indaba-logo_50Indabamusic.com is the next big thing that is really coming to the fore. It is a very professional place for all contributors to music production, from producers to engineers to vocalists and musicians. They break down the barriers of location and allow people to create music together no matter where they’re from, as long as they have an internet connection.

With Indaba Music, you can create sessions online, where you collaborate with a bass player in Los Angeles, a singer in Canada, a drummer in Florida, and a guitar player in London, then have it mixed by someone in New York and produced by someone else in Australia. Now, ain’t that cool?

I find the entire set-up quite appealing, hence we, contacted them and had an email interview, which goes as follows,

1. How do you ensure ‘an environment for artists to harness the trend’ and nourish new ways in creating music. I mean how do you make this offshore model as effective as a face to face approach?

Indaba: We don’t believe the experience of making music with someone in person will ever be fully recreated through online, remote collaboration. Instead, we create new opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist (due to geographic barriers). We make the collaborative process as effective as possible by looking at every piece in the chain of musical collaboration, from concept and composition to post production and payment, and we try to incorporate as many of these pieces as possible into an easy platform that helps musicians manage projects and take advantage of new opportunities.

2. What kind of response are you getting from masses at large? How far have you reached in growing your community?

Indaba: From our first alpha launch, through a private beta, and now in our public beta, we have been building a core group of serious musicians (both amateur and professional) who believe in online collaboration and are making it happen with others from all around the world. So far the initial response from the larger music community has been very positive. We’re excited to see people coming from such diverse places and musical backgrounds and we’re even more excited to see where things go in the coming months.

3. The whole Internet, of course, as a media, is moving towards Web 2.0. How far do you think the phenomenon has emerged successfully?

Indaba: We certainly see a lot of exciting things going on as people from all ages and backgrounds turn increasingly to the internet to get things done and work with each other. The emergence of clean and easy to use web applications, increasing trust in internet payment systems and niche market services certainly seems to indicate that internet based businesses can succeed. But whether online or offline, emerging businesses still have to have a sound business plan.

4. Do you vie anybody, I mean any archrivals who you want to out-do?

Indaba: There aren’t any companies in our space that we view as arch-rivals, nor do we see any companies doing what we do, the way we think it should be done. We are focused on our product and on building our community. Unlike some of the other companies in this space we facilitate both professional and amateur collaborations. We take no ownership rights to artists’ music, nor do we dictate that content must be licensed under any specific license. Furthermore, there are no sites that currently allow musicians to work publicly or privately, pay others for their work, or review and give feedback to other musicians. So we feel confident in our approach and are just focused on how to serve our community as effectively as possible.

5. What will Indabamusic.com morph into after, say, five years, any plans?

Indaba: We’re always thinking about ways that we can empower musicians, and the feature-set of the current site is only a part of our larger vision. We have a number of new exciting features coming out in the coming months and we think that as we continue to grow a large international community of musicians and give them a comfortable and reputable place to exist online then the possibilities for incorporating other products and services are wide open. We are interested in any part of the music value chain where we can do something innovative that will add value to artists and passionate music fans. We’ll see where it goes but right now our focus is on online collaboration and networking.

Last, but not the least, we would like to thank Katherine Pokorny for her precious time spent in arranging responses from the people behind Indaba. Also, we would like to wish them luck for their future endeavor.