Bits N Bytes

- Apple will layoff approximately 30% of Beats employees due to overlap

- Jobs most in jeopardy involve payroll, HR, etc.

- 200 of Beats’s total 700 employees will be let go

Tough news following the record setting acquisition. This puts in perspective that even when all is seemingly well in these massive deals, there is always a group to feel the burden of the business world. With Apple’s massive staff, it makes sense to give the pink slips to the roles they already have filled, but it is still a shame to see so many people that built and awesome product headed to the unemployment line.

The post Apple to Drop the Axe on Beats Employees appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Bits N Bytes: 
- Craaave: where music discovery and messaging meet. 
- Could be competing with Google-acquired Shazam: Craaave app able to identify songs played in close proximity. 
- Ability to send songs to anyone on any music service, plus save received songs to your library. 

Ever hear a song while your at the gym, in the car, or in the club? And it just feels like the perfect song. And you just know your friends need to hear it right now.

The post Next Generation of Music Discovery – Meet Craaave appeared first on SoundCTRL.

• Chinese company Alibaba could invest enough to bring Snapchat to $10B
• Future brand integration could be a vital part of its valuation
• Puts Snapchat at the same pace of growth as Facebook was on

Info via GigaOM

A lot of people were laughing when Snapchat turned down a $3 billion dollar offer from Facebook. Now it’s looking like they were right on the money, quite literally. With constant unveilings of new features, investors are taking notice and brands will be right behind them. Be on the look out for snaps from all your favorite brands – probably without your permission.

The post Snapchat Could Be Valued at $10 Billion appeared first on SoundCTRL.

The former Warner Music Group executive joins the SoundCloud team at an interesting time – let’s breakdown his history and what it could mean for the streaming service:

-       Stephen Bryan has been working at Warner Music Group for the past 17 years

-       A significant part of his time was helping WMG evolve in the digital era

-       Prior to this departure, his main roles were “Digital Strategy and Business Development”

-       He’s was at the forefront of the first licensing deals with Spotify

-       He’s been involved in some of the earliest radio deals with iTunes

-       Most notably, he was involved in the first record label deal ever with YouTube

-       He’s received degrees from Vanderbilt and Wharton at UPenn

The post 7 Things You Need to Know About Stephen Bryan, SoundCloud’s New SVP appeared first on SoundCTRL.

The breakdown:

• Famed boot brand Dr. Martens will launch a music tour, #STANDFORSOMETHING, to focus on a new marketing approach
• Tour will be headlined by indie rock band Drowners
• Dr. Martens has also partnered with BandsInTown to promote shows

Here’s some exciting news in the world of brand - band partnerships. Dr. Martens can see the future of advertising, and it lies within everything you care about and identify with. Few would currently list the boot brand as a trendy, innovative company, but they plan on changing this perception with a contemporary marketing approach.

With help from the Drowners, Dr. Martens is hoping to instill the company’s image, and in turn, they’re famed product, into the personality and culture that make up the fan base of indie rock fans. Not only will they sponsor the tour in 21 venues throughout the country, but the band will also make live appearances in Dr. Martens’s 12 US stores.

We’re seeing an increasing number of brands recognize the extreme limitations of traditional advertising, along with the rapid ability to spread a logo and message with efficient use of a cultural movement. Pepsi is everywhere these days; 7Up has partnered with SFX Entertainment to be THE soda of EDM. And now Dr. Martens wants to be THE shoes of indie rock.

It’s an interesting and exciting approach, because it gives more worth to advertising efforts than ever before. Instead of a simple blasting of messages until one sticks, brands are creating experiences to interact with consumers. Whether it lasts or will soon be written off as “dishonest” will have to be seen, but in the mean time it is the cause for plenty of exciting projects.

The post Dr. Martens Launces Brand Tour, Hosts 21 Shows appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Thought Walkman was a thing of the past? Sony is thinking differently as they revive the legendary brand name with the release of the company’s new MP3 player. To breakdown the new product:

• The Sony Walkman ZX1 compresses files to maximize their quality resolution
• The tech giant is hoping to capitalize on fans growing preference for high quality audio they are not receiving through traditional players
• The audio device is being sold for $700

The Walkman ZX1 seems like it’s entering a marketplace gathering increased attention. The amount of fans flocking towards high quality audio is rapidly growing; vinyl records have been selling higher than they have been in years. The potential to convert this into a digital format, without losing any of the quality, seems like it has a strong market to capitalize on.

Sony does have some competition in this sector already, however. Neil Young has been all over the media recently enlisting support for his Pono Music Player, marketing itself as a similar high quality device.

We’ll see how the battle plays out to dominate the digital, high quality music player marketplace, if either device can survive. What do you think on the new trend?

The post The Sony Walkman – For $700 appeared first on SoundCTRL.

A breakdown of the news:

-       FiftyThree, the geniuses behind former Apple App of the Year “Paper”, created “Penci”, a stylus for the iPad, last November. Until now, it had only worked with the Paper App

-       Today, the FiftyThree SDK is now available to developers to use in their own apps

-       The most notable to do so is Squiggle, one of the most popular music apps on the market

What does this mean for Squiggle lovers (and anyone that wants to join in on the fun)? By using the revamped Pencil open capabilities, you can do things like draw strings to play within the app. Is the excitement brewing yet? Let me explain further: using the creative stylus on the app, you can transform your iPad into a music-playing instrument easier than ever before.

The new uses with Pencil don’t stop there. Other apps to begin a partnership with the latest from FiftyThree include Noteshelf. This app is all about notetaking; now you can do so with your own handwriting through Pencil, just like you were writing in an actual notebook.

Procreate is also partnering with the company, a popular app for creating art. You can already imagine the possibilities within this app by utilizing the efficient Pencil app.

The post FiftyThree “Pencil” Partners with Music App Squiggle appeared first on SoundCTRL.

The nitty gritty: JJS Media is based out of Seoul, S. Korea Their platform, MyMusicTaste is available on iOS, Android and the web.

It works in one of two ways;

Scenario 1: The artist sends fans a message to go to mymusictaste.com to support their concert in Korea. And nothing gets booked until there is enough demand for the concert(s).

Scenario 2: The fan searches an artist, selects the city and country you want to see them perform, spread the word to friends and build demand, artists see demand and can book a show in that market.

We hear about crowdfunding ventures all the time – especially when it come to new ways to consume music. So what’s so cool about this one? It’s a concert platform that collects concert-making data like the number of fans who might be willing to turn out for a show and how much they’d be willing to pay. This lowers the risk that promoters take on when putting together a show. And it puts both artists and you, the ‘TasteMaker’, in charge.

Not only that, but because of JJS’ HQ residing in Korea with a satellite office in Tokyo, Japan, it can help bands around the world find densely-populated, demand-heavy areas for live music consumption, including areas that don’t get exposure to every band across international waters. Seriously, Andrew W.K. back in 2006 had an album that only came out in Japan and South Korea. Plus, maybe you’ve heard of a little genre called K-Pop, illustrated best by Psy? So like they say, stop wishing and start making, you little tastemaker you.

The post Introducing Tasty New Crowdfunding Concert Platform MyMusicTaste appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Music and competition aren’t strangers to one another. Aside from dreams to play in the world’s great concert halls, competing to show off musical chops is often a tantamoumt goal–whether the reward be scholarship funding, press coverage, or just plain bragging rights.

The Interactive Music Battle is not this kind of competition though. In fact, you might say it’s not very much of a battle at all. Rather, it is a joining of movement and sound-sensitive choreography. A project meant for anyone who loves making and experimenting with music, the Interactive Music Battle is the brainchild of violinist, Nicolas Rasamimanana, Founder and CEO of Paris-based tech development company, Phonotonic. Currently looking to Kickstarter to reach the next stage of growth, The Interactive Music Battle has 11 days left to get the necessary funding for a goal of $70,000 USD, with 10 tiers of backing and rewards (the “Super Early Bird” level is already sold out!)

What is the Interactive Music Battle all about?

