Name: Record Together
URL: http://www.recordtogether.com

Think of all these albums in which bands couldn’t afford to hire extra instrumentalists. Just how good would they have been if a service like Record Together had existed back in the day? What if The Who had managed to hire cello players for “A Quick One, While He’s Away” (the mini-opera after which their second LP was named)? Would real cellos have sounded better than the jokey “cello, cello, cello” the guys ended up chanting in the finished record? Would that have taken away from the charm of the piece? That could be debated for longer than it took Brian Wilson to release “Smile” as he had originally conceived it, and we’d never come to any kind of agreement. Integrity, ingenuity, imnocence… the people who would veto using outside instrumentalists always end up talking about such things.

Yet, they have to admit that some classic albums could have been nothing short of perfected if artists could have had access to accomplished session players. If The Smiths had hired a full orchestra to play on their epic “The Queen Is Dead”, the end result could have been even better than it was. When the album was originally recorded, the band had to hire the services of “The Hated Salford Ensemble” (IE guitarist Johnny Marr playing everything using a keyboard) to get the accompaniment they wanted for songs like “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”.

So, there’s context and contexts in which outside musicians can be used in musical projects. If you’re a recording artist, sometimes you just have to resort to them. And if you’re going to do that, then you’d better do it right. You’d better go for a service like this one.

Record Together is a platform that lets you crowdsource the recording of individual tracks for these songs you’re working on. Need a sitar? A harpsichord? A lute, maybe? No problem. On this site you can get bonafide players to record the parts you need, and submit them to you digitally. All you must do is to explain exactly what you need, and set a bounty (in $$$). Session musicians will there and then upload their contributions, and the one who comes closer to the mark is the one that will get the money. He’ll get the money, and you’ll buy the rights to the recording. And years down the line, fans will be discussing whether hiring someone to play that part was the “right” choice or not.

But not that such a thing did The Who or The Smiths any harm in the long run, really.