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For Music Fans: Alert about upgrade from Focus Groups to Fan Match

Posted by Mike McCready | July 25th, 2012 | 6 Responses

This is just a quick note to anyone who has an account as a Fan on Music Xray. That includes those with Artist accounts but who also participate as listeners in Focus Groups.

 

We’re introducing a major upgrade to our Focus Groups product.

In fact, it’s such  an upgrade that we’re changing its name to Fan Match.  I’ll tell you all about that below but first, I want to alert you to a change you’ll notice when you log in to your account.

 

The upgrade requires that you log in and connect your Music Xray account to your Facebook account and grant our application a few permissions.  (Click here if you have forgotten your password and need to reset it). The first obvious consequence of this is that in order to continue using your Music Xray Fan account, you must have a Facebook account. I know that will upset some of you. I’m really sorry about that. We are driven to make the best possible product and in this case, integrating some social features simply made the product better and more useful. That is to say, it generates better music discovery for fans and it delivers better fan acquisition data to musicians.

 

Here’s the thing, although Music Xray appears to be asking for a lot of permissions, these are pretty standard for any app that integreates with Facebook. We’re never going to post anything to your wall on your behalf unless you ask us to (direct posting to Facebook from within Music Xray, but you control the posting). In order for that to work properly, you give Music Xray permission to trigger that post if you request it.

 

Additionally, the new version of Focus Groups will target you much more precisely based upon your music tastes. We ask you to update your taste information on the following screen (after Facebook integration), but part of the Facebook integration enables our software to stay up to date on your taste trends and listening habits.  That way, when we have new music to send you, it will be something as closely related as possible to what you like.  Notice the tag line for Fan Match.

Also note, we do not collect any other kind of data nor do we share any data with anyone. The only observer of any of your data is a computer at Music Xray that uses the data to make correlations and connections between songs. It’s pretty cool. You can turn off these permissions at any time in the future if you don’t continue to love Music Xray.

 

 

 

Changes in compensation for listening

 

In the new version of this product, listeners will still be paid for their participation but we have to do a reset on compensation. With the launch of Fan Match, fans will all start receiving ten cents per listen. Opportunities for increases will be introduced in short succession of version 1 of the product, so stay tuned.  I also understand that this change will be upsetting to some of you who have reached the higher badge status and were being paid 45 cents or more per listen. The hard truth is that while useful and interesting for some, Focus Groups wasn’t a compelling product. It wasn’t providing musicians with the kind of valuable feedback we had intended. Focus Groups were performing as intended. It’s just that the feedback they were generating wasn’t earthshattering. Our Focus Groups product was not taking things to the next level for the digital music space. So, in order to correct that, we had to re-imagine the entire product. In so doing, we had to start from scratch and change the angle a bit.  To those of you who may feel disappointed, I am sorry. You can delete your account from the “settings” section if you feel you must.

I hope you’ll stick around.

Oh, and one last thing…, Music Xray is growing like crazy but we’re still small compared to where we’ll be soon, especially with all this fan engagement starting to occur on the site. You’ll see a couple buttons on your dashboard. If you like what we’re doing, please click on them! You can earn ongoing affiliate fees, as well as help build Fan Match as one of the best ways to discover new bands and music.

Please log in to connect your Facebook account now.

Mike McCready

Co-founder & CEO

Music Xray

 

 

Is Music Xray a Scam? Is it Legit? What the heck is this thing?

Posted by Mike McCready | July 23rd, 2012 | 5 Responses

I’m going to delve into a topic we hear about from time to time. It’s when a potential user objects to using Music Xray because they suspect it’s a scam of some sort, or that Music Xray takes advantage of the aspirations of millions of musicians by charging them to take a shot at something they have almost no chance of achieving.

