FX

Indaba Music

info@indabamusic.com
www.indabamusic.com

"The combination of JavaFX and JAVA enabled us to build a powerful and intuitive audio application quickly and easily. In building a product that changes how people make music, we let our designers focus on writing powerful code and creating a great user-experience—JavaFX can handle the rest."

—Chris Danzig, EVP - Product and Technology Development, Founder

Indaba Music - Partner Profile

About Indaba
Indaba Music is an online community of musicians, music professionals, and fans exploring the creative possibilities of making music with people from around the world. Beyond just a social networking platform, Indaba Music gives musicians the freedom to record, edit, and mix together tracks without being restricted by geography or compromising professional sound quality.

Indaba Music's talent base continues to expand at a rate of 10 to 20% each month. As of September 2009, the site had approximately 250,000 users in 185 countries—including Yo-Yo Ma, John Legend, and Derek Trucks. To create more opportunities for its members, Indaba Music focuses on building powerful, technologically advanced tools that guide musicians through each stage of the music creation process.

Listening to the Community
The Web has expanded music distribution opportunities to all independent musicians. In the spring of 2009, Indaba Music wanted to take the next step in the democratization of music creation and asked its members to share what tools and/or services would help them do more with music. The community wanted a powerful digital audio workstation that streamlined the music creation process and facilitated collaboration, but didn't compromise the site's intuitive interface. Specifically, members requested the ability to work offline, record high-quality audio directly to the Web, use real-time effects, and access a library of audio loops and clips.

Process & Approach
From a technology standpoint, Indaba Music needed a partner that could deliver a flexible, but powerful platform. When assessing the available technologies, Indaba Music weighed the pros and cons of each platform. Microsoft Silverlight's runtime proved to have an insufficient install base and, like Adobe Flash, restricted the space that could be utilized on users' machines. The JavaFX platform was the only option that allowed sufficient access to local hardware and storage. Furthermore, JavaFX offered a low barrier to entry because it was based on the ubiquitous Java technology. In benchmarking tests, JavaFX emerged as the most efficient platform for Indaba Music's new digital audio workstation.

"We chose the JavaFX platform for a number of reasons," says Chris Danzig, Indaba Music co-founder and executive vice president of product and technology development. "It's highly flexible, so it's easy for our developers to work iteratively. We can build an interface, test it with the community, and make changes based on user feedback in a very short time span. JavaFX's node-based scene graph is not unlike the HTML DOM which made adoption easier for our developers.

"JavaFX also gave us sufficient access to client machines, and made it possible for our musicians to work online or offline. JavaFX introduced the 'drag from your browser' technology to the world. Instead of jumping through the hoops of traditional local installation, users can now simply drag our app onto their desktop. This streamlines the process of transitioning from online to offline work that has otherwise been clumsy and/or awkward for the user."

Results
Indaba Music's Session Console 2.0 was launched in late July of 2009. Session Console 2.0 is a revolutionary digital audio workstation (DAW) that brings fully functional recording software to the Web for the first time.

Session Console 2.0 enables musicians to:

• Record high-quality audio directly to the Web without investing in expensive audio production software
• Use advanced editing and mixing tools, including real-time effects
• Tap into Indaba's library of free loops and audio clips that are pre-licensed under Creative Commons
• Work online OR offline

Since the launch of the console, Indaba Music has received numerous press mentions and the DAW was even endorsed by the multiplatinum group Weezer.

Weezer's front man, Rivers Cuomo, said this about Indaba Music's Session Console 2.0:

"This is a quantum leap. It's insane. It's going to open the door for a giant population of musicians out there."

Wired Magazine said this:

"On the heels of Google's announcement of a lightweight operating system for the proverbial cloud... come major improvements to Indaba's cloud-based recording studio, which is like an online version of Pro Tools for musical collaboration."
— Wired, 7/9/09

But, more importantly, the Session Console 2.0 has enabled the Indaba community to make music in more efficient, dynamic ways. As the site continues to grow, Indaba plans to incorporate more advanced collaborative functionality and ways for fans to experience music creation.