Simply put, the Interactive Music Battle involves the manipulation of small, silicone objects that house a sensor capable of detecting movement and converting that motion into different sounds of varying timbre, pitch, tempo, attack, and decay. The nature and emission of the sound depends on settings chosen through an accompanying app and the method of movement implemented by a user. “Packs” of data allow users to program the sensor for melody (Rock, 8-bit sound, Jazz, etc.) or rhythm. Wielding more than one object, these two elements of music can really create some catchy tunes! Fast and abrupt movement, slow and steady or even a combination of the two –it just means the flow of music is only confined to creativity.

Just shy of two weeks ago, the Interactive Music Battle was demoed and discussed alongside other sound and music related research, as part of a co-produced open house, hosted at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) during the fifth annual Futur en Seine Festival. This project’s aims and central element of enjoyment refine another project that brought Phonotonic and IRCAM together: the Urban Musical Game, which was created for the Futur en Seine Festival back in 2011. (This type of tech and the Urban Musical Game’s history was presented at Music Tech Fest: Boston, which we highlighted earlier this year.)

A Wi-Fi connection, the sensor-loaded silicone object, the app and yourself are the only things needed to get the music going. The sensor can even be removed from within the object and attached to anything else to make that object’s movement instantly musical. Just think of all the unique ways things move and what kind of melodies could ensue!

Here is the technical breakdown of the Interactive Music Battle objects, as outlined from the Kickstarter page.

Hardware

Inertial motion sensors: accelerometer 3DOFs, gyroscope 3DOFs, magnetometer
Connection: WiFi
Battery Power: up to 2 hours of active use, several days on stand-by, automatic sleep and wake     when connected to the app.
Charge: Micro-USB

Software
iOS (Android coming soon!)
Connect up to two objects simultaneously, one for rhythm, one for melody
Includes 10 music packs, more music packs to come.

Mechanics
Casing size: diameter 4 cm / 1’55 in
Object size: diameter 7 cm / 2’75 in
Total weight: 220g / 7,76oz

It’s hard to curb excitement when imagining the possibilities of these sensors, taken to the limits of trained human movement. Imagine an expert ballet troupe or a Cirque du Soleil show with a few sensors on hand (or leg or foot)! Aside from making appealing music alone, the potential for combination of artistic mediums busts open an entirely new door to the room of what currently houses performance art. As far as any actual “battling” is concerned, a rival dance off is one scenario certainly comes to mind…

You can back the Interactive Music Battle Kickstarter here. Should funding succeed, shipping is slated for December of this year.

Follow Phonotonic on Twitter @phtc and find them on Facebook.

Last, but definitely not least, below are the Kickstarter promotional video and a compilation video showing the reactions of passersby, outside of IRCAM, who witnessed use of the Interactive Music Battle objects and sensors in action!

Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1.

The post Score a Hit with the Interactive Music Battle appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Does listening to music enhance test-taking abilities? Does music exposure from a young age guarantee a better memory in the future?

These are questions that surround the concept of music and the brain, and many research teams have tackled the subject over the years. New findings at the Boston Children’s Hospital may shed some light on this concept.

Researchers led by Nadine Gaab, Ph.D of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children’s, have recently released a study that may have some influence over the opinion as to whether or not music training has anything to do with enhanced brain function.

While there are many notions regarding the relationship between music and brain function, it is important to consider all aspects of these studies before reaching a conclusion about whether or not listening to or learning music actually causes cognitive improvements. A simple correlation is always possible.

The Harvard Study

In this experiment, researchers had two separate groups of test subjects: 30 adults, half of whom were working musicians, half of whom were not, and 27 children aged 9-12, 15 of whom had at least two years of musical training. While under the careful watch of an MRI, test subjects were asked to perform certain cognitive tasks to measure various aspects of cognitive ability. These included mental processing speed, verbal fluency and working memory—your mind’s ability to hold multiple ideas at the same time.

According to the study, researchers concluded, “Children and adults with extensive musical training show enhanced performance on a number of executive-function constructs compared to non-musicians, especially for cognitive flexibility, working memory and processing speed.”

But what does this mean for music’s causation of improved brain function? Has past research supported these findings, and does this new research build upon it?

Past Research and Results

Leading up to this study, other research pointed to a number of different reasons why or why not music may be responsible for promoting brain function. For example, a 2013 study in Canada led by Harvard researcher Leonid Perlovsky found that, among high-performing high school students, those who continued music classes had consistently higher grades than those who dropped music lessons after two years of compulsory training.

In a previous study by this group, researchers were able to demonstrate that when subjects listened to pleasant music while taking an academic test, those subjects were able to overcome stress, devote more time to more stressful and more complicated tasks, and their grades were higher.

These are just a couple of the many studies done over the years that have worked to either prove or disprove the idea that music causes improvements in brain function.

Correlation or Causation?

With all of this research done, have researchers been able to prove that learning music can improve intelligence and higher brain functions?

Unfortunately, this research still does not conclusively prove causation between music lessons and mental abilities. Rather, the studies prove correlation between music abilities and higher brain function, but they cannot discern which came first.

Was the higher brain function caused by the music studies? Or were those individuals able to excel in music because of their innate higher brain functions? Did music allow students to perform better on a test? Or would the students have performed better anyway because they were already more gifted and motivated?

This classic chicken-and-egg predicament continues to plague researchers who aim to prove a commonly held belief—that music does indeed boost intelligence and improve brain functionality.

While many schools are dropping their music and other arts programs in favor of more math, language or test preparation, many researchers, teachers, musicians and other music lesson supporters are campaigning for the importance of music and arts to a prosperous and well-rounded education. While these schools believe that they are benefitting students by allowing for more test subject-specific class hours, music class supporters believe that they may be doing more harm than good in terms of other cognitive areas.

With all of this in mind, Perlovsky and his colleagues still hold the belief that the value of music, from an evolutionary perspective, involves its ability to help people cope with cognitive dissonance—in other words, the feelings of discomfort that accompany an encounter with information that contradicts a core belief.

Some researchers say that music has become ubiquitous because of its benefit to early humans as a way to cement social bonds, which ultimately contributed to further evolution and eventually improved civilization.

Whether or not music conclusively contributes to higher brain function is still up for debate and will be left to more studies in the future, particularly those who can follow test subjects from before, during and/or after their music studies and test their brain functions at those different times.

One aspect that cannot be argued is that music plays a crucial role in society—past, present and future. For this reason, more studies will inevitably be done until the spellbinding question can be answered: Does music really make us smarter?

The post Correlation or Causation? New Studies Reconsider Music and Brain Function appeared first on SoundCTRL.

When Monday morning came around, how did most start the new week? Most likely, begrudgingly flipping on a light switch, and reaching over to their phones to check for messages from overnight. This scenario is so commonplace, but the thought that these are automatic actions alone feels awkward and wrong.

Sudha Kheterpal, the drummer for the band Faithless, is no stranger to the modern trappings of the technology era. She is currently taking on a new project to bring a little more perspective to it all.

Kheterpal has teamed up with a dynamic group of engineers, designers, and media specialists to create a small but power packed percussion instrument called SPARK. What looks like a plain, bead filled, rock shaped, shaker on the outside is actually a simple-to-assemble, strong piece of tech that harnesses and stores the energy generated from playing with it. Kheterpal has her sights set on various communities in Kenya, an African nation that could greatly benefit from easily generated, portable, and preservable energy.

The power-generating and storing SPARK instrument

SPARK’s physical shape was designed by Diana Simpson Hernandez, a MA design student at the Royal College of Art in the UK, and its form was inspired by the idea of a flint stone—“refer[ring] to new beginnings; to the initial spark caused by two flint stones contacting each other to give birth to a powerful new source of energy,” as explained by the project team. The primary technology at work here is that of a magnetic process. A magnet that moves along a copper wire coil as SPARK is played generates a current that is stored within a small rechargeable battery. That power can then be utilized via USB connection to power a small light or charge a mobile phone. (The latter is especially applicable and useful because of the prevalence of the mobile phone banking system, M-PESA, which was launched for Safaricom and Vodafone, the main mobile networks of Kenya.) 

SPARK’s prototype has already been built, tested and very positively received by many Kenyans. The accompanying Kickstarter campaign is looking to fund more instrument production and to make it possible to provide educational assembly kits that can be distributed within Kenyan schools.

