I Love Drop.io It Makes Life Easier.

In the last post we talked a little bit about recording practice tracks for people to learn new music.  I am fortunate in that I have a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).  I can record practice tracks with ease.  Usually a practice packet for a new song will include the following.

• PDF of the sheet music
• mp3 of the entire song mixed with all parts
• mp3 with each voice part emphasized
• midi file of each voice part
• PowerPoint of the song with the practice track attached to it plays while the slides scroll (pseudo karaoke machine)

I can distribute these files very easily by using drop.io. Drop.io is a free service that allows you to make a pickup point on the cloud (Internet).  The process is simple.

1. Go to http://drop.io
2. At the website you will see a menu box that allows you to create a name for your “drop” if you don’t name it you will be assigned a random name that no one will remember.  A good practice is to name it with the name of the song.  Drop.io does not allow spaces so use underscores between each word or just mash it up together.  Ex. http://drop.io/Alive_Forever  or http://drop.io/AliveForever
3. The next line has a radio button that reads”Select Files”
4. A new menu window will appear.  Select the files from your computer that you want to include. I usually make a folder in my documents on my computer and save all the files into it as I create them so I can find them easily. After you select the files hit the upload button and off to the cloud go your files.
5. This is where the cool part come in.  You send an email to all your peeps that need these files.  You include the drop name you created http://drop.io/anynameyouchose.  Now the folks who receive the email click on the link.  They are cyberported to the drop and can download all the files they need.

For all our “green” friends there is nothing more eco friendly than paperless.  Drop.io lets this happen for you.  Everyone can download the file they need, view it or play it on their computer and learn the new song. As Granny Chase would say “That is as handy as pockets on a shirt.”

Looking at Dropbox to see if it is a good tool.