Hello, Audio!

Recently, there has been an immense boom around startups working in the field of music and artificial intelligence. We see companies and individuals embracing the new technology in various fields of music production, composing, performing to music recognition. But how new is this technology really? In this episode Helen Meyer talks with Dr Leigh Smith, Senior Research Engineer at Landr, who has been working in the field of music and AI for more than 20 years now. He gives us a wrap up about how it all started, what the state of the art is and what he thinks the future may bring.

Want to dive deeper? Here are some useful links:

ISMIR - International Society for Music Information Retrieval

https://www.ismir.net

ISMIR 2019 - International Symposium for Music Information Retrieval 2019

https://ismir2019.ismir.net

GANs - ISMIR tutorial on Generating Music with Generative Adversarial Networks

https://salu133445.github.io/ismir2019tutorial

WiMIR - Women in Music Information Retrieval website

https://wimir.wordpress.com/

Portrait XO - artist using neural networks for generating an album of vocal processing

https://www.reeperbahnfestival.com/en/speaker/portrait-xo-portrait-xo

Aaron Burnett & The Big Machine

"The Prototype” https://open.spotify.com/track/12zlZ8URX0gm8rxniduLUi?si=egX_cDCpRKGQvcN_LHODJg

from the album “Anomaly" https://www.discogs.com/Aaron-Burnett-The-Big-Machine-Anomaly/release/13032173

Although having your own podcast is very time consuming, podcasts are currently flooding the German market but hardly anyone can even compensate the costs for the production. The American podcasting scene is a few years ahead of us, having big production companies and an advertisement revenue that is expected to hit 1 billion USD by 2021. Meanwhile in Germany, the podcasting industry does not seem to be on the radar of big companies’ digital marketing mix yet.

What possibilities do German podcasters have to monetize their podcasts and how do they become relevant for the advertising market?

Christoph Falke, Head of Audio at Axel Springer SE, Vincent Kittmann, Head of Podstars by OMR, a podcast marketing and production company and James Harper, owner of podcast “Filter Stories”, a documentary podcast that sheds a light on the stories of people hidden in the shadows of the coffee industry, talk about their experience with podcast monetization and how to improve it.

Do you want to found a business but are unsure about the first steps? This special podcast series of “Hello, Audio!” recaps the event called “Found Your Future” which was launched by The Venue Berlin in cooperation with students from Popakademie: Beere, Fabian and Lukas. In this podcast we will focus on some of the main points when it comes to founding. Founders and experts from the creative industry are sharing their knowledge in different keynotes.

In this episode, Tilmann Kemper and Anastasia Troyanov from APX are sharing their knowledge about finance investment readiness and sources of funding.

Do you want to found a business but are unsure about the first steps? This special podcast series of “Hello, Audio!” recaps the event called “Found Your Future” which was launched by The Venue Berlin in cooperation with students from Popakademie: Beere, Fabian and Lukas. In this podcast we will focus on some of the main points when it comes to founding. Founders and experts from the creative industry are sharing their knowledge in different keynotes. The first part of this series is an interview with Simon de Koning from ELEVEN who is getting interviewed by Helen Meyer from The Venue Berlin about how to stay motivated and believe in your idea while founding a business.

Music streaming services like Spotify and Pandora have changed the way we discover new music. These services use algorithms to provide music recommendation. They suggests songs to listeners corrisponding to their taste.

But who determines what kind of music these algorithms suggest? How will music streaming services improve in the future? What about protection of data privacy? In this episode of “Hello, Audio!“, Helen was on tour at Future Music Camp in Mannheim and met up with Prof. Peter Knees from the Technical University of Vienna who is researching on music recommendation systems.

On March 26th, the European parliament has backed the new and much discussed EU copyright law. One main change is that internet platforms that offer users to upload their own content are now responsible of the right copyright permission for this material. While the law’s aim is to protect creators' rights to get paid fairly for their work, one major implication is that anything posted on the internet will be subject to censorship, so opponents of the bill say this will stifle freedom and creativity on online mediums. This might especially affect unsigned artists and parodies.