The goal is £50,000 and 1,000 initial shakers, which would then ideally be followed by more kits for the vast majority of schools and their students all around Kenya.

10 levels of Kickstarter donation provide backers everything from simple thank you tweets to a full week paid trip and accommodations to see and participate in the next round of work done with the SPARK project in Kenya. There are 16 days left in the campaign. The backing currency is in GBP because of the project’s UK base but even if one is outside the UK, every bit of awareness counts!

Kheterpal is inviting everyone, whether you can donate or not, to help spread the word with the hashtag, #ShakeYourPower.

Watch the inspiring Kickstarter video to learn more about SPARK and see the enthusiasm its power brings to these people who make their own beats. Maybe everyone who sees this video will give hesitate the next time they go to flick on a light…

You can follow the #ShakeYourPower campaign on Twitter @ShakeYourPower.

Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1.

The post SPARKing Up Sound and Sustainability in Kenya appeared first on SoundCTRL.

“I am concerned with YouTube entering the market because for YouTube everything is about dominance. And dominance is connected to destruction. That’s what I am concerned about, that it’s more about market dominance,” –Horst Weidenmueller, head of indie label !K7 at 2014 Midem conference in Feb 2014

On June 17^th, 2014 YouTube’s head of content and business operations, Robert Kyncl, stated that the company would be removing videos from artists on record labels that did not sign up for YouTube’s impending subscription streaming service. Being that Google already acquired rights agreements from the major record labels (Sony, Universal Warner), that leaves a vast majority of independent record labels on the brink of having millions of views (and thusly revenue) removed with their videos, due to their disagreement over YouTube’s royalty package. YouTube is offering major labels higher royalty percentages, more influence on future royalty agreements for all labels (indies included) and does not guarantee that all of the video content will be monetized according to a copy of a standard indie contract with the new music service.

Robet Kyncl at YouTube CES Keynote, 2012

Why would YouTube proceed with starting a music service that stands to alienate the largest market in the music industry? According to Kyncl, “it’s our responsibility to our users and the industry to launch the enhanced music experience.” YouTube has and will always be based on fan engagement simply due to the inherent nature of its business model: users sharing content in an online community. However, the vast majority of YouTube’s nine-year existence has been dedicated to a methodical shift from being based solely on the cultivation users and its community to being based on the monetization of its users and its community. 

YouTube Stopped Being YouTube Years Ago

Google purchased YouTube back in 2006, a year after the video-hosting site’s inception, and four years later YouTube made its first profit. In between those four years Google made concerted efforts to change YouTube from a user-generated content based company to one which profited off of user aggregation of video content, legal or not. While there isn’t a definable moment when YouTube’s fundamental shift occurred, November 22^nd, 2008 That was the date of YouTube Live, YouTube’s first “celebration of YouTube talent” according to the event’s producer Salli Fratini. YouTube Live was not only YouTube’s first large-scale showcase of the internet stars that made the company famous but also an experiment in testing the monetary value of their homegrown stars, as it was YouTube’s most expensive production to date headed by its first ever director of marketing Chris Di Cesare.

Online promotion for YouTube Live, 2008

The event was a failure, as it was planned to be an annual event, but the 2008 event was the only iteration of the show. Also, very few videos of the event can be viewed online even though YouTube partnered with digital video recorder company Flip Video to give free Flip Video Minis to YouTube Live audience members to capture the event. Google may or may not have anticipated its demise but ten days before the event, Google began placing advertisements in YouTube search results. Two years later, YouTube began monetizing user-uploaded videos which contained copyrighted material by identifying those videos, placing appropriate advertisements and shared 55% of the ad revenue with the rights holders of the copyrighted material. Later that year YouTube made its first revenue profit and its co-founder Chad Hurley was replaced as CEO by Google’s senior executive Salar Kamangar, the man who created Google’s AdWords.

The very next year after Google successfully transformed YouTube into its new advertisement cash cow, the company started an 18-month, $200 million endeavor to provide TV-quality channels and videos from established brands such as WWE, Jay Z, Mariah Carey and Ashton Kutcher. Two years later, Google began charging subscription fees for premium YouTube channels and, not surprisingly, content providers that generated billions of views complained about YouTube’s “low [revenue-sharing] numbers and lack of marketing infrastructure.”

Essentially, instead of cracking down harder on pirated content from its user, YouTube transformed their audience into unpaid miners of commercially viable products. YouTube users are now Uber drivers allowed to travel the information superhighway in cars they never purchased, undeterred, and share free rides as long as Google can place ads on their radio.

YouTube’s Playing Monopoly While Everyone Else Is Playing Checkers

“We think it is wrong for YouTube/Google to threaten to ostracize certain independents – denying fans the opportunity to hear their music, and labels and artists the chance to earn a living from it – because they are unwilling to surrender to a take it or leave it ultimatum” -Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI

The music, television and movie industries have suffered significantly since the advent of peer-to-peer and torrent sites which allow for illegal file sharing, but none more than the music industry. The solution was thought to be a centralized music store (iTunes) placed in a territory most of the music consumption was taking place (online) in a legalized music consumption model the fans were becoming used to (digital download). However, from 1999 to 2009 alone, music sales decreased by over $8 billion with the RIAA reporting declines in nine of the past ten years.

Within the last five years a new answer was proposed: subscription music streaming services with services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Rdio leading the charge. On March 12^th, 2012 Billboard incepted the On-Demand Chart, which tracked streaming service data and used that to help determine artist and song placement on their Hot 100 chart. A year later, they added YouTube views to the formula and eight months later, Jay Z, Eminem, and Drake had accomplished the feat of having 10 songs chart on Billboard concurrently due to the change. In a statement obtained exclusively by Soundctrl, Billboard’s Director of Charts Silvio Pietroluongo explained that not even the sales charting company itself knows the ramifications YouTube’s exclusion of indie labels would have on its charts:

YouTube’s changes are still speculative at this time. Billboard can not assess the impact on the charts until any changes are activated.

Billboard’s On-Demand Chart

While Billboard may not be able to assess the damages, as they have not been incurred, it’s almost translucent how clear YouTube’s future negotiation tactics will be and the shift that may happen given its ad-centric business model. One of the controversial provisions of the YouTube music streaming service contract is the premium tier, which is based in YouTube’s ad-supported service. In this tier, YouTube will only pay rights holders for videos with ads placed against them instead of every piece of copyrighted content because advertisements on every video would drive away viewers, according to a YouTube source speaking anonymously with Billboard. Accepting these terms would set a precedent throughout the music industry for other streaming services to follow suit.

YouTube Could Die

Weeks before YouTube’s grave ultimatum to indie labels became public, IMPALA, the European independent music association, started a campaign to have the European Commission provide regulatory action against YouTube’s apparent attempt to disrupt “real competition and diversity in the digital music market,” according to the association’s joint statement with Worldwide Independent Association (WIN). This will not bode well for Google given the current climate. Since 2012, both Apple and Amazon have been hit with anti-trust accusations over pricing and distribution tactics on eBooks and its publishers. Amazon specifically has been accused of using its immense eBook market share to abandon its core philosophy of customer satisfaction by delaying, overpricing and under promoting books from publisher Hachette in order for the publisher to agree to its payment terms. Sounds familiar?

YouTube understands that the subscription services is the most profitable way to monetize their fans’ engagement in an industry that has shown dangerous fluctuations in revenue over the last 15 years. Google tried their hand at streaming music subscription with Google Play Music All-Access in 2013, however sign-up rates have been low and Google Play Music’s product manager Paul Joyce admitted that less than 20% of its subscription users continues to buy music. But, look at this from Google and YouTube’s perspective. Last year, 79% of all artist revenue from subscription services went to the 1% of artists deemed “superstar artists”. YouTube is simply following the money for THEIRtube.

Keep in touch with Keith Nelson Jr. on Twitter @jusaire.

The post THEIRTube: Why Indie Labels Shouldn’t Be Surprised By YouTube appeared first on SoundCTRL.

