File Sharing Solutions

In this unit we will consider a range of file sharing or exchange solutions to help underpin your work as a musician online. Many of the solutions are free of charge at the point of entry, with options to purchase greater functionality or storage at a later date.

Being able to share musical ideas with collaborators is an important part of developing musical activities online. Sharing and interacting with fellow musicians during periods of social distancing can be enhanced in various ways. For example, a recording of an online rehearsal could help members of your band identify what it is they need to work towards for the next session; or when you are developing compositional ideas together, having a record of what worked and what ideas can be further developed within the ensemble is very useful.

Sharing files online is a relatively easy process and providers like Dropbox, Google Drive and WeTransfer all offer free methods of sending files to a collaborator. There are limits to how much you can store and share online with these free services, so good organisation such as deleting old files and keeping files sizes to the minimum is a useful way of working. In terms of file size, consider that 1 minute of CD quality audio (44.1Khz 16 Bit) requires 10MB of storage space. Video files can be much larger and whilst storage space might become an issue, consideration should be made that large files take longer to upload and download. File conversion to a compressed format that is smaller in size can be a useful option by using free convertors.

The online performance platform Jamkazam has built-in features to enable you to share session recordings automatically. You might also consider uploading videos recorded using Zoom or similar platforms to additional platforms such as Vimeo where you can share the video by private link. Facebook also offers a method for making videos you post private and only available to users you select. Soundcloud uploads can also only be made available via a private link which you can copy and paste and send to users you want to access the recording.

Finally, a more advanced workflow would be to work with software such as Microsoft’s OneDrive which has a feature where file changes can be automatically uploaded to a shared cloud space saving the time that manually uploading takes.