How to Use RiffWorld

Welcome to RiffWorld, the RiffWorks community! Learn more about RiffWorld, or follow the instructions below to get started.

Step 1: Create & Edit Your RiffWorld Musician Profile
Step 2: Post Songs to RiffWorld using RiffCast
Step 3: Collaborate Online with RiffLink

Step 1: Create & Edit Your RiffWorld Musician Profile:

• Login to RiffWorld.com by clicking "Login or Join" (to your left). If you already have a SonomaKey from the store, RiffWorks, or the forums, please use the same one. Do not create more than one SonomaKey.
• Click on "View my profile" below your user name on the left.
• Edit your Musician Profile. Example of a complete profile here.
• Upload an avatar (small and square). Format can be gif, jpg or png.
• Upload a picture (of you or your guitar, etc). Format can be gif, jpg or png and best not to exceed 500px wide or tall.
• Enter your musical influences and the kind of gear you use. For best results: Enter influences and gear exactly as the artist/band/manufacturer/company spells and capitalizes them. Do not include dashes, asterix, or extra characters. Include a return after each one. This will ensure that your profile will be linked to other people's profiles with similar interests. This makes it easy to find people with similar interests.
• Now other users will be able to find you, the songs you post, and the collaborations you create.
• There is a RiffWorld Creator Membership Icon in your profile. Creator Membership is currently FREE and allows you to access all the online collaboration features (eg. JOIN and CREATE both PUBLIC and INVITE-ONLY collaborations).

Step 2: Post Songs to RiffWorld using RiffCast:

• Edit your RiffWorld Musician Profile before your first RiffCast (see steps above) or your songs will be assigned to Admin instead of you.
  Contact Support if you have difficulty.
• Record a song with RiffWorks. Download RiffWorks T4 for free, or buy RiffWorks Standard for the most features.
  Learn to use RiffWorks from the Quick Start tutorial that begins when you launch it and from the RiffWorks Online Guide.
• Click the RIFFCAST button in RiffWorks to bring up the RiffCaster submission form.
• Complete the form paying particular attention to the sections below.
• Genre: Add words that describe the song so it shows up in searches generated by the RiffCaster Genre Tags. Use lower case letters separated by spaces in RiffWorks. You may edit these later in your RiffWorld profile. Example Genres: rock blues pop metal rifflink collaboration, etc. (Note: there is currently a genre tag bug when you enter them using this RiffWorks form. Please edit your song's genre tags on RiffWorld after you submit your song.)
• Station: Choose a Station to post your song (RiffCaster or RiffRumble song competition if one is accepting submissions.
• Description: For best results, and fastest upload times, enter a short description with only periods for punctuation. You can add a longer description later by editing your song on RiffWorld.com.
• Clicking RiffCast uploads your song to RiffWorld.
• Your song will appear on Recent RiffCasts, your Musician Profile, and in the genre lists you specified when you filled out the form.
• Your song will receive comments from the RiffWorks community and the public. Leave comments on others songs too!
• There will be an OGG and an MP3 download link under the song player on RiffWorld.com.
• Share your song link with others.
• Share your song's player with others. Click your song's name on RiffWorld, get the "Embed Code" from that page and paste it into your web page, MySpace page, even paste your song as a MySpace comment.
• Subscribe to a Podcast of your songs, other's songs, or a specific Genre. Click on the orange "Get Podcast" button at the top of a list of RiffCasts. This will work for most current browsers. If your browser is not set up to work with Podcast links, just right-click on the link, select copy link, and paste it into iTunes/Advanced/Subscribe to Podcast.

RiffWorks Version 2.2. and later users may also upload songs to RiffWorld.com using the form in their RiffWorld.com Musician Profile.

Step 3: Collaborate Online Using RiffLink:
Before you collaborate, get comfortable using RiffWorks to record your own songs by taking the Quick Start tutorial that begins when you launch RiffWorks (14 languages available) or read the RiffWorks Online Guide. Listen to 'casted collaborations on RiffWorld.com to get a feel for the potential and the community. You can either A.) JOIN a Public Collaboration most likely created by a seasoned collaborator or B.) CREATE a New Collaboration after you've learned the ropes.

