Working from home has become the new standard. According to Forbes “Nearly half the U.S. workforce might now be remote workers” and a recent MIT report suggests that “Once businesses and individuals invest in the fixed costs of remote work, they may decide to stay with the new methods.” Expecting no exceptions for the music industry, online music collaboration is likely here to stay.

Although making music in isolation has been the talk of legend even pre-pandemic – artists like Grimes, Kanye and Radiohead retreating to the great beyond to craft their records – there’s still uncertainty to the method’s efficiency. The music business – as deeply collaborative an effort as one might find – is yet to figure out whether the paradigm shift to long distance music collaboration is a setback or an opportunity.

There are significant benefits to remote music company operations. In times of peril, taking advantage of opportunities is key.

Asset digitization

The boom in online music collaboration catalyzed the transition to working with digital as opposed to physical assets, opening opportunities for optimization. Digitizing your assets makes automation much simpler, winning you time and resources. According to an article on ChangeFactory, more than 20% of firms that participated in a survey from Forbes reported annual information and data related problems to produce annual costs in excess of $20M. The issue here is lack of access to information. Asset digitization improves access to information, allows for “electronic workflow processes” and creates “one source of truth for each document/item of data”.

No more commuting!

According to an Airtasker study featured in Business News Daily, “Commuting has led at least 1 in 4 respondents to quit a job”. When remote collaboration eliminates commutes, on average employees report “an extra 17 days’ worth of free time as a result.” Freeing up time to build healthy habits and maintain a better work/life balance can lead to a major productivity boost, especially in the music industry where a healthy, readily creative mind is vital. Additionally, reducing your carbon emissions from daily drives can only be a good thing.

Disadvantages of remote collaboration

However, online collaboration compromises on essential elements of the music business. Communication between executives, management, producers, artists and sound engineers is made significantly more difficult.

“Broken telephones” hinder creativity

Working through cluttered inboxes and vague, disconnected feedback makes respecting deadlines unnecessarily complicated. Everything arrives with a lag and runs through a “broken telephone” system. The additional delay also contributes to the lack of “psychological safety” (the comfort of sharing ideas with co-workers), which is already prominent in online collaboration. This phenomenon leads to self-censorship and production companies end up losing out on quality work and time as musicians second-guess themselves out of the clarity of vision required for the music business.

Self-sabotage via cluttered toolbox

Ineffective instrument choice can harm the entire project and multiply your costs. App-switching takes apart project structure, spawning numerous organizational issues. Managing files and information across platforms costs time and effort. It’s hard to have faith in a time frame when you have no idea when the project lands in the manager’s eyeview, not to mention their to-do-list. There’s always a risk of losing your project’s history or the feedback itself, making collaboration futile. Each new tool takes time to master, not to mention the physical costs of running your project through several services – subscription and telecommunication fees take their toll.

When project management suffers, everything suffers, but luckily you can elevate your workflow with advanced remote music collaboration tools.

Ineffective instrument choice can harm the entire project and multiply your costs. App-switching takes apart project structure, spawning numerous organizational issues. Managing files and information across platforms costs time and effort. It’s hard to have faith in a time frame when you have no idea when the project lands in the manager’s eyeview, not to mention their to-do-list. There’s always a risk of losing your project’s history or the feedback itself, making collaboration futile. Each new tool takes time to master, not to mention the physical costs of running your project through several services – subscription and telecommunication fees take their toll.

When project management suffers, everything suffers, but luckily you can elevate your workflow with advanced remote music collaboration tools.

A sort of collaboration-oriented Dropbox for music, Pibox provides the necessary unified structure for your project to be easily managed, updated and commented on in real-time. Combining communication and cloud-based file storage, Pibox allows you to place and receive feedback directly on the audiotrack, instantaneously. A handy blend of Dropbox, Trello and Asana for musicians, so to speak.

Pibox takes advantage of the opportunities concealed in online music collaboration and digitizing your assets. Some of the application’s management features include automated content transfer between review channels, bulk collaboration structure creation and auto-saving checklist templates. A project-embedded checklist system breaks apart complex tasks and helps keep the entire team on the same page, while the application preserves mix-version history data. The service is equally suitable for working in large teams with different levels of access to the project, featuring separate chat and file storage options for external and internal collaborators.

Conclusion

Since online music collaboration is here to stay, buckling up for the ride is the only right choice. New remote collaboration methods can be a blessing in disguise if you choose to approach this opportunity with the best remote collaboration tools.