Beatseeker

Streaming platforms have given us the gift of cheap, easy access to any song in the world but they have also attracted criticism from indie artists who complain that the royalty system they ushered in unfairly favors the top artists. SoundCloud was an early pioneer in streaming and always catered to the indie community. So it makes sense that they are trying to improve the economics for emerging artists, in part with a new system they call Fan-Powered Royalties.

We’re joined today by Drea Jackson, Manager of Artist Relations at SoundCloud. Drea walks us through the history of SoundCloud, how their Fan-Powered system differs from the Big Pool system used by the other big streaming platforms - and why it's better for indie artists. Drea joins us from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Check out Soundcloud at: soundcloud.com and follow Drea on Soundcloud at: soundcloud.com/dreavibes.

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

Have you ever wondered why certain songs get stuck in your head or why certain memories are triggered when listening to music? In this episode we get into a mind-blowing discussion about everything from ear worms to how music can be applied as an Alzheimer's therapy.

We’re joined by Dr. Kelly Jakubowski, a researcher specializing in music and memory. Kelly is an Assistant Professor of Music Psychology at Durham University in the UK. She studied Music Performance (on the violin) and Music Theory for her undergrad at Baldwin Wallace University - and her Masters at Ohio State. She then pursued an MSc and PhD in music psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Learn more at her work at musicscience.net and follow her on Twitter: @kj_jakubowski

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

When most people hear about crypto or blockchains, they probably think it’s all about Bitcoin. Turns out there’s much more to it. Audius is a new kind of music streaming company built on the foundations of the blockchain or Web3 technology. Despite being only 3 years old, Audius was named one of the hottest companies of 2021 attracting investment from top Venture Capital firms and artists like Katy Perry, Nas, Pusha T, Steve Aoki and others. In this episode we get the down-low on the hype around Audius and how a crypto-based streaming platform can provide radical new benefits to artists and their fans.

We’re joined by Roneil Rumburg and Forrest Browning. Roneil is a co-founder and CEO at Audius and previously co-founded Kleiner Perkins' early-stage seed fund. At KP, he was responsible for seed investments into Blockchain and AI companies. Roneil attended Stanford University and previously co-founded a Bitcoin peer-to-peer payment company called Backslash. He joins us from Lake Tahoe. Forrest is a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Audius.  He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, and previously was a Co-Founder of StacksWare. Today he joins us from West Texas.

Learn more at audius.co. Follow Audius on Twitter @audiusproject on Instagram @audiusmusic and go deep on their Discord: https://discord.com/invite/audius

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

You probably know by now that Vinyl is making a comeback. Record sales have been growing like crazy for the past 10 years. But even before vinyl was cool again, Discogs was building a site to help collectors catalog their records and sell them to anyone around the world. Founded in 2000, Discogs has grown to become one of the top music sites on the web.

To help us get inside the vinyl underground and the rise of Discogs, we’re joined today by Jeffrey Smith, Director of Growth Marketing. Jeff has been with the company since 2017 and comes to Discogs after 13 years as Founder and Principal Publicist of Crash Avenue, a boutique music public relations firm. Jeff joins us from Louisville, Kentucky.

Dig into the Discogs crates at discogs.com.

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

It’s not everyday that you hear about a brand new instrument. Today we’re joined by Mike Butera, CEO of Artiphon. Artiphon is developing new types of musical instruments that can be played by anybody. Their first product launched in 2014 and set a record with Kickstarter as the best selling musical instrument ever on that platform. Mike tells us how he was inspired to start the company and how technology is lowering the barrier to music creation and growing an army of new artists.

Mike founded Artiphon in Nashville, Tennessee in 2011. He holds a Ph.D. in Sound Studies from Virginia Tech, has toured the country as a multi-instrumentalist, taught as a professor of sociology, and consulted globally on consumer electronics. Today he joins us from Swan’s Island, Maine.

Find Artiphon at artiphon.com and on social media @artiphon

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

Music fans love their merch. How else do people know all the cool music you like if you’re not wearing the shirt? Merch has long been a way for fans to connect with artists and also a significant revenue stream for artists. When the pandemic hit, concert revenue died and merch revenue died with it. In this episode we hear the story first hand from a company that makes their living selling merch and how they pivoted to survive. We also learn about what makes a great concert tee and what genre of music sells more merch than any other.