A.) JOIN a Collaboration in Progress - Recommended for beginners
• Launch RiffWorks and click the RIFFLINK button in RiffWorks' RIFF RECORDER panel.
• Login with your SonomaKey – the same user name and password you used when you bought RiffWorks and logged into RiffWorld.com.
• Browse the list of Collaborations using the VIEW popup menu. You'll find the same lists of collaborations on the RiffWorld and within RiffWorks:
• Public Collaborations: Lists all publicly available collaborations.
• My Collaborations: Lists only the collaborations you've created in your RiffWorld.com profile and within RiffWorks.
• My Work in Progress: Lists the collaborations you have contributed to in your RiffWorld.com profile and within RiffWorks.
• Active Collaborations: Lists collaborations with people currently logged in, so you can use RiffWorks to listen to what's being created and jam live using RiffWorks.
• My Invites: Lists 'Public' and 'Invite Only' collaborations to which you have been invited.
• Select a Collaboration to join by clicking the JOIN button.
• Once the collaboration has loaded in RiffWorks, you will be then be able to play it, record riffs, edit, save and Mix down the Riffs and song the same as you do with regular RiffWorks songs. Changes you make to the song will appear to the other active contributors in near real-time.
• Collaborations are automatically saved on the RiffWorld.com server as you record.
• Only the user that created a Riff can record the first Layer in that Riff.
• You can only delete the Layers and Riffs that you create.
• Once you've joined a Collaboration, chat with others in RiffWorks' RIFFLINK screen or within the collaboration on RiffWorld.
• Add-on InstantDrummer sessions can be used, and will be heard by you and other collaborators as they stream from the RiffWorld.com server as needed. However, InstantDrummer sessions will load fastest if you own them because there is no need to wait for them to stream fom the server. Any additions you make to the song using the Rex Player and ReWire backups will not be audible to other collaboration participants.
• The InstantDrummer sessions listed on the RiffCaster song pages (bottom right hand-side) are the sessions used to create that song.
• The songs posted in the list of public collaborations that have no contributors listed (active: none, contributors: none) are empty collaborations. The creator hasn't recorded anything yet, so they should either record something or delete their empty collaboration.
• The RiffWorks Community created RiffLink etiquette guidelines. Please read them before you start collaborating.

B.) CREATE a New Collaboration - Not recommended for beginners
After you CREATE a collab, you can either A.) start recording from scratch in your new collaboration in RiffWorks OR B.) import something you previously recorded in RiffWorks into that collaboration (see below). If you don't do either of these things, the collaboration will remain blank.*


A.) Start Recording From Scratch in A New Collaboration on RiffLink
• Click the CREATE button in the RiffWorks' RiffLink Tab to start a new collaboration. Or create a new collaboration by going to your profile on RiffWorld.com and clicking "Link your First Riff".
• You can create 'Public' or 'Invite Only' collaborations. A 'Public' collaboration can be viewed and edited by any RiffWorks user, whereas an 'Invite Only' collaboration can only be viewed and edited by you and other RiffWorks users to whom you give access. Invite users to 'Public' and 'Invite Only' collaborations by adding their user name (case sensitive and enter a return after each user name) to the invite list. You also need to invite yourself. The invitations show up inside RiffWorks in the "My Invites" list. The only way you are currently notified that you have been invited to a collaboration is by viewing this menu - more notification systems are coming soon.
• You will be then be able to record riffs, edit, save and Mix down the Riffs and song the same as you do with regular RiffWorks songs. Changes you make to the song will appear to the other active contributors in near real-time.



B.) Import a Song or individual Riffs from Your Computer to A New Collaboration on RiffLink
• Log into RiffLink from RiffWorks
• Create a New Collaboration (see steps above)
• Join your collaboration
• In RiffWorks, Click the IMPORT button in the RIFFS panel.
• If you already have a song recorded and saved on your computer, select any .rwr (riff) or .rws (song) file to open to import the riff or riffs into the collaboration.
• Your Riffs will be uploaded to the RiffLink server.
• There's no need to press save in RiffLink as it saves automatically to the RiffLink server.
• You will have to put the song back together in the songbar as it will not import the arrangement.
• You will be then be able to record riffs, edit, save and Mix down the Riffs and song the same as you do with regular RiffWorks songs. Changes you make to the song will appear to the other active contributors in near real-time.

Listen to completed collaborations that have been posted to RiffWorld with a collaboration genre tag.

User Forums, RiffWorks Guide, RiffLink Guide & Tech Support are available if you have any trouble with RiffWorks or RiffWorld.com.

Can't wait to read more about you in your RiffWorld.com profile and hear your music!