The Soundslates project in a few lines:

Why do musicians need their own platform?

Very few upcoming musicians have enough connections to be able to produce an album entirely, This gave birth to the idea of Soundslates, a platform where musicians could freely interact and work together on projects. Having this resource of musicians and technicians available to them lets them achieve what was never possible for them before.

Soundslates crowdsources what historically only talent agencies and record companies could provide.  We offer a platform and tools to collaborate, to manage copyright options and secure transactions between users, and to discover collaborators and musical soulmates.

Soundslates isn't yet another promotional venue – it's a creative tool that helps you find the person you need for your musical projects.

It also allows musicians professional and amateur to turn their talents into money.  Whether you're a guitarist, a singer or a sound engineer, you can be hired on Soundslates by other users, who showcase your skills and pay you in return!

Find any kind of talent, worldwide!

• Seek out other users' talents by selecting what your project requires.
• Sort and filter results to find the perfect person for the job or collaboration.

Musicians can earn money by doing jobs and selling market items:

Soundslates Jobs

One of the most important parts of Soundslates is the jobs section. Hire musicians or sell your services by the hour. After each successful job, project members are prompted to rate you, ratings create a snowballing effect as the more and higher you are rated the more you will be noticed and hired in the future.

Soundslates Marketplace

Written a kick ass guitar riff but don't know what to do with it? Interested in sound design? maybe you've even created an entire song but it didn't make it to your album and now it's roaming nomadically on your hard drive. Cue Soundslates marketplace. Users are able to sell market items such as full songs or sound packs for other users to buy and use in their own productions. 

It is not about selling album tracks that will be listened on an mp3 player, the music products sold in our market are meant to be re-used for the musical compositions of the buyers, ie.

• A singer can buy lyrics and instrumentals to integrate in his last upcoming album.
• A music producer can sell the productions he wouldn't integrate in his own musical project.
• Companies can find instrumentals and and jingles for an advertisement video.

As usual, our filters allow an advanced search to find items tailored to your music.

Secured transactions:

Collaborating online is great, but who knows what can happen? Soundslates facilitates transactions between users by acting as 3rd party. Our site allows you to find professional users by using our filters and ratings,  but if something goes wrong, you'll be able to request a refund!

Not only the client, but also the seller is protected by our system, with clear defined project conditions, musicians wont be involved in situations where the client is asking for extensive amount of corrections.

Handling of copyrights:

Copyrights can be the source of a bad migraine for musicians,  we endeavour to make copyrighting easy by integrating the famous Creative Commons licenses, and by providing our own licensing terms additionally, when you join a project, you can simply select terms you want to use to protect your work.

Connecting pros and amateurs:

Soundslates is for everyone, this platform doesn't simply provide tools for amateur and professionals, it connects them together:

• For the veterans the platform gives possibility to meet similar professionals as well as getting paid for jobs and selling music and market items
• Amateurs can finally get in touch with professionals and hire them to preform on their projects

Keep it mobile!

• manage your Soundslates account on the go
• never miss account activity with push notifications

Introducing Vapor digital studio: music production made easy, collaborations via the cloud.

• Easy to use music studio software, accessible for beginners who normally avoid the technical side of production
• Professional features hidden behind a simple interface
• Tightly integrated with the soundslates platform
• Collaboration within the software via the cloud

How it works

Stay in control: with the Vapor remote, take your tools with you everywhere you go.

In the same logic as the rest of our tools, the remote has been made to give new possibilities to musicians.

Most musicians don't own external gear, and those who do can't take them away once they leave the studio.

That's why Vapor is not only allowing you to access your projects and sound libraries from anywhere, it also provides you with a wireless remote control, giving you many possibilities at your finger tips.

We really want this project to be the best it can be. To go the final mile and unlock the potential here, we're launching this funding campaign.

These funds will enable us to complete the software development, and do a successful launch.

If we raise our goal or less:

The $40,000 will be used mainly to complete development of the Vapor music studio application: it will fund several months of engineering work.

About 4 months of further development will allow:

• Adding all the remaining features
• Testing, optimizing and stabilizing the software
• Finally, releasing the product, and strong launch followup

If we reach our goal we will also use a little part of the funds to advertise the Soundslates platform.

If we manage to raise more funds:

Additional funding would be used for promoting our project and additional development, along with:

• Advertising the project
• Hiring a PR and community manager
• Creation of tutorial videos
• Provide more online support on soundslates.com
• Translate our website and apps into other languages
• Enhance the site, studio and apps, based on our customers feedback
• Create an android version of our mobile app
• Release an iPad version of our Vapor studio 
• Hire lawyers to go further in our licenses and protection solutions for the musicians

During this campaign we have launched the beta website.  You can already test it, see if you like our work, and help us shape it with your feedback.

Our next goal is to release the Vapor digital studio which is now at the early stages of the optimization phase:

Our business model:

It is important for you to fully understand our vision, so we'd like to explain the details of our business model:

Soundslates web platform:

On the web platform, users can choose between 2 memberships:

• Amateur: the user can hire for projects and buy items, but cannot be hired or sell his or her own products.  The free membership allows musicians to network with others: the social features aren't restricted.

• Professional: Members can perform an unlimited amount of Jobs on the site, and sell their products in the market section.  No fees are applied on their sales: the buyer pays a small maintenance fee, but not the seller.

Soundslates iPhone app:

Thi app will be available for free on the Apple App Store.

Vapor digital studio:

The software is basically free, but users need to pay a membership for full usage of the cloud features:

• Free: No restrictions on the audio features, but limited cloud storage and reduced sound library.
• Premium: approx. $80/year for more storage, full access to the sound libraries, sharing features and more.

Vapor iPad/iPhone remote:

This app will be available for free on the Apple App Store.

Why Indiegogo?

We are confident that many people will share our vision, understand the amazing potential in our idea and will be willing to help us provide funds in order for us to bring this project to life.

Our Funding Perks

Help us spread the word!

Even of you don't contribute to the fund raising, you can still help us to let people know about our project, if you have relatives or friends involved in music, let them know about us!

FAQ

1. If I create a song with the help of the site, do I need to pay royalties to Soundslates, or do I transfer any kind of rights on my music to the site?

Definitely not! Soundslates doesn't own any of the music made on the site, and it doesn't claim any royalties on the music made via the site and tools.

2. If I'm a professional musician, member of a copyright organization, such as the "ASCAP" for the U.S, can I still work with the site, are you in contact with those professional organizations?

Yes, in fact we are in contact with the Swiss equivalent of the ASCAP, the "SUISA", and have negotiated some conditions to be able to run our sites with the various cases that can occur, for example musicians are protected if they decide to create a remix of a famous song via the site.

3.  If a musician is earning money on the site, how much will he really receive on his account, are there fees involved?

When earning money on site through jobs or the marketplace item sales, the only fees you'll ever need to pay are the Paypal withdrawal fees