects you before you
have any chance to enable plugins for the page.

Your Javascript comparison is inaccurate, no one is demanding the site should
work without Flash. If a site redirected you before you could click on
noscript (or whatever Javascript blocker) to load all scripts, I bet you there
would be a lot of complaints.

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BklynJay
I just can't say for certain that "Come Together" really needed to be remixed.

~~~
feralmoan
No remix could possibly save that tune, but at least now I know about BeatLab!
:D

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besquared
Nice job guys! Good to see Beatlab is alive and well.

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Tivs
Congrats Jon B! ^^