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Imagine a keyboard in which you can control everything from pitch and timbre to volume and vibrato, straight from the keys without having to control any knobs, buttons, or recording software. London-based tech design company ROLI has found a way to use touch-sensitive interfaces to create one of the most intuitive playing experiences a musician could ever dream of—the Seaboard GRAND.

The heart of this device is the SEA Interface, ROLI’s patent-pending platform technology used to build pressure-sensitive touch interfaces, which ultimately allows the keyboard to function in its unique design. With this technology in place, the keyboard enables the musician to bend and control the basics elements of sound manipulation directly from the keyboard’s rubber “keys,” or “keywaves,” as they’re called by the company.

Not only does this amplify the possibilities of straightforward keyboard music, but these sonic abilities could allow a Seaboard player to more naturally mimic the sounds of other organic instruments straight from the keyboard—a function not previously available from other standard digital keyboards.

An Award- and Investment Backing-winning Musical Device

With Seaboard’s SXSW debut came the first-place award for the event’s prestigious 2013 SXSW Music Accelerator. Evan Lowenstein, emcee for Accelerator, said, “The Seaboard is clearly the brainchild of a passionate visionary who found a way to capitalize on digital technology to open up a whole new world of possibilities for musicians.”

In response, Ronald Lamb, CEO of ROLI, said, “We’re thrilled to have won the SXSW Music Accelerator. ROLI is building new bridges between music and technology, and since SXSW brings together these two worlds in a unique way, gaining this recognition here is a tremendous validation of the remarkable work of the whole ROLI team developing the Seaboard.”

More recently, the Seaboard GRAND won the product category of the Design Museum’s 2014 Design of the Year Award.

In addition to being award-winning, ROLI and its Seaboard GRAND received a notable sum of investment backing by major companies and individuals. Just last month, ROLI secured $12.8 million Series A financing. Backers include the leader of the investment, Balderton Capital (investors for LoveFilm and Kobalt Music Group), Universal Music, FirstMark Capital (investors for Pinterest and Shopify) and Index Ventures (investors for Sonos and SoundCloud).

Clearly, this revolutionary device has turned the heads of music and media investors, and ROLI plans to use some of the money to advance its endeavors, as the Seaboard GRAND is only the first in a line of music hardware and software products that the company plans to develop.

Seaboard GRAND Specs, Features and Price

As for specs, the keyboards come with three continuous pedal inputs (1/4”), two balanced audio out jacks (1/4”), a stereo headphone out mini-jack (1/8”), 9-12V DC power in and volume control. They run on OS X 10.7 and above, and they can be controlled via MIDI and MDC. Features include Equator sound design and control mapping, continuous touch curve control, pitch curve control and rounding, real-time visual feedback, firmware updates and free upgrades to future software releases.

The Equator sound engine itself has a few unique features as well. They include FM and subtractive synthesis, multi-layer sample playback, user-definable envelopes, a comprehensive modulation matrix, independent dynamic voice control and effects, including delay, distortion and equalizers.

As expected, this product does not come for the price of a more traditional electronic keyboard. For the Seaboard GRAND Studio version with 37 keywaves, it currently comes at a price of $1,999, but for a limited time, after which it will increase to $2,999. The next step up, the Seaboard GRAND Stage with 61 keywaves, goes for $2,999 for a limited time, though once the keyboard is more broadly available, it will rise to $4,499.

And finally, the massive Seaboard GRAND Limited First Edition with a key range of A0 to C8, runs at a firm price of $8,888.88. Only 88 keyboards of this edition will ever be produced, and each will be engraved with the name of a single key, in honor of the traditional piano keyboard.

These prices come with a two-year full warranty on all Seaboard parts and expert support on-hand for setup and compatibility issues. Learning materials are also available through the ROLI website.

How This Device Can Change the Music Industry

So the question now is, why do such musical bigwigs as SXSW and the aforementioned investors, including Universal Music, believe in the abilities of the Seaboard GRAND?

Being able to intuitively control all the basic elements of sound right from the keyboard itself enables players to do much more than they could using other digital keyboards. It allows them to push the envelope of digital sound creation and take it into new directions not before envisioned or thought possible. Combining this keyboard with organic instrumental sounds and beyond will also revolutionize the future of digital music production as it stands today.

The device itself is not the only factor in its success—the hardware that makes the design possible will also be a crucial part of digital music development. The Equator sound engine, for example, can be applied to a limitless number of instruments and 3D devices. Also, the patent-pending, pressure-sensitive touch interface is a foundation for more keyboards and other instruments and devices that can benefit from such a powerful technology, which extends far beyond just musical instruments.

Clearly, the Seaboard GRAND has been recognized for its abilities and potential to propel the music industry forward, as well as any other industries that could harness its groundbreaking technology. While the keyboard may be financially out of reach for some, the sounds it can create, once also out of reach, might be just enough to make the investment worth it.

The post How the Intuitive Seaboard GRAND Keyboard Revolutionizes Music Creation appeared first on SoundCTRL.

It’s hard to imagine, much less desire, yet another streaming music player coming into the picture. Well, in the shadow of the Apple-Beats acquisition, how about a new music streaming hybrid with one of the world’s biggest companies—Google?

According to the New York Post, Google is reportedly in talks to acquire the music streaming platform Songza for a $15 million, a mere sum when compared to Beats Music’s price of $3 billion for Apple. Songza has not yet confirmed this rumor, and neither company has confirmed whether or not the deal is finalized, but the potential of this acquisition definitely impactful on the music industry.

Why Google Wants Songza

Google has several reasons to buy a company like the six-year-old curation prodigy Songza, seeing that one of its main competitors Apple made the same move just last month. Always trying to be in-line or one step ahead, Google knows it needs to step deeper into the streaming music arena sooner or later if it wants to see real success with its various music-related operations.

It’s true that Google already has the Google Play Store and Google Play Music All Access, so it’s not like the company has no foot in the door at all. But these offerings are weak in comparison to services such as Spotify, which has a $4 billion valuation, and Pandora, which has a market cap of $5 billion, according to the Post.

One of the main reasons that services like Pandora are popular is that Pandora has developed the Music Genome Project, the back-end of Pandora that came to fruition over 10 years of detailed music analysis. According to Business Insider, collecting data for one song can take 20 minutes. Pandora uses this 10 years of analysis to create an algorithm that allows users to listen to songs related in sound to the others in the playlist.

Where Songza differs is that instead of using this algorithm, it employs specially curated playlists that are based on moods, location, and activities. Google is looking to jump on owning a service like Songza to bypass the 10 years it would take to develop its own version of the Music Genome Project and to combine the features of Songza with its existing music services.

This includes YouTube, for which Google is creating a new, ad-free paid music platform (the controversy surrounding the licensing is under fire from independent labels, but this is a wholly other issue). This platform will undoubtedly benefit from YouTube’s stance as the single most popular music streaming service, even though YouTube, at least for now, plays videos rather than individual songs.

Apple turned to this similar type of music curation experience when it bought Beats Music last month, which also plays music based on location, who you’re with, what kind of music you feel like listening to, and so on. Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Beats Music is the first streaming music app service “to get it right.” Apple wanted to jump into the streaming game as the iTunes Store is slowly but surely falling out of favor as more users turn to streaming.

Surely, Google would not be far behind.

What This Means for the Music Industry

The music streaming services most affected by this arrangement would clearly be Pandora and Spotify (and any other music streaming service, for that matter). Though Songza doesn’t currently have as many subscribers or bring in as much revenue as either of the two companies, with the backing of Google, Songza could grow, and grow fast.

For one, Pandora and Spotify may be more agreeable with potential buyers, such as Amazon and Yahoo!. These two tech giants will be looking to follow in Apple and Google’s footsteps before they’re left in the dust, as they’ll need to remain competitive in the music streaming market.

Chances are, both Pandora and Spotify will carry a much more massive price tag than Songza. Also, if both platforms are bought, they will stipulate to not be affected much in terms of leadership and operations. Basically, they may agree to be bought out but only under the condition that they continue running as they are currently.

But what if these services do end up changing even slightly under the ownership of a larger company that buys them out—which could definitely happen after the Apple/Beats and Google/Songza acquisitions officially go down? Will Pandora and Spotify be forced to adapt curation styles more aligned with Songza and Beats, or will they be allowed to maintain their own algorithms? And if they are left alone in that regard, will those bigger companies enable them to have outside talent that could further improve those very algorithms?

