The creators of iOS / Windows DAW, n-Track Studio, today released Songtree, an app for the collaborative creation of musical tracks.
Designed to be easy to use and with a branching “tree” interface, Songtree enables the evolution of a single song along different paths (branches, we suppose, if you’re going to stick with the tree analogy). Whenever another user overdubs or adds to an existing song, a new branch gets added to the “song-tree.”
In addition to being a collaborative music creation app, Songtree also positions itself as a “community for collaborative music making.”
Users open the app and browse the latest songs that have been posted, pick a track to work on, then open the built-in audio recorder view.
The user then records their track on top of the base track by playing the user’s instrument, clicking the Share button to post the track back to the Songtree music community.
As new tracks are posted a ‘tree’ of songs gradually grows, with each branch derived from the preceeding.
System requirements. The Songtree app requires iOS 7.0 or later for use with iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and is available via the App Store. (App is optimized for iPhone 5, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus.) The Android version of Songtree is still in beta, but prospective users can sign up to be beta testers on the Songtree site.
More information and song examples at the Soundtree website.
-1 for ukelele usage!
Agree
Kickstarter would have a hard time without the typical Ukulele starting up right after the person in the video says, “now this is where you come in…”
But I will give them a +1 for not using “reinvented” or “reimagined” – marketing teams get off on those two words these days.
L
I give it a 3/10 for the Ukulele. Points off for lack of close up shots of jacks being plugged in over sunlit panel flooring, and no one mention of how how this app helps me “tell my story”. Wouldn’t use this for my quirky acoustic Neutral Milk Hotel youtube covers.
Nice job.
Very cool app and idea.
This app takes a unique approach to building up a community of users: you can’t use it until you’ve been invited!! I cannot think of a faster way to fail when you’re trying to grow your user base!!
Hey Richard, Songtree team here. It is a soft-launch and we just want to make sure that everyone who can access the app can actually use it without any problem from our tech-side, that’s why we decided for the invite system and let people in as soon we are able to support them.
Thanks all for the comments and sorry for the ukulele 🙂
The teaser doesn’t really get into the messy details.
Do you post your song and hope to get free tracks added? Do you add tracks for someone else’s projects with no promise of getting paid? I don’t have a problem with people expecting free help with their tracks, or offering free help– as long as that’s all really clear that folks know what they are getting into.
For collaborating artists, this capability exists– Dropbox.
For crowd-sourcing your work, there are a few platforms. But you are stuck with the app’s front end. I’ll bet that the platform doesn’t allow tempo or meter changes– I guess you could just leave a note and say, ignore the app’s tempo, here’s a click & reference track.
Hey stub, good question. The app just lets you record the tracks and join other people, and right owners keep owning their rights. If someone decide to overdub a guitar track over an already existing bass track, they both keep their right in equal parts.
Re: tempo/meter change. The actual version is an open beta version and more features are coming next 🙂
So this looks like a smart visual front end for a version control system. Which is pretty cool.
I´m using songtree now for about 6 weeks and I´m absolutely convinced that this is the best idea of musical cooperation and collaboration I´ve seen in the last years. I´m a musician since 40 years and I found a group of people to jam and get friendship with. People are very open and it´s a fantastic forum for all who are doing just what they like to do – music. So far I see there is no reason to be afraid of getting ripped off cause the tracks are all under CC-license. If you want to make money, this is the wrong place then. The app is not perfect yet, but the main functions are working fine. The developers are giving feedback very quickly if there is any problem. All in all – it´s free. It´s worth a try if you are open for sharing.
One last word to dropbox: no, this is not the same. I exchanged my tracks before via Dropbox but songtree is much more convenient and you get instant feedback from the other musicians.
Hey,
the free user forum for songtree may answer some of your questions, its now online since Nov 15: http://www.songtreeusers.com