Is Remote Music Collaboration the New Thing?

The word “remote” has gained popularity recently in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns. Many have been forced to work from home, including artists. Though remote music collaboration is not new, it is certainly becoming “the new thing.”

I released a song with my sister in August, and it was the first time that most of our collaboration took place remotely. She was in Seattle and I was in Utah. Living in different states made making music together difficult, but we were able to co-produce our song “Pretty Pity Party” from start to finish thanks to the internet.

Of course, we aren’t the only ones to jump on the remote collaboration bandwagon. Several top songwriters switched to remote online writing sessions in 2020. And the trend has been gaining momentum long since. There have even been academic studies on remote music collaboration that explore how it is changing the music-making process.

Below I will trace this trend and teach you how to make music with others remotely.

History of Remote Music Collaboration

One of the first major bands whose members worked from separate locations is The Postal Service. In fact, the band took its name for how it made music. James Tamborello (aka Dntel) would create electronic instrumental tracks that he would send to Ben Gibbard (aka the frontman of Death Cab for Cutie) on CD-Rs by mail. Gibbard would add vocals, guitar, and keyboards, and send the edited files back to Tamborello. This collaborative back-and-forth would continue until the two artists arrived at a finished song. The process was slow, but they would make two or three songs every six months this way.

Eventually, The Postal Service released their first and only album Give Up in 2003. With tracks produced between the two artists’ homes in Washington and LA, Sub Pop A&R Tony Kiewel called the album “one of the cheapest records Sub Pop has ever made.”

Of course, today most bands collaborate remotely via the internet. The band The National is one example: Twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner write the music and email instrumental tracks to frontman singer Matt Berninger, who loops them over headphones while drinking wine to come up with vocal lines overtop. The band members have homes across the U.S., so their approach is ideal for collaborating from afar.

The National’s writing process recently even inspired pop star Taylor Swift. In her latest two albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift worked from home due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Released five months apart, both “sister albums” were made with remote help from longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff and The National’s Aaron Dessner, and both feature tracks with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. The first album, Folklore, was released in July 2020 and was hailed by Rolling Stone as “the definitive quarantine album”. The second, Evermore, features further guest appearances by The National’s Matt Berninger and sister pop-trio Haim. No doubt, the remote conception of these albums helped inspire their collaborative nature.

Though these are just a few examples, remote music collaboration is ubiquitous now. And COVID-19 only accelerated the trend.

If you want to dip your feet into the creative possibilities of remote music collaboration, the rest of this article is for you. If not, feel free to stop reading here.

Types of Remote Music Collaboration

Remote Collaboration can be synchronous or asynchronous. More simply put, it can be in real-time or on your own time.

Synchronous collaboration is made possible through software like JamKazam. It allows you to jam with people anywhere in real-time. Think of a Zoom meeting tailored to musicians. This kind of technology is relatively new and still improving since it is hard to eliminate latency (lag) in video calls.

But you don’t need special software to collaborate remotely. Any DAW allows you to collaborate asynchronously by exchanging files back and forth. You and your collaborator(s) gradually complete a song by adding to it as you go. Much like The Postal Service, you do your part and then hand it off. But unlike The Postal Service, sending files over the internet is much faster than by mail. It’s still slower than being in the same room, but it’s nice when you and your bandmate(s) are separated.

Plus, asynchronous collaboration is less complicated. It requires little internet bandwidth and know-how. You are just taking turns making parts to a song. It’s also more efficient because you avoid wasting others’ time on things that don’t involve them. You can delegate responsibilities, e.g. one person writes the music and another lays down the vocals.

Of course, nothing can replace real-time collaboration. Sometimes the magic happens in the moment. Just do your best. If you don’t have fancy software, a phone or video call is better than nothing.

How to Collaborate Remotely

That said, here is the easiest way I’ve found to collaborate remotely:

My sister and I use a DAW called Reaper, and our process is the simple one explained already: One of us works on the song, sends it to the other, and then the other works on it before sending it back. Then we repeat.

But this method has a trick to it. Though we both have the same DAW (Reaper), exchanging a project file alone is not enough. You see, unless you send the project file along with all of its associated media files, Reaper won’t be able to load the full song. You will get an error message.

The solution is easy but often overlooked: package the project in a folder before sharing. No matter what DAW you are using, this is important.

To package a Reaper project correctly, follow these steps:

1. Create a new folder (I like to create one on my desktop for easy access).
2. In Reaper, go to “File” in the top left corner and click on “Save Project As” in the drop-down menu.
3. Select the folder you created in Step 1 as a destination folder.
4. Check the box called “Move all media into project directory.”
5. Click “Save.”

This will save all the necessary files into one place so that any computer can open the project so long as it has the same DAW and plugins installed.

To share the packaged project folder, I suggest compressing it first and then sending it by email or via the cloud. Otherwise, the folder may be too big to share.

You can even keep the packaged project folder on a USB flash drive so you can take it with you and work on your music from different computers.

Benefits of Remote Music Collaboration

Pandemic or not, there are several reasons to collaborate remotely, especially asynchronously. Here are the main ones:

• Work with other artists no matter where you (or they) are.
• Collaborate on a song over a long period of time. If you work asynchronously, you have a longer time horizon than a 1-hour writing session.
• Keep flexible schedules by allowing everyone to work on a song when it suits them. You may still have deadlines, but everyone has more flexibility on when they do their part.
• Take on several projects at once. You can be working with different artists on different songs at the same time.

In short, take advantage of the internet and the many remote music collaboration tools out there. You may find that it inspires creativity, leads to a new collaboration, or changes how you make music. If nothing else, it’s another color to add to your musical palette.