In short, music fans have a very good chance that the streaming platforms they have come to depend on, after abandoning CDs and mp3s to an extent, could change once again, and listeners will have to adapt to those changes.

Would these changes be for better or worse? It’s hard to tell at this point. There’s no way of knowing whether Pandora or Spotify or any other decently sized streaming services would be willing to be bought out in the first place, let alone allow the larger company to change their current offerings in any way. But it’s something music lovers will need to keep an eye on in the coming years as ownership of these companies begins to change hands.

Whether or not Google will end up buying Songza is up for debate, and neither side has made comments to confirm the rumors reported by the Post. But with tech goliaths like Apple and Google taking one step further into the music streaming market, this could make some serious tidal waves in the industry as we know it.

The post Google & Songza vs. Apple & Beats: What Does This Mean for the Music Industry? appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Want to enrich your music festival experience? These days, you can have apps for just about everything you can think of, and navigating music festivals is yet another way apps are being put to good use. Many festivals are turning to apps to keep their attendees in the loop about any and all aspects of the event, but some are better than others. Here are a few different apps that you should consider downloading the next time this music festival comes around.

Ultra Music Festival

The app for 2014 had several new features in addition to the photo filters, Facebook and Twitter integration, artist lineup and a fan wall to communicate with other fans, which the app already had. Friend Finder updates your location every time you open the app and can be seen by everyone you share your location with. UMF TV allows you to watch exclusive videos of the festival content before the fest, and during the festival, this feature includes access to highlights and live streams. The Schedule Maker helps you plan out your Ultra experience in advance and shares your picks with friends. Discover helps you find out which artists people are most excited to see, ensuring you’ll learn more about artists you may have never heard of. Its 2015 app promises to also include user schedule and set times, in addition to plenty of other handy new features.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Also known as Jazz Fest, this festival’s app includes a variety of features to help you navigate this popular New Orleans event. Not only will you have access to the music lineup, which lets you see every artist and where they are playing, filtered by day and/or stage, but you can also customize a schedule for each day and easily add and remove artists as the day goes on. You can also go to Artist Info to read bios, watch videos, visit official websites or go to iTunes to download music from any artist performing at the festival.

In addition to music info and the schedule, you’ll also gain access to the food lineup, which contains a massive list of every food item available at Jazz Fest and which area you can find it in. You can even schedule what foods you want to eat at specific times. There’s a handy zoomable and scrollable map of the entire festival grounds where you can click on a stage to see its lineup for that day. You can also use social integration that allows you to take pictures, caption them automatically with the artist and stage info and send them to Facebook, Twitter or both at the same time.

Coachella

Perhaps one of the most high-tech of the festival apps, Coachella’s app allows you to fill in your social media and notification preferences, which include emergencies, ticket info and so on, and then uses that information to activate your wristband directly from your phone. It provides a user-friendly interface for seeing the artist lineup and schedule in several different formats: by grid, timeline or list, by day or by stage. It includes weather updates on the front page and other Fun & Essentials features, such as where to find charging stations, dodgeball and the fest’s infamous Ferris wheel. The My Coachella account you create will also enable you to update your status, post photos of performances and other events and tag your friends as well. Plus you have access to Eat & Drink which helps you navigate all of the vendors, attractions, retailers and other points of interest.

Austin City Limits

This year’s version with all of its updates hasn’t been released yet since the festival isn’t for another few months, but last year’s app should be an indication of what’s to come. You can browse the entire list of set times to know when and where all of the bands you want to see are performing, and you can add your top bands to a personalized My Favorites list that you can share with friends. Learn more about those artists and even discover new bands by going through descriptions and music videos, and you can even interact with the band and fellow fans without ever leaving the app. The Austin Eats & Art Market section provides both menus and descriptions of different restaurants and vendors throughout the grounds. Push notifications and alerts keep you updated on all of the latest happenings of the festival in addition to a few surprises along the way.

You’ll find many more music festival apps where that came from, though note that they will range in quality, especially when it comes to being slow and buggy. Try these out for a good taste of what app developers have made possible for boosting your fest experience and helping you enjoy every aspect of the event possible.

The post This (and Next) Summer’s Standout Festival Apps appeared first on SoundCTRL.

If you’re a musician in the US, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the names ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. You also likely know that joining one of these Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) will help you collect royalties that you’ve earned as a songwriter.

What you may not realize is that the world of rights and royalties is incredibly complex, and in this increasingly global, multi-platform world, you might not be quite as covered as you think. In this article, we take a look at the royalties PROs can and can’t collect and demonstrate how a publishing administration partner like TuneCore Publishing Administration, in conjunction with PROs, can help ensure you’re able to get your hands on all the revenue your songwriting earns.

Performance is Just One Type of Right

The first misconception held by many songwriters is that copyright is a single thing – like a blanket – that covers your work. The reality is it’s more like a quilt, and if one piece of that quilt is missing, you may be left in the cold.

There are multiple ways compositions generate revenue for songwriters. Organizations like ASCAP and BMI cover one of them: the P in PRO, performance. While Performance encompasses much more than an actual stand-on-the-stage-and-play situation, it by no means covers all uses of a composition. It’s these other revenue generators that, if only work with a PRO, may represent earnings that are just sitting on the table.

What is Performance?

Performance quite obviously includes live public performances, but it also includes radio play and even having your composition played as background music in public place like a restaurant or hair salon. As a group, these are referred to as “Analog Public Performance,” and the royalties they generate are based on negotiations between your PRO and the radio station, TV network, bar, restaurant, airline, office, etc. using your composition.

Thanks to the Internet, royalties are also collected for “Digital Public Performance.” This category is then subdivided into Non-Interactive and Interactive “Streaming” Public Performance. Non-interactive services are those that don’t allow you to pick songs, create playlists or otherwise “interact” with the music. Pandora, iHeartRadio and Sirius XM Satellite Radio are examples of non-interactive platforms. Interactive service examples are YouTube and Spotify. For any of these uses, there’s no set royalty rate. Royalties are negotiated between the PRO and the other entity and are often based on a percentage of that entities’ gross revenue.

If the song you wrote is performed or broadcast publicly in one of these settings and you’re affiliated with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, you can feel safe in the knowledge that they will collect on your behalf and pay you…at least in the United States.

US-based Organizations Cover the US

Copyright regulations are laws, and as such, they are codified and enforced in each territory. Much like how the NYPD won’t be giving you a traffic ticket in Los Angeles, ASCAP isn’t collecting for you in Germany. Or France. Or Malaysia. Those countries have their own “Societies” for the enforcement of copyrights and collection of royalties.

Fortunately, there is a measure of cooperation. ASCAP or BMI will work with the society in whatever country to get you paid, but again, this is just covering PERFORMANCE. So imagine you gave permission for your song to be used in the TV Show Breaking Bad. It airs in the US so your PRO collects any resulting performance royalties for you and pays you. As a result of the song being in the show, your iTunes downloads skyrocket, and again, your PRO will get you paid. But if the show airs in Germany, and as a result your song catches fire on Spotify in that country, you will only get a part of what you’ve earned – the performance royalty. You will NOT receive royalties collected as a result of the streaming mechanical or download mechanical. Instead, the society for the region will collect the money on your behalf, but because they don’t know who to pay, they’ll just sit on it. By contrast, once you’ve registered with a company for publishing administration, they will track rights and collect on your behalf worldwide.

These internationally-earned royalties can really add up, too. For example, TuneCore Songwriter Brian Crain, an ASCAP member, had distributed and even licensed his music for a few years before he learned that his PRO wasn’t collecting everything he’d actually earned. As soon as he signed up for TuneCore Publishing Administration, TuneCore was able to get $4000 in download mechanicals to him that had previously just been sitting in Canada.