 

I could go on about all the obvious evidence to the contrary (and I will below this paragraph), but I want to start by saying that the only way you’re going to know with 100% certainty that Music Xray performs as advertised is to give it a try (for free, of course). When you open a free account as an artist, we give you a $4 credit, which enables you to get a free submission. There are many submission opportunities on the site that only cost $4. If you click here and scroll down you can see many of them. At the time of this writing, there appear to be about eighty opportunities of this type. When they say “free”, it means there is no submission fee and you only pay the transaction fee of $4. When you apply your $4 credit that we give you when you open the account, you pay nothing, so you can see for yourself if this thing really works. We’re also giving you a samplefree Fan Match campaign, so you can test our other service out too. If you decide you don’t like them, don’t use them again. No strings. No catches. Really.

 

So, now let’s address head-on the subject of Music Xray’s legitimacy.

 

Before Music Xray, getting to a decision maker in the music industry required knowing someone or gaining access to someone, usually through a painstaking networking process that could take weeks or months to pan out. When you did finally get your music into the hands of the decision maker, you frequently had to be the guy or gal following up, calling, asking, “Have you listened yet? What did you think?” Then, in the best of cases, you could only do that so often. It’s not like you had five opportunities like that lined up every day, right?

 

Sure, there were tip sheets but even after you sent in your CD, bio, pics, etc., you still rarely even received acknowledgement they had been received, let alone received a response in return. That process was also very expensive because while you did all that work, you had to pay rent and feed yourself, not to mention sacrifice time and energy you could have spent doing what you do best; make music.

 

So, Music Xray has created an online set of tools that A&R professionals, talent buyers, agents, managers, program directors, publishers, music supervisors, and music podcasters use to identify opportunity-appropriate and high potential songs and talent. Once we could demonstrate it was working, we achieved the engagement of a sizable part of the industry; then slowly, we opened the doors to independent musicians everywhere. If you’re just hearing about us, welcome. We’ve been here for a couple years, proving ourselves, getting ready for the big time.

 

Sure, Music Xray charges a few bucks and we don’t apologize for that. We get a result for you that, via any other means, costs you a lot more time and money. There’s no mystery to it. We are simply able to reduce the time and money it costs by combining some new technology with the efficiencies and capabilities of the Internet. We don’t create the opportunities. We don’t create the music. So, we don’t get paid when a deal between you and an industry professional gets done. Your deals are yours.

Our job is to find the opportunities and bring the industry professionals and decision makers to the table. To do that, we provide them with a compelling set of online tools that helps them do their job more effectively and efficiently – to the extent that professionals who are not using Music Xray are finding themselves at a professional disadvantage vs. those who are. We keep the industry professionals engaged with a great product. The platform we’ve built (and continue to build) is complex and expensive. So is keeping the lights on while providing a second-to-none user support team. Even so, we’re able to keep your costs very low. Due to Music Xray, you can pursue many more opportunities simultaneously and at a lower cost.

 

We have created a system for musicians via which getting to a decision maker is no longer about who-you-know. Isn’t a level playing field exactly what independent musicians had been demanding for decades? Doesn’t everyone want a sure-fire way of getting their music to the ears of the professionals who matter?

 

Being able to reach them immediately, at the click of a button, and for a few dollars sure beats the old way. If you don’t think so, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to stop doing it the old way in order to give Music Xray a try.

One day, doing it the old way will seem as strange to people as an accountant in today’s world still using an abacus to calculate their clients’ taxes. Those guys either switched over to new technology or they were long ago outcompeted by accountants using calculators and computers.

 

If Music Xray doesn’t save you time and money, we’re doing it wrong. Our service is one that reduces inefficiency and creates transparency in an industry that historically has been murky and sometimes completely opaque. Industry professionals and musicians alike are finding Music Xray refreshing. Check for yourself. Do a live Twitter search for musicxray.

 

If you have questions about Music Xray’s business model, the submission fees, or just think you should never pay anyone to hear your music, click here.

 

If you have questions about what exactly happens when you submit a song via Music Xray click here.

 

Lastly, and only to drive the point home, you can see an extensive list of success stories here. Those success stories include major label signings, major motion picture placement, major and cable network television placement, contestants on The Voice who started at Music Xray and so on. Between 50 and 70 songs per day are selected for opportunities via Music Xray EACH DAY.

