Comments on: Preview: Splice Music 2.0 Could be First Web 2.0 Music App

By: Musigy

Musigy — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 16:53:28 +0000

You might alo want to check Musigy that makes it possible for people to make live music together over the Internet. Just plug in your guitar, keyboard, microphone or whatever you’ve got, and make music with other members of the Musigy community. As if you’re in the same room! You see each other on a video screen and play in synch.

By: Marco Raaphorst

Marco Raaphorst — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:50:40 +0000

Technical limitations will make a lot of people very creative. Time will tell. But Splice is one step into more open tools you can use anywhere. I love that, although for my current project I will need Ableton and Reason. But that might change one day…

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:53:08 +0000

Oh, no, I agree — there’s the issue of technical limitation, which to me is why “client” (rather than server) apps will remain so important as a platform. Then there’s the question of the application itself. Splice is assuming “remixing” is the point, and that’s interesting, but I do tend more toward the idea of collaboration, as well, in terms of what will make people come online. See my comments on the client side attempt to do this with FL Studio in this month’s Keyboard Magazine — will post that here when it’s online! ;)

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:29:20 +0000

Peter,
You are correct and my disagreement is not whether it’s press worthy, because I think it definitely is. It’s very cool as you pointed out and they are tech savvy to boot. In fact, we were going to do the same at Kompoz. However, after a lot consideration could not justify it because the tool would be greater than the platform itself.

What we want to do is create a music collaboration platform where the “why” will be justifiable. We will be there soon.

I disagree with the degree of it’s usefulness within current tech limitations is all. Whatever the case may be, it is very exciting to see all these sites advancing.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:34:39 +0000

Simon,
I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing about. I think I was clear in that this isn’t a replacement for those tools; I said that explicitly and was even explicit about technical limitations that prevent this from happening.

A round-up of collaboration sites is really a story in itself, rather than cramming it into a story about Splice and specific hurdles they’ve tackled, like making Flash do DSP. Sites like yours absolutely have a story to tell, though; I hope we can cover that! The very fact that websites are now relevant on this site is a huge change; whether they’re replacing software or not (and I agree that they’re clearly not ANY time in the forseeable future), they’re adding a dimension that was previously not there. Even a year or so ago, CDM was really talking about local software exclusively. If these sites can add additional functionality *beyond* that (add, not replace), I think that’s promising.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:17:45 +0000

Whether Splice or Indaba, I couldn’t disagree more in terms of what could be best described as an online copy of Garageband. Getting past the admitted “neato factor”, you cannot compare Splice to even Apple’s Garageband, not to mention ProTools or Logic. That won’t change. Most users want that control. Music Collaboration is musicians sharing ideas about everything music. You didn’t mention any other dot coms in that space which was disappointing.

By: Musik m�ter webb 2.0 - 99.se

Musik m�ter webb 2.0 - 99.se — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:09:49 +0000

[...] Musik m�ter webb 2.0 Web2.0 och webbaserad mjukvara ligger just nu h�gt p� hajptoppen. Hittills har det mest handlat om kartor, kalendrar, ordbehandlare och liknande, men nu kommer ett musikprogram i webbl�saren i form av Splice Music. Splice Music �r ett Flash-baserat musikprogram som hanterar audiofiler, arrangemang och realtidseffekter, och det �r m�jligt att remixa andra anv�ndares l�tar. Det g�r allts� att g�ra relativt ambiti�sa produktioner utan att l�mna webbl�saren. L�s mer p� Splices hemsida och hos Create Digital Music. Bifogade tumnaglar [...]

By: NineTailedFox

NineTailedFox — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:48:56 +0000

Some kind of Firefox extension/VST bridge which might help integrate this with conventional software…? How or if that might work, I have no clue…

By: ryan

ryan — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:26:14 +0000

It runs reallllly slow on my box. (Of course I’m dated, 3000+ AMD Barton/1gig of ddr cas lat 2/x800xt/WinXP Pro SP2)

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 01:35:35 +0000

@Travioso: What operating system are you using? “The Internet” should never interrupt audio performance on a modern system, unless you have an application using CPU cycles (which I’ve seen even iTunes do) or are trying to actively stream audio online.

Generally, we’re conflating some issues here:

* Bandwidth: The biggest problem here people are experiencing is streaming audio reliably over the Internet. I actually think this is likely to be the *first* issue resolved, though it doesn’t change fundamental issues with latency and bandwidth that one has putting the audio on a remote machine. (Latency in particular is ultimately limited by the speed of light, once you have the whole planet to contend with.)

* Feature set: There’s also the issue of having limited feature sets, which is itself two issues — one being the economics of putting this in a Website, the other limitations of the software used to produce these tools.

* Hardware driver access: One of the ongoing issues I think remains the inability to get direct access to hardware for audio and MIDI. This is an even bigger deal on Windows, since the default audio subsystem is often unusable for reliable audio mixes. But people aren’t even getting to that point here, because they’re running into bandwidth first. (And, admittedly, this isn’t really an issue for things like Splice because of their more limited scope.)

Bottom line is, this is clearly intended to complement, not replace, existing software, or to be a simple interface for people with more casual desires for remixing and sharing. And there are really multiple reasons dedicated software will remain necessary for the foreseeable future, not just one. Despite the hype that all apps will be online coming from certain quarters (certainly not the music community, and certainly not Splice), you have to assume that the Web will simply add to what we already do and broaden the audience for music creation and active consumption.