Image via indie-music.com

“Performance” Covers a Lot, but Not Everything

In addition to performance, royalties and revenue are generated when your compositions are sold, streamed through interactive services, downloaded or when they are licensed for use in something like a TV show or movie. These avenues can be incredibly lucrative. But if you’re just relying on a PRO, the money generated by them may never make it into your pocket. In these cases, a publishing administration service is essential. In the past, these services were only available to the most elite tier of songwriters. Today, in much the same way that digital has opened the door to global distribution for all; any songwriter can get a publishing administration partner.

Mechanical Royalties

If you write a composition and someone copies, prints, covers or even transforms it into something else, they owe you a “Mechanical Royalty.”

Reproduction is one of the main ways compositions generate mechanical royalties, and these royalties are owed on every single CD, LP or other physical manifestation of that composition. As soon as that “thing” is made, the royalty has been earned. If a million CDs are burned but not a single one sells, it’s still a reproduction of a million units. Every time a sound recording is downloaded or streamed (interactively) on digital stores like iTunes, Amazon or Google, it counts as a separate reproduction, as well.

Mechanical royalties are also collected for “Derivatives” of your composition. An easy example of a derivative use would be someone doing a bossa nova rendition of your hip-hop song. While this transformation no longer counts as a reproduction, you’ve still earned royalties for the use.

According to the letter of the law, derivative works include any work based on one or more pre-existing works. This could be a translation or new musical arrangement but could also include a dramatization, fictionalization or even a movie version. A good and complicated example of this is “Born in East LA,” a movie that was derived from a Randy Newman composition that was derivative from Bruce Springsteen’s composition, “Born in the USA.” Every time the movie gets shown, Bruce earns mechanical royalties.

PROs like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or SOCAN do not collect mechanical royalties. This means any revenue you’ve earned from streams, downloads (outside of the US & Latin America) and physical sales are not collected by ASCAP and won’t make it into your pocket. While the royalties will be collected per the law by places like digital stores that stream and sell downloads outside the US & Latin America, without publishing administration, they won’t know who to pay. The money, therefore, goes unclaimed. A publishing administrator, on the other hand, will register your information with these sources, song by song, and you’ll collect the mechanical royalties that you’ve earned.

Licensing

If we go back to the example of the bossa nova rendition of your hip-hop song, we’ve already established that mechanical royalties will be collected on your behalf, but you may not ever receive that money. What we haven’t yet discussed is the fact that you have to give permission to the band in order for them to legally do the rendition in the first place. That permission – or more accurately, the licensing of your intellectual property – is another avenue to revenue. It’s also a road the PROs can’t help you navigate.

Licensing comes into play with more end uses than just our derivative examples. Use of samples requires a license, and as we’ve seen through lawsuits against Robin Thicke, Jay-Z, Moby, Kanye West and scores of other artists, failure to obtain the correct permissions can have costly results. Also in this category are things like mobile ringtones, printed sheet music, online guitar tabs and even lyrics posted online. Legally, anyone doing these activities without the proper license is in violation of the law.

In a lot of these cases, it’s completely plausible that the violators are unaware of their crime, but ignorance does not make them innocent. They’ve violated your rights and you could sue them. But first you’d have to find the unlicensed use, then you’d have to figure out how much it’s worth and then good luck actually collecting. ASCAP and BMI can’t help you here. A publishing administrator can.

[Closing]

We at TuneCore believe very strongly that Performing Rights Organizations are an incredibly important and necessary tool for songwriters and publishers. They are the watchdogs of the airwaves, so to speak, with the enormous task of collecting performance royalties from thousands of sources. However, we also see how this is a very different business than it was back in the days of physical media on brick-and-mortar store shelves. Now, both the media and shelf can be digital and the channel and audience can be anywhere in the world.

Every year, millions of dollars in royalties that are collected on behalf of songwriters by societies all over the world just sit, unclaimed, because the songwriter doesn’t have a publishing administrator locating and obtaining these funds. That’s why it’s crucial to have a publishing administrator in addition to your PRO, so your share of those millions of dollars makes it into your pocket.

Jamie Purpora has 20 years of experience in music publishing administration. Prior to joining TuneCore, Jamie helped make Bug Music one of the largest independent music publishers in the world, serving first as Director of Royalties then becoming Vice President of Administration.

At Bug, Jamie was responsible for overseeing publishing administration the company’s entire catalog, which consisted of over 300,000 copyrights. Clients included Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Iggy Pop, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Guess Who, The Kings of Leon, Johnny Cash, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Tradition Music, Average White Band, Del Shannon and the Trio/Quartet Music catalog. Jamie also served on the Publisher’s Technology Board at the Harry Fox Agency for the last three years.

The post What You Don’t Know About Publishing May Be Costing You appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Although the app is a few years old to the music technology sector, Biophilia by multi-instrumentalist, producer, and all-around unorthodox thinker Björk continues to flourish in appeal and potential for use. Back in 2011, Biophilia was developed into a multi-sensory “album-app,” a handheld experience that integrated and complemented the Icelandic legend’s unpredictable, futuristic music.

Biophilia’s momentum is anomalous to the world of technology, even as far as music apps go. Not only has it remained one of the most original and boundary-pushing music formats of the last several years, MoMA has announced that Biophila will be the first mobile app to join the ranks of the museum’s permanent collection.

It is all too fitting that Biophilia is becoming an everlasting resident, with its own exhibition space in the Fifth Avenue fine art institution. MoMA is heralded for its pause-inducing and convention-defying exhibitions, and Biophilia’s unique integration of Björk’s music and an interactive format will certainly fit the museum’s bill.

MoMA will host Biophilia as the museum’s first permanent app exhibition.

Aside from the eccentric nature of Björk’s musical style, many museum visitors will have their very first interaction with Biophilia in an educational environment, rather than a musical or performative one. Bjork’s passion for interactive education is seen in her Biophilia Educational Program, which gives the app a dimension of character and purpose that extends far wider than simply looking at and listening to work by an individualistic musician. The program was just announced as having gained official approval for addition to many Nordic school curriculums and is funded by the Nordic Council.

Students use Biophilia in a Paris classroom.

Biophilia contains 10 tracks of music, each with its own thematic visual and interactive connections, depicting visual components and sonic metaphors that emphasize science, nature, and our own bodies. In congruence with the Biophilia concept of Edward O. Wilson’s book of the same name, which suggests homo sapiens have an inborn inclination for finding connections with other life forms and with nature as a whole, Björk choosing the title as her collaboration’s namesake feels too perfect as well.

While awaiting more news on the exhibition, you can download Biophilia now for $12.99 from the iTunes store or Google Play store.

Below is a promotional video designed to explain and highlight the app’s strength in the classroom.

Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1.

The post Björk’s Biophilia Joins the Big Leagues of Art and Education appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Last week’s Governors Ball Festival in New York City saw an attendance of nearly 50,000 per day from Friday to Sunday. With a high demand for a massive lineup featuring Outkast, Jack White, and Vampire Weekend, a festival of this size is a hotbed for scalpers who resell tickets on secondary markets like StubHub for astronomical prices.

Fortunately, New York-based ticket reselling startup Lyte saw the opportunity to use its unique platform to benefit sellers looking to sell off their unused tickets and fans looking to find tickets right before and during the festival. On the Thursday before the festival, Lyte began buying tickets back from fans unable to attend and reselling them at face value to an eager waitlist of fans looking for affordable tickets. Lyte also allowed festivalgoers the option of selling and buying partial passes, is they were only able to attend one or two days of the festival.

Have extra #Govball2014 tix? Sell to Lyte pain-free THRU the festival http://t.co/e84yjDdNnh. + Waitlist is open to buy below face value.

— Lyte (@UseLyte) June 6, 2014

With over 1,000 unsold tickets sitting on secondary markets prior to the festival, and an estimate of at least 500 on StubHub alone, many New Yorkers missed the opportunity to attend the festival due to high ticket prices. However, Lyte’s solution offered fair, face-value tickets for eager fans, and outperformed sales on StubHub, paying ticket sellers up to 26% more than they would have earned after fees. Despite scalpers’ attempts to inflate the market, the chances of reselling tickets on StubHub after the festival began were as low as 1 in 10, and only as high as 1 in 3.

