The internet has matured to the point where it is now possible to do just about anything online, within reason. You can see your doctor online. You can order groceries online and have them delivered right to your door. You can use the internet to buy your car insurance, schedule your car for repair, find a job, or run a business from your home. There are even online recording studios ready to work with musicians, vocalists, and composers of all skill levels.
Never heard of an online recording studio? You’re not alone. This particular model is fairly new. However, it is gaining traction thanks to its ability to control costs and foster collaboration in a more efficient way. Online recording studios offer a range of services from recorded tracks from session musicians to full production from start to finish.
How It All Works
The online recording model is somewhat misunderstood thanks to the name itself. When you work with an online studio, you are not plugging a guitar into your computer, playing it, and sending the signal across the internet to a studio where it’s being recorded. You are not joining a cloud session with five other musicians and all recording your parts simultaneously.
An online recording studio is a studio that facilitates collaboration between writers, musicians, producers, etc. using the internet as a primary means of communication. The internet becomes the collaborative platform through which everyone works. But each person involved in the project works directly from their own location.
You could collaborate with a vocalist in New York, a drummer in Phoenix, a guitar player in Seattle, and an arranger in Nashville. There is no need for you to all travel to the same location to work on your project. All of you do your part from your own facilities or a local studio. All your individual contributions are sent to a central location where they are put together to create the finished product.
Why It Works
To a music professional who has never worked with the online model, it can seem like a foreign concept. It does take some getting used to. However, the online model works well when all the team members put aside their preconceived notions and embrace what the internet has to offer. As to why the model works so well, online recording studio Supreme Tracks says there are more reasons than can be described in a single post. Here are just a few of them:
1. Agile Production
The in-person model tends to rely on a waterfall approach, which is to say that every team member has to wait for their turn to contribute. An online recording studio tends to follow an agile approach. This allows each team member to contribute their part simultaneously. Agile production tends to be more efficient and flexible.
2. Faster Production
Because team members do not all have to assemble in one place, there is no travel or scheduling involved. That tends to make for faster production. You spend less time waiting for team members to find a way to work together and more time working on the actual music.
3. Cost Control
Greater efficiency, faster production, and eliminating travel and scheduling issues makes for a more cost-effective production all the way around. Money is not wasted on production overhead.
An online recording studio isn’t the right choice for every project. But it does work awfully well for a lot of projects. It is quickly becoming the new norm for modern music production when team members don’t have to be the same place.