But what does Article 13 actually mean? When will it be implemented and would it need to be changed so that artists get their share, but the freedom of internet is not affected? Find out in this episode of “Hello, Audio!” where Helen discusses this with Felix Stang, associate partner at the law firm Raue in Berlin in the area of copyright and media law; Micki Meuser, composer and music producer from Berlin; and Steffen Holly (Sholly), leader of the business unit Media Management and Delivery of the Fraunhofer Institute.

Digitization has dramatically changed the way musicians produce and distribute music. Everyone can produce content much easier and faster, but this also leads to more competition and pressure. Due to digitization, musicians now face higher expectations than ever before. Produce more, release more, tour more. This comes along with sleep deprivation, high levels of stress and anxiety, isolation and substance abuse. Is digitization being the trigger to mental health issues on artists? Or is it just a general issue?

On this episode of “Hello, Audio!” Helen discusses with Franziska Eichler, a transformational coach working with leading figures of the creative industry; Laura Aha, a Berlin-based music journalist from Musikexpress; Mira Culic Griffith, counsellor, coach and founder of The Mind Takeaway; Noura Labani, founder of the artist and label management agency Starling; and Peter Griffith, creativity coach and musician, about how digitization is impacting creative’s mental health and how can they win the battle.

The role of sonic branding is constantly increasing in our everyday lives, sometimes in a subconscious way. New audio mediums and technologies such as smart speakers, voice assistants, and podcasts are establishing themselves as an essential part of our life, making sonic branding especially relevant.

So what exactly is sonic branding? In short, it’s the action of translating a brand’s identity in an audio way. Every brand should be recognizable through more than just the visuals. While people are used to seeing corporate designs and recognizing brands via their visual styles and colors, now more than ever, it’s also crucial for them to be recognizable through sounds. And this goes beyond just a jingle – these days, brands are looking for sounds that describe their personality and goes hand in hand with their various identity assets.

Joining us on this episode of Hello, Audio! are why do birds and WESOUND, two Berlin-based audio agencies, as well as Jambl and Playtronica, two proprietary sets of technologies allowing to harness the power of brand sounds.

Should musicians and producers be scared of AI? That’s a question we hear often around here. But seeing as we already have our feet firmly planted in a future where many aspects of our lives are complemented by various forms of AI, we do believe there are reasons to embrace it. Today on Hello, Audio! Helen has a chat with Rock Trembath, Director of Global Marketing at LANDR, whose product evolved from an AI mastering software to a complete creative platform for musicians. LANDR has recently reached two million users, so we also have reasons to believe AI is here to stay.

LANDR’s mandate is to help musicians make their best music and tell the world about it. Their primary product is a music mastering algorithm based on AI: a musician can just drop a track for it to be analyzed and processed in a similar way a mastering engineer would do - except it takes about a minute and is a fraction of the cost.

And since LANDR is also a digital distribution service on top their other products (and since music production is becoming increasingly cheaper for artists), we segued the conversation towards the future of music and the independence of artists. Is this the beginning of the end for the big players? With the happening of streaming platforms, “echo-chambers” created by the likes of Facebook where everything is becoming more and more individualized, will there still be superstars?

Tune in to find out!

As technology and new media are changing at the speed of light, so do the means for marketing and promoting of anything and everything. Music is obviously no exception. These days, musicians have the freedom to experiment with novel marketing methods such as free distribution, while relying on alternate avenues to generate revenue, such as touring and merchandise.

Today on this episode of Hello, Audio!, we take you to our live After Work Session on the Independence of Artists in the Digital Age. Together with Steffi C, Founder of MusikMatter, Karl Ollie Goedicke, Founder of Blkchn Records, and Lena Engeln, Marketing and Project Manager at gigmit, Helen discusses what is actually happening today in the music industry.

Do artists need to be independent? How can they do that? What services are available to them? What are the limitations? When do artists need support?

But also, what are the middlemen doing these days? Are they still important? Do artists still need them? Do they still need the big players? Or can they do everything by themselves?

Let’s find out! And visit us at www.thevenueberlin.com for more!