Copenhagen, Denmark-based startup Minimum Noise wants to take a crack at crowdsourcing music production, by connecting musicians around the world in an open marketplace where like-minded artists can get together to create music tracks.
Basically, users can submit a project, describe what they’re looking for and what they’re prepared to pay for it. This can be anything from vocals to a bassline or the main instrumental riff, but the bottom line is that someone from the Minimum Noise community is supposed to run with the project and add a layer to whatever exists already. Typically, this would be something the project creator(s) or any of his musically gifted friends or family members are unable to accomplish without looking online for help. Project creators can accept submissions from other community members, pay him / her if they’re happy with the results and obtain the necessary material and rights of usage.
This is rather similar to the way WeMix (co-founded by artist Ludacris and backing by angel funding), Bojam and Indomite function, but I’m not sure if it’ll work.
There’s definitely merit in the idea of musicians collaborating on the net, but I doubt music as such can be crowdsourced at all. Isn’t creating music supposed to be a personal experience (or a group experience if there’s more than one person involved of course)? And even if it’s not, what exactly would drive musicians to look online for peers to complement or perfect their work? I could be dead wrong here, but I don’t see it happening, or at least not in the volumes required to build a business on top of it.
What do you think?