In the digital world of music, newly created tracks are becoming more and more submerged competing with many others to be heard. Despite the simplicity in uploading a piece of song which can be created with a computer software from the comfort one one’s living, the end games for any music professional is to see their hard work being monetized. But how do we get there when listeners are open to more choices than ever before, especially a one stop shop such as Spotify or iTunes could provide up to 35 million songs at one go?
Mike has experienced success as a musician, and separately as an entrepreneur, but has found his true passion by combining music with business. As CEO of Music Xray, Mike has led the company through its challenging start-up phase and through institutional rounds of investment. He saw a need to find quality works among the growing haystack of recorded music, with 90% accuracy. Music Xray has already united approximately 80,000 music industry professionals (music supervisors, A&R execs, managers), 200,000 artists, and 200,000 fans to identify and connect new music with those who need it, to the benefit of all.
What is Music Xray?
Music Xray is a filter for the music industry. It combines crowd-sourcing of industry ears, music analysis software, and machine learning to identify high potential songs and talent. Currently, it is adopted by about 70% of the music industry in the US / UK and nearly 1000 songs and acts are selected each month by the industry for deals of various types (sync license deals, label deals, management deals, publishing deals, etc.).
How and who can benefit from using Music Xray?
There are over 12 hours of audio content uploaded to SoundCloud every minute by creators all over the world. The industry has no efficient and consistent way of identifying the needles in the haystack. Music Xray’s method of solving this problem benefits the industry and also benefits the great musicians who face the challenge of being noticed. The musicians who aren’t ready yet, are given feedback and information they can use to improve and to try again in the future – but our system doesn’t allow them to clog the pipeline and down out the ones who deserve deals.
Who are your regular clients?
Major record labels like Atlantic, Warner Bros Records, Sire, Parlophone, Epic, RCA, and many others.
How do you think Asian users could maximize the use of Music Xray since your professionals come from the US? Would music in Asia demand a rather different algorithm, pattern, demands, style of music different from the US algorithm?
It would work the same as it does in the US and Europe. First, we would need to get some of the Asia Pacific music industry on board – but once we have a critical mass of them, their ears would become an important part of the filter, meaning Music Xray would be effective as a system in ANY market.