MixMatchMusic Post DEMO

About three months ago, I interviewed MixMatchMusic when they were still in private beta, and I was impressed with the direction of the online music collaboration app they were building. In Today's podcast, I reconnect with the founders, Charles Feinn and Alan Khalflin to hear about their launch at DEMO and their progress since July. During this 10 minute interview, Charles and Alan provide insight about their business model, product offering and community. And I think you will find that MixMatchMusic is one of the more promising music tech startups; its just a matter of time before they receive significant adoption from both musicians/bands and music enthusiasts.

Click here to download the interview with MixMatchMusic

Also, here's the video from their presentation at DEMO - they did a fantastic job:

MixMatchMusic: Collaborate, Mix, Repeat

Most everyone knows about the success Radiohead had when they allowed their fans to create remixes of Nude. Even Terry McBride of Nettwerk Music recently suggested the importance of creating this kind of artist/fan interaction to not only develop one's audience base, but also create new and unpredictable sounds never heard before, which in-turn could equal even more listeners. What if you too could grow your fan community by allowing them to easily create and share remixes of your music....

MixMatchMusic is going to help you do just that starting this fall by providing the means for musicians to upload recorded stems, loops and/or phrases, and utilize an online sequencer with social networking features to share, exchange, collaborate and create music with people from all around the world. Imagine having parts of your songs remixed with unique rhythms, beats and instruments indigenous to a country thousands of miles away.

While there are already a couple of companies providing a similar service like ejamming, MixMatchMusic has created an elegant system with a unique monetization model, but I can't say more than that, as they're currently in private beta. However, I'm testing the service and will post a full review when the company is ready to move forward with a public beta. Founded by musicians Charles Feinn and Alan Khalfin, Silicon Valley based MixMatchMusic is a privately funded company.

Also, MixMatchMusic created a survey last week to understand how musicians from around the world collaborate online. If you haven't had a chance to participate, please take a moment to respond as it takes less than 5 minutes and the data collected will be used to help them refine their offering.

Rodney Mills Interview: An Audio Podcast on the Art of Mastering

Atlanta based audio engineer and friend, Clay Smith recently interviewed the legendary sound engineer Rodney Mills who has produced, recorded, mixed and mastered over 40 gold and platinum albums for influential artists such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pearl Jam, Curtis Mayfield, R.E.M., and many other global acts.  The interview is focused on the art of mastering, but it's a must listen for any artist considering DIY mastering versus outsourcing to a professional mastering engineer. Click here to listen to the entire interview.
----------------
I was listening to Hank Crawford & Jimmy McGriff - Peanuts via FoxyTunes when I wrote this post.

Recovering Recording Costs, a Response by Jimmy Ether

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the challenges musicians face trying to recoup their recording costs. Specifically, I asked how bands and musicians that do not tour frequently recover these expenses when the general public wants their music for free? Jimmy Ether, a musician, engineer and studio owner responded with such thoughtful and detailed comments that I thought his reply would be better suited as its own post, so here it is:

"Hey man, just taking a peak at your blog and thought I'd offer my perspective on all this. First, a little correction on the recording side of thing. There is a big difference in major label and indie rates in the recording business. There are literally dozens of good recording studios in every major city who provide great quality recording at around $500 a day, and a lot of those are having to cut deals to entice the home recordists to step up in quality. $1500/day studios are strictly for major label acts and there isn't a single sane independent artist that would use them.

That said, it would be quite impossible in this day and age to track and record an album in less than a week and you'd need another week to mix (unless you are, like Frank Black, going completely live to 2-track. Most records take about 3 to 4 weeks. But, you're price is pretty close. Most quality indie "studio" records are made in between $4000-$10,000.

I agree that there is no way the industry can function on a entirely free model, but I also firmly believe that most bands and labels are far too short-sighted with their tight-hold on their music. Free music goes both ways. If you can entice (essentially link-bait) press, bloggers, fanatical music lovers, etc. to write, talk, review, distribute and promote your music by giving them music for free, then your gain far outweighs your cost (in fact, in digital, the cost is essentially nil provided that the person otherwise would never have purchased it). There just have to be terms and limits. You have to figure out the value of a digital asset verses the potential value of an action resulting from allowing that asset to be given to someone free. The more direct control you have over that, the better return on investment.

There is also a pricing:convenience ratio. If the price is reasonable enough and the payment/download process is significantly easier than dealing with P2P, a large enough percentage of people will buy the download to make it profitable. $1 a song... is *not* that price.

I'd love to see a number on the budget being spent to subvert P2P file-sharing. If that amount were instead spent on making the experience easier for the consumer and *especially* on artist development (which is basically non-existent these days), then the industry as a whole would be in a much better position.

People who trade on P2P are a label and band's best friend when you get the model right. They are DJs sans-payola. P2P is the new radio. It is practically impossible for an indie-band to get attention without them. Just look at the correlation between the artists who are traded on these networks with the playlists on top college radio, 'zine coverage, indie store sales rankings, paid digital downloads, and blog coverage. Is it that the media is feeding the P2P? Nope, because the records are getting leaked (by, *cough* smart label promoters) to P2P *way* before even press copies get mailed. They'll never admit that in public, but the smart ones know it works.

I'm not saying the Radiohead model works. It doesn't, *unless* you are already a famous artist on the level of Radiohead. They only rose to that level because millions of dollars were spent in the promotion of their previous albums. Promotion costs a lot of money and far eclipses production and manufacturing costs. That's a budget that has to come from somewhere. And where to find that money is the major problem we face with new industry models.

Good blog BTW!"

Great feedback Jimmy, and I agree with you that P2P can certainly be a musician/band's best friend "when you get the model right." This philosophy also seems to be the direction Larry Lessig is suggesting, as seen in this video - as it becomes a middle ground where P2P becomes the distribution vehicle for music, but artists are still compensated.

Again, thanks for your detailed reply, and best wishes in 2008!

Btw readers, the picture in this post is of Jimmy Ether's  studio.

----------------
As I finished this post, I was listening to: Melpo Mene - Hello Benjamin via FoxyTunes