Lyte, on the other hand, responded to 100% of ticket resellers, with an 80% acceptance rate of Lyte’s offers. Lyte sold 100% of the tickets they bought back, at or below face value. From the angle of customer service, the average time to send offers to sellers was 8 minutes, at times as low as 2 owing to Lyte’s pricing automation.

Lyte’s platform has proven to be an outstanding alternative to the unfair practices of scalpers across StubHub and Craiglist. Music fans are often swindled for last-minute tickets, priced far beyond face value, as scalpers deceive buyers into believing tickets are far more scarce than they actually are.

Lyte’s technology will hopefully become implemented in venues across America, so that fans can easily exchange ticket ownership hours or even minutes before a concert at fair prices.

“We’re just doing it right,” says Antony Taylor, Lyte founder, “This festival is about New Yorkers enjoying great music. We want to see a packed house all weekend long.

Read more about Lyte and founder Ant Taylor, visit their website to sell your unused tickets, and follow Lyte on Twitter.

The post Lyte’s Last-Minute Governors Ball Ticket Rescue appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Like most new features, Amazon is keeping the news around this release relatively low-key. And without the entirety of the Universal Music Group catalog, Amazon is clearly uninterested in challenging the obvious competitors in Spotify, Pandora, and now Beats Music. However, Prime Music’s promotional catchphrase, “Your music collection just got a lot bigger,” is a bit of a stretch for those subscription-addicted patrons who have been signed up on the other competing platforms for quite some time.

Lack of volume (no pun intended) aside, it’s likely that Prime members will gladly stream tunes through the new service if they’re already shopping on Amazon’s mobile versions. It’s like supermarket Muzak that doesn’t suck.

The post Amazon Prime Music Launches With Modest Catalog appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Record store Vinyl Pimp offered what is probably the best description of how the night will go down:

“Imagine you want to send a message to a friend, nowadays you have a wide range of choices such as SMS, Twitter, Snapchat, Email, voicemail, Wassap etc. As you wish the recipient to savour this message, you take time to go to a letter press room to find the perfect font, colour/ quality of paper, arranging the metal letterings overnight by hand to form the message, making small adjustments as you go along. Finally 12 hours later you are happy to get it pressed and sticking it in the post.”

Perhaps the most exciting element of the evening is not each individual’s performance in the first half of the evening, but the synced six-way analog jam that will start at 2am. If knob-tweaking, patch-pulling, and filter-cranking are your thing, last-minute tickets are still available at RA.

Read a bit more about London Modular Alliance and their recently opened modular depot here.

The post London Modular’s Revue #2 Tomorrow Night appeared first on SoundCTRL.

Image via Spingineer

Do you remember when your friend would pull up in his T-Bird, pull out his record collection, you’d throw them on your record player, and just absorb new music all day long? Of course you don’t, unless you’ll soon be collecting Social Security checks. But maybe your father remembers a time like that. And maybe you remember sitting with him in the living room with all of his records scattered across the floor, so he could show you what listening to music used to be like.

As you grew up, your TV and radio informed you of new music. Today, more often than not, it’s the Internet and apps: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. What hasn’t changed is the ability to discover new tunes through word-of-mouth and live concerts. But the experience is processed a fine sieve of email, smartphone notifications, social media, or app-technology to suit your tastes and preferences. We rely on a delicate balance of mathematical algorithms and human music lovers to help us wade through the glut of artists, labels, and media companies, all competing to leverage their exposure.

We have more ways than ever to develop, discover, digest, dissect, distribute (and re-distribute) music. $9.99/month can get you just about everything under the sun, streaming right to a device that’s always on your person. You can track your favorite bands via Songkick. Check out recent set lists on setlist.fm. Identify a song (and a wealth of other info) with Shazam. Share your sounds with the world on SoundCloud. From illegal torrents to digital purchases, free albums to streaming music libraries, it’s an exciting time to discover new music.

But back when vinyl records were the baseline for audio lovers, they had their own world too. Their own music scene. The excitement of grabbing a flyer for a concert, the thrill of the literal word-of-mouth, the joy of leafing through lyrics, admiring album art, and curating their physical collection of 33¹⁄₃ and 45 rpm LPs from their local record stores. And years from now, the evolution of music discovery will bring us to new, exciting paths.

Whether you’re indie, metal, pop, folk or punk, you can reflect on past nostalgia, enjoy present technology, and look forward to future experiences. It’s an exciting time to be a music lover.

But, hasn’t it always been?

The post Human vs. Machine: The Shifting Charm of Music Discovery appeared first on SoundCTRL.

There’s no denying that music streaming is here to stay and is slowly but surely replacing mp3 downloads (2013 was the first year mp3 sales dropped below streaming sales). Now that streaming has become a popular platform, more companies are looking to capitalize on music listeners’ interest in it. As a result, two models have arisen as different ways to appease customers with personalized playlists and music discovery tactics.

Algorithm-based services, such as Pandora and Spotify, are now contending with expert curation services, such as Beats Music and Songza. Both are slightly similar but differ in ways that may sway users one way or the other. Will one type of playlist creation beat out the other?

How Do Algorithms Work?

Algorithms and expert curation have similarities in that they both involve picking songs that relate to one another in some way. But the difference is who or what decides which songs are related and how they are related to each other in various situations.

Pandora uses specific algorithms that present playlists based on songs’ similar musical traits. The basis of Pandora’s catalog, the Music Genome Project, consists of 400 musical attributes that cover everything from melody, harmony and rhythm to form, composition and lyrics.

Pandora’s catalog constantly grows as it signs on more artists and their songs, each of which take about 20 to 30 minutes to analyze and be added to the catalog. From there, users make a selection based on genres, artists or songs, and Pandora generates an ongoing playlist with songs that have related musical traits based on the Music Genome Project analysis.

Algorithms are sometimes shunned for not creating “satisfying enough” playlists that are too computer-based rather than curated with a real person behind the scenes. Musical trait matching can feel robotic after a time, and it may be a bit harder to discover new music that you might like, versus playlists that run more smoothly than a computer-generated ones.

What About Expert Curation?

Beats Music, on the other hand, has a team of curators, who also analyze songs based on various musical traits. But instead of entering them into a database that chooses the playlists’ songs for them, the curators are the ones who actually create the playlists and decide which songs will go with others.

Users have compared Beats Music to the days when music magazines like Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and alternative publications were a key part of music discovery, where actual humans were behind the selections published for your reading pleasure and for you to either buy or download the album.

Beats has a few different methods of helping users discover music. Just For You offers curated playlists and albums based on any genre you choose when you first click on one of the genre bubbles in the app. Highlights are selections directly from Beats Music staff. Find It is a browsing tool for Genres, Activities and Curators. And finally, a unique addition to Beats, The Sentence allows you to fill in a sentence with a location, mood, the people you’re with and a music genre to generate a customized playlist.

Beats Music has its own naysayers who feel that the service doesn’t have enough of a social component with information about friends’ selections and playlists, which for many users is a primary way that they discover new music. Algorithm-based services, such as Spotify, depend heavily on this type of discovery and devotes entire pages and sidebars to it.

But Is There Actually a Blend of the Two?

Where it gets a little cloudy is that Pandora actually does involve some professional curation at the start, and Beats does use its own tailored algorithm.

The Music Genome Project worked for 10 years to create the base from which Pandora began the algorithm that allows it to play different related songs. With that project, experts analyzed each song before filing it in Pandora’s massive catalog to then be chosen from by the algorithm it uses. So at least at the start, Pandora does employ a bit of expert curation to catalog the songs based on characteristics. But in terms of music discovery, the algorithm takes it from there.

Beats, on the other hand, does actually use an algorithm based on certain genre choices to create the playlists users listen to. But the difference between its algorithm and Pandora’s is that Beats’ is based on a playlist of songs linked together directly by a curator rather than a playlist generated by a catalog of songs organized by similar musical traits.

Founder Tim Westergren in Pandora’s early days.

So Which Is Better?

Ultimately, deciding which is better is entirely subjective and could go either way depending on user experiences. They both have their advantages and drawbacks, and some might find that they enjoy the playlists on either one better than the other. Because both sides have free versions to try before committing to any type of subscription, users can try both to see which better suits their tastes.

