Record and Collaborate Online with Thounds

In the summer of 1953, an unknown Elvis Presley wandered into the Memphis Recording Service during his lunch hour to record two songs for his mother’s birthday – well, that’s how the story goes. The songs he recorded were “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartache Begins”, and it cost him a total of $3.98. Fifty-five years later, a new web service called Thounds aims to make recording music just as cheap and easy today.

There has been some interest in Thounds on the AudioJungle forums recently. Author KrazyKartoons (Alon Dan) was daydreaming out loud:

You know that feeling when you’ve got a melody running on your mind? That’s how most of us produce original music. What if we could “download” the melodies on our minds, and “tweet” those ideas on a special music network and share with a lot of other musicians around the world, a new way to create some cool shot original music together.

His daydreaming led him to Thounds: “Thounds lets you sample short musical ideas and collaborate with others. CHECK IT OUT you may like it .”

What Is Thounds?

Recently, Thounds’ content manager Gian Maria Girardi contacted us to let us know what the service is all about. It sounds like a great way of not only recording and distributing music simply, but also collaborating with other musicians and music producers.

Gian Maria explains that Thounds is a cross between “thoughts” and “sounds”, and describes it as “the new music platform developing on a social network.” You can record music live to the web application, either by using your computer’s built-in microphone, or by plugging in real instruments or quality mics. You can distribute your music through integrated networks: blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Virb, and other popular networks.

One of Thounds’ aims is to help capture musical inspiration. It’s a quick and easy way of capturing a musical idea before it vanishes. You hum, whistle, sing or clap your ideas straight to the web app before they disappear.

Later on you can develop, enhance or re-record your initial idea playing real instruments and collaborating with others. “Inspiration usually kicks off the entire creative process, be it producing a song, taking a picture or writing an article; it is important to grab it while it lasts. This is why users won’t find many tweaks or knobs in the recorder tool, it’s simple, easy to use and ready to take their sketches.”

Gian Maria points out that ideas don’t always come from musicians: “Whether user is a musician or just a music lover, they can contribute to a new track and enjoy it with friends and with many others around the world.”

This all sounds quite different, and is capturing imaginations around the globe:

• “Thounds wants to make it easier for musicians and singers to record and collaborate across the globe.” (METRO London)
• “It is an online recording and sharing platform for musicians to collaborate on the same track.” (Tech Crunch)
• “This type of worldwide musical collaboration is only going to become more popular, so start getting used to it.” (Windows Fanatic)
• “Thounds is a bit like Twitter but for sounds!” (IDC Media Lab New York)
• “Esta plataforma pone la cooperación a disposición de cualquier persona de forma simple, divertida y en tiempo real” – “This platform makes collaboration available to any person in a simple, fun way and in real time.” (Rolling Stones Argentina)

What do you think of Thounds so far? Check out this promo video while you’re thinking about it.

I love the multi-colored musical ideas being inhaled through their ears like smoke!

From what I’ve seen so far, Thounds’ strengths seem to be:

• It’s simple and easy to use.
• You don’t necessarily need expensive music and audio gear.
• You can use any computer, as long as it has an internet connection.
• You can collaborate with people around the world.
• You can easily distribute your music through social networks.

Taking Thounds for a Test Drive

Up until now I’ve only been believing what other people have told me about Thounds. I haven’t signed up for the service. What I’d like to do now is sign up and try it out – and maybe even try collaborating with some of you

At the www.thounds.com site, there is a large, blue “Sign Up” button in the bottom right. I click it, and am greeted by the words, “What music are you thinking?”, and the sign-up form which I fill in, then check my email for the confirmation. On first logging in, the most noticeable thing on the page is a red “record” button with the message “Put your headphones on. Press rec button. Record your Thound!”

I grabbed my guitar and hit Record, just using my iMac’s in-buit microphone in the spirit of the Thounds video above. I played a few bars, and hit Stop. What I just was played automatically played back – yuck! The noise I heard was loud and distorted, had a hollow room sound, and picked up lots of background noise, including birds and a baby. Not bad if I want to get down an idea before I lose it, but nothing I’d want other people to hear.

So I plugged into my Focusrite audio interface and gave it another go. I recorded a few bars of strumming, and Thounds played it back to me. It was better, but I still can’t say I’m thrilled with the sound. I don’t like the tone,  and I can hear the effects of the compression that makes recording work over the Net. Thounds is a basic system, and doesn’t seem to give any enhancement options like EQ or effects. It also doesn’t record in stereo – it combines both stereo signals into a single mono track.

Have you tried Thounds? How have you found the sound quality? I searched for other people using the service, but most people had zero Thounds. The few I found had equally bad sound.

I’m not sure whether my quick recording is worth collaborating on. If you’ve signed up to Thounds, you can find me by doing a search for “Adrian”. You need to add me to your contacts before you can hear or contribute to my Thound. Perhaps you can record something that others can collaborate on. Keep us up to date in the comments.

Thounds has a lot of potential. From what I can see so far, it makes a great scrapbook of ideas that I can work on by myself or with others, but I have doubts about it being useful for actual production. Maybe that will improve as the app improves. What are your thoughts?