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8 free ways to make music online
Collaborate, remix and try a browser studio
Ben Rogerson, Fri 24 Apr 2009, 1:38 pm UTC
Time was that it was impressive enough that you could make music on a computer at all – let alone on the internet.
However, this is now eminently possible; online music-making in 2009 takes a variety of forms, and it doesn't have to cost anything beyond what you're paying for your broadband connection.
If you want to collaborate with others, there are various solutions that can be downloaded and installed on your Mac or PC. Other sites offer in-browser mixing and recording apps that enable you to access other people's tunes or create your own.
You can even set about remixing commercially-released music – again, from within your web browser.
We've picked out eight of the most notable online music-making options. Read up on them here, then go and give them a try.
1. Sonoma Wire Works Riffworks T4
Designed specifically for guitarists, Riffworks features a loop-based workflow that enables you to build up songs quickly. The good news is that the T4 version can be downloaded for free, and the even better news is that this enables you to collaborate with up to three other players online. You can then post your finished tracks on the RiffWorld website.
2. Hobnox Audiotool
There are loads of one-trick Flash-based music-making toys on the internet, but Audiotool looks and feels like something you'd like to spend a bit of time with. It features emulations of classic Roland synth/groovebox hardware, plus a mixer to plug them into and a selection of stompboxes that you can use to process your sounds. Fire it up and see a five-minute tinker turn into a multi-hour production session.
3. Indaba Music
Network, collaborate and discover are Indaba's watchwords, and they sum up the site pretty well. You can make contact with musicians from around the world, create music with them in a web-based app, and listen to other people's music. There are also remix contests – stem files of songs can be downloaded and you can then set about reworking them.
4. JamGlue
With the emphasis on remixing, JamGlue enables its members to upload music files and then arrange them in a DAW-style browser-based app (you can record into this, too). This isn't the end of the story, though: you can also make use of all the other audio material on the site, and go to work on other people's mixes. Predictably, there are strong community elements, too.