So which version will win out in the end? Or will they remain on an even platform and split the user base? Only time will tell as Beats Music is bought by Apple and Songza is potentially bought by Google, which will give the two streaming services leverage and a larger talent and user base on which to grow.

Will yet another streaming model come into play sometime in the future that blows both of these models away? With the constant evolution of the music industry these days, you just never know.

Good ol’ crate digging ay Spacehall, Berlin. Image from unchiensanluki

The post Human vs. Machine: Algorithm and Expertise appeared first on SoundCTRL.

I’m sure there’s hardly an active internet user today who if asked, would actively elect to use a search return less thorough than that of Google. However, regardless of search engine preference, it’s just “type and hit search”—a quick, easy and reliable set of actions to find the content of the average web surfer.

The more someone searches and surfs, the more the user acquires a stacked history that informs future surfing sessions. This is the case for just about any search query, but when music is specified, is an artificial algorithm’s influence over “what we may like” really helpful in terms of putting new music in front of our eyes and under our mouse cursors? Will we genuinely investigate, listen to, like, and possibly become a full-fledged fan?

Where the general influence and return of search data and music recommendations are concerned, I would say things are more or less enjoyable and helpful depending on where time is spent on the web. Twitter makes recommendations for my accounts, many of whom are artists and bands, which is probably and logically due to my content being music focused. Since overall accounts take priority over the content of tweets, Twitter seems to leave its users a little breathing room to the extent of an algorithm coexisting with a freedom of choice.

You could argue that this is the same with Facebook: regardless of how many suggested/sponsored posts regularly appear on the newsfeed, users either click and listen, or they don’t. However (and this is where algorithms as a general tool can falter and fight among each other) the immediacy of change in what a user sees on Facebook—whether as a post or sidebar ad—makes its recommendation and curation power feel too forced. It feels too inorganic or unnatural to encourage expanding your musical horizons. One wrong click on  a Monday surf session and the platform or website in question will for days tell a user they ought to like this person/brand/album/concert, before that data phases out of rotation.

Where I see humans having a continuing edge over general history and data-affected curation is a better inclusion of balance, restraint, and spontaneity. Think of it like the stream of a regular conversation. A chat that starts about a visit to the beach ends in a discussion about the disparity between heavy metal’s lyrical content and nations’ global economic status. If no one explains how things went from one to the other, jumping directly between these topics would lead to abrupt non-sequiturs, incurring confusion or frustration for any onlookers.

Image via Gallo Images/Thinkstock

That’s where data-based curation seems to still lack some finesse. People still have to engage with a link or a streaming file or an artist page in order to learn more and potentially become a fan. But algorithms and anything with a “you may like this” premise can only make suggestions based on what shows up in a database or list from a platform. This makes the presentation of new music very definitive rather than gradual, unlike the natural change of topics in a normal conversation. Algorithms lack the ability to incorporate segues and the incremental transitions to connect those segues. Right now, artificial curation focuses on providing content that has already been engaged, without knowing why, or without factoring in how often.

For even more finely tuned curation/ad suggestions for bands or albums, again, the digital can only go so far into accounting for your preference for “X-band” and the artificial placement of “Y-band.” Perhaps the two outfits are listed under the same genre, BPM, or record label, in front of your eyes and ears. If “X” and “Y” turn out to indeed be similar in genre, the recommendation will feel more organic and likely increase the chances of the newly suggested artist’s music being engaged. Even then, this method of curation relies on a stepping stone mentality and doesn’t account for the spontaneous outliers and blind explorations that humans still like to make and promote, as is evident in rising artist features, blog mixes, or potpourri playlists. (Record of the Day is a great example of this and it is one of my favorite go-to sources for discovering new artists that I end up following and watching develop over time, should their music gain traction.)

Perhaps if artificial and programmed curation is eventually able to negotiate between the “six degrees-esque” suggestion system, and remain unaltered by the incorporation of outlier artist explorations, human curation will be given a stiffer run for its money. Presently, history-based curation will continue to offer a pattern of very similar music, or any content where Facebook is concerned. On the other hand, human-powered curation outlets can choose to take a week to highlight an unexpected album or band without grossly throwing off the expectations of its listeners/readers/followers.

Unless algorithms start surveying users to determine why an individual engaged with a random album of polka favorites on Facebook, Amazon, etc., (and who would even take the time to fill out questions every time they clicked something music related?), in my opinion the bluntness of artificial curation will remain the primary “weakness” of data-sourced curation against human music selection and suggestion.

Brooklyn’s Northside Festival will feature a panel this week titled “Human v. Machine: Music Curation in the Next Century,” including Nue Agency’s Jesse Kirshbaum, producer Just Blaze, Syd Cohen of Next Big Sound, and Erika Elliott of Summerstage. 

Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1.

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Dziga Vertov’s 1929 Man with a Movie Camera is one of the first instances of modern media commentary on humans’ relationship with technology. The film employed a variety of new film techniques to arouse interest and fascination with modernism, bringing people closer to the technology that would rapidly integrate into daily life. Part propaganda for Marxist ideals of society and part experimentation in futuristic art, Vertov’s film predicted only the slightest elements of how deeply integral technology would become to human life.

Now, culture and technology are inseparable—any artistic commentary on the matter is redundant at best. We’ve seen and read the dystopic fictions by Rand, Orwell, and more recently Ishiguro, that as high-schoolers and college students, seem only like grim, exaggerated harbingers of an eerie, homogeneous future.

Alas, we’ve arrived; and it’s just as grim as it is joyous. We need not pick our own music, books, or movies with best friend computers and phones making spot-on recommendations, removing ourselves from the curatorial process, paradoxically reminding us that we have a right to choose. For every bit of mechanical recommendation, there is a purported human hand gently pushing us in a direction in which we are more or less likely to wander.  We blindly trust the ingenuity of companies that sell headphones, ad space, and cell phones, because by adding one layer of technology to our lives, we can ignore a multitude of others.

We’re in an era of access, which opens up the market for both limitless discovery and blatant corruption. Spotify is one of the most brilliant platforms of the decade, but also leaves artists pennies as payment for thousands of plays of a song—precisely why you won’t be listening to Four Tet, Thom Yorke, or Colplay on Spotify. As these issues are analyzed, tried, and reconsidered, we risk upsetting the delicate balance of a system that offers us an opportunity to consume more music than ever in the past while slighting the people that make it. It might not be so bad to shake things up.

Image via Mashable

That being said, we owe ourselves a good look in the mirror to reflect on our habits as consumers and arbiters of taste. Music is human, because art is a natural human expression with or without a robotized industry, and we still have the grace of intellect and emotion guiding our interests. It’s great that our eagerness to share music at unthinkable rates enables programs to do the heavy lifting, sifting through 1s and 0s of data that link one song to another. Still, Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes lack the focused and personal recommendation of an experienced musician who’s been gigging for 20 years, a music writer now paring down a title for best search engine optimization, or a record shop owner struggling to keep the lights on.

Technology is the transparent connector that keeps the music industry afloat, but the next seminal hit won’t be picked by record executive using Twitter to find a needle in a stack of wires—it’s the fans and their passions that are responsible for the technology affording any function at all. Despite the algorithms, music genomes, and metadata, a good piece of music isn’t interlaced with a bunch of hashtags.

One day, Artificial Intelligence may drop its first name, much like an artist’s eponymous reintroduction to the world. But the question that remains is whether hit scoring, Twitter A&R’s, and child-like supercomputers will replace the gratifying, empowering process of discovering new art on your own. For now, we’re in the clear. The numbers show that vinyl records are still popular amongst music lovers, and there seems to be no shortage of record stores in metropolitan areas these days. Tactful curation is still king, and it’s part of the reason why the culture of DJ’ing is currently at large. Computers can’t match the speed of our attentions and our emotions, nor can they predict and decode our network of  relationships. Maybe they will catch up, but we owe it to ourselves to trust our 200,000 years of musical instinct.

Brooklyn’s Northside Festival will feature a panel this week titled “Human v. Machine: Music Curation in the Next Century,” including Nue Agency’s Jesse Kirshbaum, producer Just Blaze, Syd Cohen of Next Big Sound, and Erika Elliott of Summerstage. 

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