"You can do anything you want with the tracks once they're up there. It's like working in your normal studio. What tends to happen in a typical scenario for us is that when we have a project we want to do, we'll send e-mails around to the artists and producers, meet on line in a closed studio with Rocket Control, a chat window lets me know who's in the studio and converse with them. Then maybe I'll kick it off with some drums or acoustic guitar and vocals, whatever it is. I post that, my colleagues around the world receive those tracks, they start working on them and when they're ready they'll post those. I can have somebody in New York and somebody in Sydney because I know that in Sydney is the best didgeridoo player in the whole world, and they can be working on the track at the same time as the person in London, Rome or whatever. Then when they post them I can choose to accept or mute their tracks. The thing that it's really good for is when you need immediate approval on stuff. I can be sitting in my office in L.A. and I want somebody to send me a stereo mix of where the project is thus far, I can receive that in a minute. I don't even need any software, I can just have Rocket Control, and I can hear where the whole thing is basically going and say yes or no, ask for changes, and five minutes later have a new version of the project. It's really fast and completely professional quality, you can receive any file - MP3, .wav, MIDI, proprietary formats, it makes no difference."

Now that is a useful tool. It enables you to leverage a basic, professional project studio into a world-class facility and to tap top specialty musicians from around the world at a minimum of cost (no airfare!). It will open up huge possibilities to less-than-rich indie producers and musicians and will save massive amounts of production costs for big labels who will doubtless be tagging onto Rocket. And, in Sara's words:

"Also it opens up a whole new tier of talent. One of the facilities we have is a talent search. You register your skills, ability, and so on and if you're a producer in L.A. and can't afford the high-end, well-known artists, you can put in a search and have access to the next tier down that may, because of their location or whatever, never get the option to even try out for something like that. It's a whole new load of work for the musician and an empowering option for the producer. That's one of the really exciting keys for us, is that there will be a whole new tier of talent and therefore creativity that will come into the public view due to the technology."

She's right. This is big, and it will begin to usher a truly democratic and international matrix into the recording business. What MP3s and Internet distribution promises in the sales end of the music biz, Rocket will help deliver in the creative end.