Dropbox

I've recently become a power Dropbox user and a big fan since my return from the USA.

Since then (and thanks to the meetings I had over there) I've been writing music for several different publishers and I've found that Dropbox is a fantastic tool to distribute the music to them. So, I now have Dropbox folders for each of my publishers and clients, so I can simply just drop a finished piece into the right folder and it'll find its way to London, LA or Copenhagen etc..., almost like having a network of wormholes from one place to the other. :-)

I also use it to sync files between The Artful Corporation computers and, on a more micro level, to sync files between my Mac and my laptop PC, which I use for music metadata.

Dropbox also comes in handy for sending music to directors/editors...The other day I was contacted by an editor who wanted to use one of my pieces on a TV show. I opened up and shared a folder with him, dropped the piece of music in the folder and it was on his timeline within seconds. Better still, the folder is still active, so I now have a solid method of transfer now set up for the next time he needs something.

A couple of other things I've found is that if you want to send a set of pieces to someone all in one go, you can upload them as they are finished one by one to the main directory of Dropbox and then move them en masse to the destination folder...They'll then show up together instantly at the remote end as they're already present on the Dropbox servers and don't need to be uploaded to be moved. It's also fun to export finished demos or masters directly into the destination Dropbox folder...You can't get hotter off the press than that!!!

One final use I've been trying out is as a collaboration tool. I have a folder shared with a fellow composer so we can work on the same files directly...Great stuff!!!