Music community Koblo needs to show some soul

Written on August 24, 2008 – 11:01 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Sometimes I look back at the good ol’ days of Magix Music Maker 6. I used to spent hours in my bedroom, creating cheesy dance songs. The software so rich and incredibly complex, at least that’s what I thought back then. Little did I know that a decade later, tools like Magix Music Maker would’ve found their ways to the web. Some are even more sophisticated than the hobby-minded music tool. Remember the incredible audio tool from Hobnox? This morning I received a tip about another music editing tool called Koblo.

Technology caught up with a vision

The Aarhus, Denmark-based developers have enriched their desktop software (which dates from 1998) with an online community.t Founder Max Gronlund looks back the days of ‘98: “Big stars had teams of experts and sophisticated working groups to produce their music. I wondered how could technology be used to do that for all musicians. I wanted to create tools that connect people to music and musicians to each other. Technology has now caught up with that vision. With the advances in web applications and computing in the cloud, we can now collaborate globally in a way that really works. Enabling groups of people to work together in an efficient fashion.”"

What does Koblo add?

Koblo This is also the thought behind Berlin-based start-ups Hobnox and Soundcloud, although the latter doesn’t provides audiotools. The people behind these companies told me that both music start-ups are doing pretty good. Is Koblo too late? Or does this Danish service adds something Hobnox and Soundcloud don’t?

Apart from my Magix Music Mixer glory days, I don’t have any experience mixing and recording music. So I have to leave the mixing comparison between Hobnox and Koblo up to the experts. I can say that an advantage of Hobnox is that musicians can do everything online. Moreover, Hobnox is free. Koblo charges money for several plugins. On the other hand, their software is open source.

Sell those tracks

But there is definitely one thing which gives Koblo added value in the online music world (once again, maybe their editing tool does as well, but I can’t be the judge), musicians can sell their tracks on the marketplace. In the ideal situation, a vibrant community emerges which will share and comment on each other’s tracks. Just like on SoundCloud. But while at Soundcloud it all revolves around indirect advantages, Koblo wants to give it users the possibility to make some money out of it as well.

Where’s the soul?

I’m not sure whether this approach will work, since a large and active community is a necessary condition. If I were Koblo, I’d take another look at competitor SoundCloud, which seems like an expert in making feel their users welcome and part of something (both online as offline). Koblo will have to show some more soul, so that their website becomes a more welcome environment. It looks a bit cold now. If Koblo succeeds in this, it might grow out to be an enrichment of the online music world.

I hope you like that post!

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Aarhus, denmark, Hobnox, koblo, music, soundcloud

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

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4 comments/trackbacks to “Music community Koblo needs to show some soul”

Oct 18, 2008: Kobloin' in the wind... | MetaFilter
[...] isn’t really working just yet, which is kinda lame, but the idea is cool enough to keep an eye on. Some think it’s a community in need of ’soul’, but it’s hard to know just yet how things’ll shake out. [...]

By Joop on Aug 24, 2008

Fast tracker II was the ultimate music maker for pc!

[Reply]
By DaKingOfSchwing on Aug 24, 2008

Koblo was a software synthesizer company back in the day…so they do know audio. What makes this cool is the downloadable tools. They others either make you work on the web or give you no tools at all

meME

[Reply]
By b on Aug 24, 2008

With all due respect, Hobnox is a toy. No serious musician will ever make serious music with it. Online flash based toys are not useful in the ultimate business of making music.

Soundcloud is cool, but again, as a musician, I’ll tell you that I’m still not as likely to use it. Why? Because the sharing is cool and all, but it’s _still_ doesn’t answer the needs I have for actual online collaboration with a friend in Berlin, and there’s no major tools beyond sharing audio files. The point of Koblo’s project is to allow you to share your entire working project file from Koblo Studio with other musicians, especially those you want to collaborate with. This is what actual collaboration needs to be - not just sharing some audio files.

The issue is not having trouble sending a track to someone. That’s easy. The issue is not being able to send them the whole track, with the software synth that you used on that track, and the automation, and other tools. That your friend might not have on his system. That’s the issue. That’s what Koblo is addressing. That’s what others are not. File sharing is great and all - but it doesn’t answer my needs as a collaborative musician.

I would say that you should talk to some mid level/professional musicians about how they would see the difference between tools such as Hobnox’s, Soundcloud’s, and Koblo’s. I’m not sure what is “cold” about the Koblo site - and taking issue with plugins that are $20? I dunno about that, either. Everything that’s free is not good. Everything does not need to be free on the internet. Beyond that, a free audio workstation that works on all major platforms? Still miles above soundcloud and hobnox. The plugins are simply addons - the host does the talking as it is. I know you say you don’t understand mixing, but perhaps you should read on it a bit, or talk to those that do it, to get an understanding of the fact that this is miles above what the others are doing.

You should also understand that the Koblo host already comes with a multitude of plugins for mixing audio, beyond those that you can buy. You should also understand that an average plugin in the virtual instrument world is at least $50. Koblo’s are much lower than that, and just as (if not more) powerful. The fact that Koblo’s tools are not flash toys like Hobnox’s is to their credit. These are tools that musicians can actually use - do you think I’d ever use Hobnox on stage? Erm, no. Won’t happen. Toys are fun, but they don’t usually lead to real music.

Closing statement; take a closer look at what you’re reviewing, and more importantly, those that would use it. Otherwise, nicely written.

[Reply]

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