Long Distance Music Collaboration

I recently started a long distance collaboration project with a friend in Australia. It's going well but it took a little while to get workflow and organization figured out. There are different considerations than I normally deal with day to day in a studio with musicians coming here. We're both recording and mixing as we go and transferring a lot of files back and forth, taking turns adding parts.
This article will go over some of the things to consider when doing long distance music collaboration.

Collaboration Screenshot

Use the same DAW
If all collaborators are using the same DAW it makes things much easier. Use the stock plugins wherever possible. Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, it doesn't really matter which one but it's a big advantage to use the same one. We chose to do these projects in Reaper as this is my main DAW and one Joel has been wanting to learn, and can demo free.


Transferring files and backup
Normally I would recommend Dropbox for collaboration, I've used it before and actually ran the projects right from the shared folder. It's nice because you don't have to worry about transferring or backup. Because this project is going to be 4-6 songs we'd likely run out of space quickly especially when we get real drums on the songs. So for this project I just set up an FTP account and use the storage that comes with my website. Backup is taken care of automatically as all files are now saved in 3 places.


Versioning
For each turn in the project as it gets passed around gets a new version number. "Project 01-4" would be the forth time something was done on the project. Doing a "save as" for the project file avoids confusion as to which is the most recent. We're keeping it simple but you could take this further, odd numbers for you and even version numbers for the partner.


Printing FX
It's unlikely that you'll have an identical system and set of tools as your collaborator. You will want to use the best or most familiar tools you have available to get the best sounds. To make this more collab friendly, you have to commit and print these effects as audio files. Sometimes that means using the freeze or render function, or routing the audio internally to a new track. You don't have to delete the originals of course, but if it sounds good why not just stick with it? For our project this means rendering the virtual drum patterns as audio files, and printing my special reverbs as audio.

DI Tracks
Similar to the above, with guitars and bass with virtual amps, it's likely you will want to tweak or completely change the sound later on as the ideas turn into a song. Even if you're recording with amps and mics, splitting the signal with a DI will give you both options or at least a backup.


Communication
One thing we've found to help keep excitement and momentum for the project is all the ways we can communicate these days. We use Twitter, Facebook, email, and Instagram to talk about the project share photos and prod one another if we're taking too long for a turn. It's a lot of fun and we're pushing each other to play better and be more creative.

Don't let geography get in the way of music making. Find people you want to work with and just do it. Be open to experimentation, play your best and be honest with your partner. Most of all have fun.