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Bandlab: Cloud-Based Social Music Creation Platform
- blensor 6y agoI am not a musician or music producer but I like bandlab a lot. But only on mobile because the browser version is simply unusable on my linux (whether it's Chromium or Firefox. If you want to know what a musically inept person can produce with it check out the first two songs (VRWorkout and Happy Workout) in the VRWorkout non-VR demo mode here https://vrworkout.at/game https://vrworkout.at/game If you are on mobile that won't work because it has not touch controls but here is the link to the files in the github repo https://github.com/mgschwan/VRWorkout/tree/master/godot_project/audio/songs https://github.com/mgschwan/VRWorkout/tree/master/godot_proj...
- andybak 6y agoAnyone know what the current state of the art is for live remote jamming and collaboration? Are the latencies anywhere close to being low enough to play in time with others (I'm thinking distances of about 200 miles)
- dash2 6y agoYeah, I'd like to know this too. Our choir is facing remote rehearsals for the foreseeable future... as I understand it, if you want latency low enough for live jamming, you need purpose-built networking equipment. See https://jammr.net/howitworks.html https://jammr.net/howitworks.html for a clever workaround, but I wonder if it is that great....
- telesilla 6y agoCheckout Jacktrip. Worth the effort however it's not user friendly. For user friendly, the options are limited if you also want low latency. Jamkazam is one of the best bets there.
- hashkb 6y agoLive internet jamming is just not possible. It never will be, unless we advance beyond our current understanding of physics.
- adamnemecek 6y agoI've been working on an IDE for music composition. Launching soon http://ngrid.io http://ngrid.io
- blensor 6y agoI am very intrigued. I barely am able to keep scales in my head not even thinking about the other "rules". So I am looking forward to check this out.
- hashkb 6y agoThis attitude is problematic. No tool will ever replace fluency, and thousands of hours of tedious practice is the only way to get there. The only way. There are many hacks and shortcuts, but nothing will ever work better for you than your own mind, well trained.
- blensor 6y agoProblematic to whom, to me, you or the general public? I have a casual interest in how music production works but don't plan to do anything serious in it. I like to dabble around a bit and if I like what I make I am happy. There is no expectation that what I make will appeal to others, but if anyone likes something, I am happy too. I don't think this tool will make a good music producer or composer out of someone but if it helps, what's the harm?
- hashkb 6y agoIt harms you. One day you'll want to accomplish something and you won't have the tools. There are thousands of musicians who quit for every one having fun. You will have a better, more fulfilling time if you study music.
- adamnemecek 6y agoWhat is that something? Why couldn't it wait until you have the tools? Is this like the time they would tell you in math class that you won't always have a calculator on you?
- rjmunro 6y agoNeeds a video or something to explain what it actually does. "Cloud-Based Social Music Creation Platform" is just marketing nonsense. I'm guessing it's a DAW that runs in-browser, but I can't tell. I'm not going to bother to sign up to find out.
- cbzbc 6y agoFree use of a DAW (what used to be Sonar), and a social media platform for sharing music. I imagine it's competing with bandcamp/soundcloud/splice simultaneously.
- memset 6y agoI’ve been using this. It is pretty slick! It is basically Garage Band for the web, and has a similar interface and features for laying multiple audio tracks for a collaboration.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y agoA great idea, but the latencies make it impossible to even play keys, to say nothing about live collaboration.
- hashkb 6y agoLive internet jamming will never ever be possible. The tiniest bit of asycnhrony opens up a ton of potential, though.
- cidnurg 6y agoDue to the situation we have to play remotely. The latency is fine if you are close enough (same city). We’re using jamulus as self-hosted, but you can try Jamkazam as well.
- peterfield 6y agoIf you do not pay for a product, you are the product. So what's the catch here? Copyright of the music is theirs? They listen 24/7 ?
- nbulka 6y agoThey sell hardware that interfaces with their app. They might also might have premium features for plugins or virtual instruments.
- dharma1 6y agoIt's free, but they have some additional hardware they sell. Founder's dad is a palm oil billionaire from Malaysia, maybe that's how they can keep it free? Dunno. It's a great product, I really like it.
- soylentcola 6y agoUnless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be any sort of demo I can check out (even in some limited form) without signing up. That's kind of a bummer since I've played around with various applications like this in the past but don't particularly want yet another account signup just to see how this one works.
- ilamont 6y agoThey should drop the buzzwords and call it what it is: A mobile app for creating music with other people. I've used the iOS version and as a collaboration platform it works well. My garage project turned to it during lockdown and it was pretty amazing what you could do when it came to making demo versions of songs even without specialized interfaces ... I literally placed my phone on a chair with the mic facing the bass amp to record my take over the existing drum and guitar tracks. That sounded good enough to me, but one of the other members was able to extract all of the tracks including vocals into some other app and do an amazing job on the next mix. For recording ideas, I have found it and similar apps like GarageBand less useful as they're loop-based and that's not how I approach writing music.
- qppo 6y agoDo they still have trouble with the memory limits on browsers? A couple years ago I remember they couldn't handle more than 10 minutes of audio, which was the dealbreaker for me at the time. And did they kill Cakewalk's products or just transfer ownership? I was never a user, just remember the acquisition.
- grawprog 6y agoI think the limit's 15 minutes per track now and as far as I know, they haven't killed cakewalk they own it now and have been releasing it as part of bandlab I think. I don't know too much about Bandlab, I just found it the other day and it seemed pretty cool so I thought I'd post it here. Actually, I have to be say, i'm mainly curious as to how the hell they make money and had the money to buy Cakewalk. I know HN tends to get into that stuff, so I was hoping it might come up in the comments.
- qppo 6y agoThey have what one could call outsized presence at industry trade shows. At least for a new player in an old industry. As for Cakewalk, Gibson killed them off alongside a bunch of other stupid acquisitions they made in the early 2010s. The Bandlab acquisition was just IP apparently. Personally I'd be surprised if it cost more than low 7 figures.