Today I'm talking to Deepak Bakshi one of the founders of Fuseboard.com. A new website based on musicians collaborating across regional and national boundaries. As you can see we're taking some advertising from Fuseboard currently and I wanted to find out a little more about the product and their site.
Deepak - What gave you the inspiration for founding Fuseboard?
The shear fact that I can't sing to save my life. I've been playing guitar and recording for over 20 years now, and until recently had not recorded on my own. Having picked up a copy of Cakewalk Home Studio I started laying down tracks for all the songs I had written over the past years. When it came time to lay vocals down, I was horrified at the sounds I could or in most cases, could not produce. I tried bringing in two singers I knew but came up against a brick wall again. It was at that time that I started to search the web for any type of musician registry that would allow me to collaborate with someone on my songs. Of the two sites that I found, no-one actually knew how the collaboration process even worked. I wanted to develop a site that would allow a bass player in Japan, to find a singer in the UK, and for them to be able to use a drummer in Africa. With today's technology all of this is quite simple to do if you have a progressive search engine and a database of registered artists.
This was the original idea of the site..... but now as it is fully developed, it stands as having the potential for people to use it as a springboard to create music. An aspiring DJ in his basement can use the site to find a sitar player in New Delhi to lay down tracks on his mixes. The options are endless!
How does it work?
Quite simple really. The site has three main areas for artists, consumers and A & R folks. These areas are the subscription based areas, but are all now FREE for Sonic State readers. (Using promo code "Sonic121" during registration).
The meat of the site relies on the artists. After registering, they are able to start projects with other users on the site. They will be able to search for active musicians anywhere in the world (across multiple criteria) and use their home recording software to complete the projects. They will be able to use our collaboration systems that tracks all files used in the project and can even solicit individuals needed for the project. For example, if I laid down a guitar track and needed a bassist, a drummer, and a singer, I could go to my project page and request that those individuals be invited to the project. I can further expand my search, by including only those artists who live in Japan and are rated an 8 out of 10 or higher by other musicians.
Our interactive help guide is a proprietary device to accurately exchange files with anyone whether you are exchanging across platforms - say ProTools to Cakewalk or vice versa. Once a project is complete, the originating artist will have the ability to copyright the song if they wish, and then upload it to our servers for a sale price they deem worthy.
At this point the second tier of users, the consumers come into play. Consumers are able to join the site for free. They can search songs within a genre, by region or some other search criteria we provide. Once they find a song sample they like they can download the song. Revenues from the song go back to the artist which they can track on their own profile page and cash out or use the funds to purchase products, songs or services.
The reality that this provides a grounds for artists, no matter how amateur to have a place to expose and introduce their music to the world. And potentially get paid for it!
What makes Fuseboard different from the other artist download sites?
Everything. Our primary goal is to have a community of recording artists explore the possibilities of collaborating with others outside of their proximity. From there the potential is boundless and with some success good music will prevail.... maybe even new forms of genres.
Fuseboard will allow the consumer to download music from a band that potentially originates in several different countries. This is why we stress the reality of how Fuseboard is making music "Truly Universal". We hope musicians (professional and amateur) will use our site the next time they are looking for a hard to find musician such as a tabla player or a steel drummer. They won't even have to leave the studio.
The site looks fantastic how long was it in development? It has taken a little over a year to develop and we will continue to develop moving forward. We have already mapped out a new version which will include Automatic remastering services for songs, real time collaboration featuring video uplinks and even a few other things our legal team won't let us mention.
Looking even further ahead, we will allow film directors and producers to create and collaborate on film work. The technology of cable speed is really not up to par yet for this type of work, but it is just around the corner, and Fuseboard will be ready for it.
I'm a bit of a tech head at heart - what's the hardware you're running Fuseboard on?
We run Fuseboard on multiple Servers with Dual Xeon Processors, 2 GB of RAM, Hot Swappable SCSI 360 Drives with RAID 5 configuration and multiple redundant power supplies
Since there is SO much crucial data, and the importance of maintaining a strong backup system, our servers are located in a data center where they are protected from power outages via a set of diesel generators, and massive battery backups. They are monitored for performance around the clock by sentry software. The facility is equipped with 24x7 security personnel that monitor the server spaces both physically and with remote cameras. All entry points into the server room are secured using the latest in biometric scanners and card security access. The datacenter is protected with a state-of-the-art fire detection and suppression HALON system.
Fuseboard.com was built using advanced object oriented programming methods with Macromedia Flash, ActionScript and PHP.
Deepak - do you play an instrument? Will we be seeing your music on Fuseboard?
I do. Primarily guitar, mostly using a Gibson Les Paul Standard among many others, through a Marshall half and a slew of effects. I also play bass, and some sitar. My profile is Gilamonster, I'm not only the Chairman and CEO of Fuseboard, I'm also a client. So yeah, I'm looking for my own new virtual global band!
You're offering Sonic Users a great deal - what do they get and what can they use it for?
That's right! Fuseboard is opening its doors to the Sonic State team. Your subscribers are the current pioneers in music and who better to have on our site as a foundation of recording artists. Currently they can get a Free $100 annual membership just by signing up as a recording artist and using the exclusive promo "Sonic121" upon checkout.
They will get their own profile, with 100 MB of space (upgradeable of course) to collaborate on and allow them an unlimited upload of songs that they would like to have for sale on the site. Who knows, maybe there's a John out there who is going to meet his Paul on Fuseboard. In any case Fuseboard stands behind its goal in Making Music Truly Universal. Thanks!
Deepak Bakshi can be contacted at dpak@mindspring.com
