Facebook launches Collab, a video collaboration app for locked-down musicians

Facebook has unveiled Collab, a new video-based collaborative music-making app for iOS. Presumably this has been in development for a while, but Facebook says: “In light of so many folks sheltered in place around the world, we’ve expedited this release.”

The premise is pretty simple: Collab enables you to create three independent videos and play them in sync, resulting in a complete musical arrangement. You can do this yourself by adding your own recordings, or by using other people's.

This being a Facebook app, there’s a strong social element; you can publish your collabs to your favourite social media platforms - though it looks like they'll have to go to the Collab feed first - for others to watch and mix and match further.

Collab is currently in beta - Facebook says that it still has “plenty of work left to polish the experience” - and available on an invite-only basis. Invites will be issued in batches, going first to those in the US and Canada.

You can sign up to join the waiting list here.