 

And if that’s still not enough to adequately answer the question, one can note some of our investors: They include Digital Assets Deployment, True Global Ventures / Dušan Stojanović / David Rose, Wharton Professor Josh Eliashberg, New York investor Hal Vogel and so on. Reputable investors examine companies carefully before investing. They do not invest in companies that are not providing true value or companies they fear may be exposed for operating less than 100% above board. If something like that were to happen, it would ruin their investment. In the meantime, the company would never reach profitability if it didn’t generate satisfied users who find value in the service. Reputable investors wouldn’t touch a company with a ten-foot pole if they suspected it of running a scam.

 

And that says nothing of the marquee brand name companies that work with Music Xray. MTV, RCA (Sony), Sire (Warner), Parlophone (EMI), The Voice, NBC’s Jimmy Lloyd Songwriting Showcase etc. These are not typically companies that would work with ill-reputed businesses. But they are companies that are forward-thinking and want to use the latest technologies to help them identify new songs and talent.

 

If you still have questions, get in touch with our team via support@musicxray.com and we’ll be happy to provide additional information. Bookmark this post and consider sharing it with fellow musicians. As a small company, we don’t have big PR budgets. Help us make sure all musicians know about a music tech company leveling the playing field by posting this to Facebook, Twitter, or just getting involved in our affiliate program and earning some money to offset your submission costs here on Music Xray.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike McCready

Co-founder & CEO

Music Xray

What happens when you submit a song via Music Xray?

Posted by Mike McCready | July 19th, 2012 | 10 Responses

 

Here at Music Xray, we’re all about transparency and about managing expectations. Sometimes people ask why they occasionally get the same response from different music industry professionals. So, we thought we’d take this opportunity to peek behind the curtain.

 

When an industry professional receives a song, they can hear the track, read any lyrics you’ve uploaded, read your bio, see your video (if you have one), check your Next Big Sound statistics, view the rest of your profile and songs on Music Xray (if they choose) and then, they are presented with three choices: Select, Hold, and Not Select.

 

Obviously, the more information you fill out in your song presentation profiles, the better impression you make with industry professionals.  You should always include your lyrics, a photo or an image and even a video if you have one. You should always put your best foot forward.

 

Select: If your song is selected, you are alerted via email that your song has been selected and a pathway to communicate with the industry professional is opened. That allows you to begin a dialog and to close the deal. It’s important however to be respectful, patient, and courteous.  You would be surprised to learn how many deals go south after a song has already been selected simply due to the industry professional deciding they’d rather not work with the artist. Remember, there are a lot of songs and artists out there, and while you should seek and expect a good deal, being “easy to work with” and “low maintenance” goes a long way.

 

Hold: This simply means the industry professional has put their decision on hold. You are free to continue to submit your song elsewhere. When your song is on hold, the industry professional will receive an email every 10 days reminding them they have your song on hold and that you are awaiting a final decision. Keep in mind that songs can remain on hold for a long time. This is especially true in television and film.  It can take 18 months sometimes between when music supervisors begin looking for music and when the movie is done and final music selection begins.

 

Not Select: When an industry professional does not select a song, they are prompted with the screen you see in the image to the right. There, they can write their own reason for not selecting the song, or they can choose from one of the standard, but polite responses we provide. We provide these short answers because they are typical reasons songs are often not selected and part of what makes our system so appealing to industry professionals is that we make it so quick and easy.

 

We acknowledge that such a short response can sometimes be underwhelming to the submitter. It’s important to remember that before Music Xray, getting a guaranteed listen from an industry professional much less a response of any kind was unheard of. We will continue to make improvements where / as we can.  In the meantime, if you’re seeking a longer and more detailed response to your song, we provide you a way to submit to industry professionals for song critiques and career coaching.  When you submit to those drop boxes, you can expect much more detailed responses and perhaps even enter a dialog with the professional on the other side.

 

Once the industry professional has made their choice, we show them the next screen where they are asked to rate your song on each of five separate criteria.  These ratings do not go directly back to you because we’ve found that industry professionals may sugar-coat their ratings if they know you will see them. Instead, we show you the average of the ratings once your song has been submitted to five separate opportunities and five professionals have rated your song.

