If you're a producer or song writer wanting targeted feedback on a track or musical idea, or maybe a mixing or mastering engineer dealing with multiple demanding clients, then this free web app could be for you.
In music production, receiving feedback from clients or your peers is a vital step towards improving your end-product. However, when you're dealing with multiple collaborators or clients without a clear structured framework for doing this, then the revision process can get very messy very quickly.
Receiving feedback via Messenger, WhatsApp, or email is not very efficient or effective without the ability to easily reference specific sections of the audio file. Feedback can easily become confusing, vague, and contradictory, especially when multiple stakeholders can't easy view each other's comments.
Audome, a new web-based tool, claims to be a solution for this. In this article we'll have a look at what it does, how it works, and whether it's worth your time.
Right now, most amateur, and even professional producers and audio engineers are using a combination of a file sharing service like Dropbox, a communication service like WhatsApp, and maybe also a spreadsheet, CRM service or whiteboard to keep track of projects and clients.
Audome centralises all this into one platform in a clear, uncluttered interface. Audome has two main aspects to it: The Dashboard and The Delivery Page.
The Audome Dashboard
The Dashboard is where you can manage all your stakeholders, and projects. It gives an easy-to-understand overview of every active or inactive project. Each stakeholder has a status indicator, which signals whether you are currently waiting for their feedback, if there's new comments or whether they have approved your work.
This remedies the problem of having to scroll through a sea of emails to figure out the status of a project. The dashboard helps you know exactly where to direct your work.
The dashboard is also where you send a new audio delivery to a client or collaborator. To do this, simply drag the audio directly onto the client and fill out the information (title of the audio and a message).
Audome will then automatically send a link to your target recipient informing them of the delivery. Importantly, the reviewer can access the audio quickly and easily without logging in which is great. Nobody likes to create an account just to listen to their track.
There's also no need for downloading either as Audome provides lossless streaming and works on mobile devices. The audio is not compressed in any way, so what you upload is what they will hear. This is not the case with other file sharing services.
You can see an illustration of the dashboard below:
The Audome Delivery Page
The second part of Audome is the delivery page. This page is what your reviewer will see and where they'll listen to the work that you've sent. The page is centred around the lossless audio player with the possibility to intuitively add comments.
If your client or fellow collaborator heard something they want to change, they simply click the waveform to add a comment. They will then be asked to describe what they want to be changed along with an optional tag based on the instrument group the comment is about.
This creates a time-stamped comment which is sorted in a list to the right (see the illustration below), creating a structured to-do list for you. This way you'll know exactly what to do and what specific parts of the track your reviewer is talking about. They can even comment on an entire section of the song, and the corresponding audio listened to by clicking the time code.
Everyone with access to the delivery link can comment and reply to other comments (you can add multiple recipients to the delivery when sending or you can share the link afterwards). This helps combat the infamous problem of being the middleman between contradicting opinions between band members, collaborators, labels, or managers. You can also restrict access for people to download the audio.
Note that although the web tool is free, Audome also have a paid plan where you can custom brand your delivery page with a cover image and logo for a more professional look.
Final Thoughts
Audome is a great tool for centralising all music production feedback and stakeholder communication into one platform, and providing you with specific, precise, and structured feedback. I can see this being a huge time saver and saving a lot of headaches.
My only criticism would be that at present it doesn't appear to support a clear structure for distributing and receiving feedback on audio stems within a single project. This I think would be a great addition, along with specific tags for the BPM and Key of the track.
In conclusion, Audome is a great new tool and I'm excited to see how it progresses in the future. Audome has expressed a lot of cool ideas for further integrations and development of the tool.
Currently, Audome has two plans: A Hobby Plan which is FREE but limited to one active client at a time, and a Project Plan which is $18/month with unlimited clients and additional features such as custom branding.
Check it out yourself at https://audome.com or signup for a free account at https://app.audome.com/signup
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