Taking us through the merch revolution is Tersha Willis, co-founder of Terrible* Merch. Terrible* Merch is a full-service music merchandise and product management company that helps artists make more money from merchandise.

Find Terrible Merch at terrible.group and @terriblegrp Connect with Tersha on LinkedIn and on Instagram @tersha_willis.

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

Web3, or what many think of as ‘crypto’ was a major story in 2021 and is continuing to develop in 2022, but web3 is much more than just crypto. Emerging business models and things like Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), for example, are a new type of entity with the potential to blow the doors off traditional centralized organizations. Web3 and its underlying blockchain technology have the potential to facilitate global IP rights administration and royalty management - paving the way for real-time payments and innovative revenue streams for rights owners, creators, artists, producers, and publishers around the world.

To help us wrap our heads around this tech and to separate the hype from reality,  Bruno Guez joins us from Jerusalem, Israel. Bruno is the Founder of Revelator, a digital asset and blockchain-based distribution platform for creative IP that transforms creative IP (like music) into digital assets, unlocking the value of tomorrow’s web3 ownership economy. Bruno is a former Director on the Board of Merlin Network, the leading music rights agency, and has over twenty-five years experience as a seasoned digital music executive working with Island Records and Cirque du Soleil.

Learn more about his company at Revelator.com and follow them on Twitter @getrevelator

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs took the world by storm in 2021 turning digital art into digital gold. NFTs could be an important new revenue stream for artists but so far music has been mostly left out of the party. In this episode we talk to one of the companies trying to change this with a new platform to create and sell music NFTs. We hear the story of how new artists and veterans like Method Man are getting in on the NFT market.

We’re joined today by John Kohl and Alison Ball of TuneGO. John is the CEO and a co-founder of TuneGO and is a music lover and artist advocate. Alison is TuneGO’s president, a 25 year veteran of the music industry and former VP of A&R at Warner Bros. John and Alison join us from Las Vegas and Los Angeles, respectively.

NFT Creators and Collectors visit tunegonft.com and keep up with TuneGO on Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/tunego/

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

Listeners connect with the artists on many different levels. Some are casual listeners, others might attend a concert or two and superfans make it a lifestyle choice. Consider ‘Deadheads’ who followed the Grateful Dead to hundreds of shows or the BTS Army that attacks online critics of the popular K-Pop group. What is it about some bands that create such rapid followings? Whatever the level of fandom, the ability for fans to connect to artists (and vice versa) has been ever evolving as new technologies have emerged: from snail-mail to email to social media to new dedicated fan engagement platforms like FanCircles.

In this episode we discuss fan engagement with Kevin Brown, who joins us from Canterbury, England. Kevin is the founder and CEO of FanCircles and has worked in the tech industry since writing his first game back in 1983. He went on to run various companies and exited several, most notably Affiliate Window where he was founder and CEO.

Find Fancircles at fancircles.com and follow them on Twitter @fancircleshq.

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com

Music labels were once the gatekeepers of the music industry, handling every part of the music production and distribution process. Now this oligopoly has been disrupted by new technologies that lower the cost for artists to create music, distribute it and promote it themselves. The labels and the business models needed to support them have had to adapt to this new reality.

To walk us through this topic we’re joined by Kirt Debique, CEO of music label Bricklane and technology startup SyncFloor. Kirt was a 20 year Microsoft veteran who left tech to start an indie music label and a new technology company that helps artists license their music for commercial applications.

Learn more at syncfloor.com and connect with Kirt [email protected] and on Twitter: @katewayo & Instagram: @katewayo.

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Beatseeker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the Top Music Technology Podcasts on the web: https://blog.feedspot.com/music_technology_podcasts/

Learn more: beatseeker.fm

Insta: @beatseekerpod Twitter: @beatseekerpod  Facebook: facebook.com/beatseekerpod Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/beatseeker

Beatseeker is sponsored by the Boombox Music League: boomboxsoftware.com