 

That way, no industry professional is singled out for their rating and we feel an average of five ratings gives you an accurate reflection of how your track is being received by the industry. If you don’t like the ratings you’re receiving, you must face the fact that the ratings come from professionals you’ve selected.  Presumabaly they are into your style and genre or you would not have submitted your music to them in the first place. It’s kind of hard to argue that the ratings aren’t an accurate reflection of how your music is perceived. If your ratings are good, keep submitting. If they are bad, consider getting some help from other industry professionals or consider submitting another track in the future.

Lastly, the ratings are used by the industry professionals themselves. They can log in to the “collective ratings” section of their account and see the ratings of all the other professionals and they can adjust the filters to suit what they are seeking.  For example, they can adjust the filters to show them all the songs that have been reviewed and rated by at least 10 other industry professionals in the past month. They can also adjust the filters to show them only the songs that get high ratings on certain criteria. If hit potential isn’t important to a particular industry professional, they can adjust
the filter to disregard hit potential as a search criteria.

This feature enables the industry professionals to leverage each others’ filtering capability and expertise. Many of the deals that get done on Music Xray are a direct result of professionals finding the tracks they are seeking in this section, so for you, having multiple good ratings from five or more industry professionals can be the key to getting contacted when you least expect it. This is called “crowd-sourcing” and Music Xray is the only company to ever have successfully crowd-sourced the music industry. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. Industry professionals visit this section of the site daily to scoop the cream off the top.

So, there you go… a peek behind the curtain at Music Xray. I hope this was interesting and helpful. If it was, please click the little Facebook “like” button below or the share options and help us spread the word.

 

Thanks,

Mike McCready

Co-founder & CEO

Music Xray

 

How much time & effort do you spend acquiring new fans?

Posted by Mike McCready | July 17th, 2012 | 6 Responses

 

How much time and money do you spend trying to acquire new fans online?  Think about it. Remember, while you’re doing it, you have to feed yourself and you have to pay rent. Time is money.

 

Now ask yourself, do you enjoy the process? Do you ever get the feeling people aren’t just waiting around for you to tell them about a new song you’ve recorded? It can be hard to break through all the noise just to get the attention of potential fans, right?

 

Identifying, engaging, and monetizing new fans is one of the hardest tasks musicians face and it’s why we’ve built a new service within Music Xray called Fan Match.

 

In short, it matches you and your music with likely fans.

 

Be one of the first to try this new service. We’ve got 150 slots open.

 

Thousands upon thousands of music fans are already part of Music Xray. We initially opened Music Xray to fans a couple years ago when we needed random music lovers to participate in focus groups. We know all about their tastes and a lot of their demographic information.

 

 

So, here’s how Fan Match works:

 

  1. You choose a song you’d like people to hear.
  2.  

  3. For every dollar you pay us, we guarantee three potential fans will hear your track.
  4.  

  5. Upon hearing your track they can decide if they want to become a direct fan of yours (in which case you get their email address and can establish a direct relationship with them just like all your other fans).
  6.  

  7. Upon hearing your track, they can also decide to tip you.
  8.  

 

How do you know if this is a good service and if it’s worth it?

 

Let’s say you spend $100 today to acquire new fans (via any method you choose). Can you guarantee that 300 new people will hear your music? Not just any new people; but people who are into your style and genre and who are open to hearing and discovering new songs and bands.

 

Can you do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day? It takes a lot of work.

That’s why we thought someone should build a better way.

 

Look, if only 10% of the new people who hear your music decide they really like it enough to offer you their email address; well, that’s 30 new fans with whom you would then have a direct relationship. Divide that into $100 and it comes out to having cost you $3.33 per new fan.

If 20% decide to give you their email address, then it will have cost you only $1.66 per new fan.

So, logically, the more compelling your music is, the more fans you’ll convert from among the 300 we target for you. The more fans you acquire, the less it’s costing you per fan. Thus the correlation is that the better your music is, the more fans you’ll acquire for less money.

Plus, you might even inspire some of those fans to tell their friends and jump-start your own little organic unit. It’s a new product. We don’t want to oversell it. At the same time, we think itless it will cost you to acquire a new fan. And that doesn’t even consider the fact that some of those new fans will tell their friends and bring you even more fans, giving you more bang for your buck.

