Facebook Launches Video Collaboration App for Musicians

Facebook has unveiled an app called ‘Collab’. It’s a video app for musicians who want to perform for their fans while quarantined due to COVID-19. The new app, which was created by Facebook’s experimental app division, promises to deliver a new unique take on collaborative music making. It’s currently only available as an invite-only beta for iOS users, and if it sounds like this new app by Facebook is a direct competitor to TikTok, that’s because it is.

The new platform allows musicians to record their parts individually, with a 3 video limit. Musical collaborators can then combine those videos together to create a single clip. Fans will then be able to watch their favorite bands perform as if they were all together in one room. I can imagine well known artists and bands taking advantage of this opportunity once they get their hands on it.

It’s already well established that the popular video sharing app, TikTok already has this feature. The main difference is that TikTok only allows for the use of two videos. The differences may seem minor, but the coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent lock-downs, gives Facebook a good opportunity to release such a competitive app because the user-base is expanded at the moment.

These videos must first be posted to Collab publicly, so that any other user can take it and use it to make a video of their own. For example, if you like one person’s vocals, and the guitar on another’s, you could put your own beat with them using a virtual drum pad and make an entirely different song. Facebook makes it clear that you can’t remix the underlying music, and everyone whose parts you use in a Collab post get properly credited, automatically.

The Collab beta is only available to U.S. and Canadian users for now. If you want to give the new platform a try, you can register on the this page.