How much is each fan worth to you in the first year? What about over the lifetime of the relationship? How many CDs, downloads, t-shirts, and tickets to your gigs do you have to sell each one before you make back that $3.33 (assuming you only converted 10% of those who heard your music)? You would probably make that back plus a lot more fairly soon, wouldn’t you?  And some of those fans will last a lifetime and pay you again and again over the course of your career.

 

But then, let’s consider this… what if we can encourage one of every ten fans you acquire to give you a tip. Not much; maybe only a dollar.  So, for every 30 fans you acquire, you might make $3 in tips.  Lets do that math.

 

$100 cost to acquire 30 fans

minus $3 in tips

equals $97 (the true cost of acquiring the fans)

 

See how the tips offset your costs?  What if your music were so good it inspires fans to give you more than $100 in tips? Suddenly, your fan acquisition costs went down to nothing.

 

But, for the purposes of this exercise, let’s stick with a more probable reality and say it will cost $3 per each fan acquired. Remember, this will depend on how compelling your music is.

 

Can you do that for less anywhere else? If so, you should. If you can’t, it would be a bad decision not to use Fan Match and any other musicians who target the same audience as you would be getting an advantage over you by using Fan Match if you aren’t.

 

Here’s the kicker. If your music is really, really good you can acquire fans for less than other musicians. If it’s not as compelling as it could be, you won’t acquire as many fans per dollar spent. But you’ll never know your cost per fan until you try Fan Match and if you don’t know what it costs to acquire a fan, you don’t know if you can even make a living as a musician.

 

Fan Match can be an indicator of your viability as a business. It can predict your ability to make a living while at the same time helping you do so.

 

Be one of the first to try this new service. We’ve got 150 slots open.

 

See the video below for a succinct explanation of how Fan Match works.  And please help us get this information out there by clickingthe “like” button below the video or the “share” feature.

 

 

 

 

 

Music Xray Enables Companies to Add Signature “Song-to-Opportunity Matching” Feature to Their Offering: Releases Developer API for Music Libraries, Music Sites, & Other Music-Related Companies

Posted by Mike McCready | May 19th, 2012 | 1 Response

S2O stands for Song-to-Opportunity, and matching songs to real industry opportunities is what Music Xray does. We use some clever acoustic matching technology developed by our partners at Queen Mary University in London. Here’s how we apply it…

 

Many of the industry professionals who use Music Xray to find new songs and talent have a pretty specific idea of what they’re seeking. For example, the music supervisor of a new movie might think that “Brown Sugar” by Rolling Stones would be perfect for one of the scenes, but they can’t secure that license, or can’t afford it.

 

Music Xray enables the music supervisor to actually upload a file of “Brown Sugar” to a section of their dashboard. The Queen Mary-developed software analyses the acoustic properties in “Brown Sugar” and then Music Xray alerts every independent musician in our system who has a similar sounding track and points them toward the music supervisor’s drop box where they can pay a few dollars to submit their track for consideration. As per our policy, we guarantee the supervisor listens to AND responds to every submission. In the end, a track is chosen and a deal is done between the supervisor and the rights holder of the track.

 

Hundreds of opportunities of this type exist on Music Xray on any given day and are continuously filled and new ones are continuously posted.

 

Obviously, not every independent track is in our system. In fact, the only tracks in our system are those that have been uploaded to Music Xray by the artists and rights holders themselves. There are all sorts of music sites out there, providing excellent services to musicians and we’d like to partner with them all in a way that just works, generates revenue for the partner sites and increases the feature set of those partner sites by adding Music Xray’s Song to Opportunity (S2O) Matching system to their platforms.

 

By integrating with Music Xray’s API, partner sites can alert their musician members any time one of their tracks matches an opportunity on Music Xray. If that match results in the musician submitting their song for consideration, Music Xray pays the partner site some money. Tracking and crediting of the payment are automatic and even if the musician doesn’t open an account on Music Xray right away, Music Xray remembers by whom that potential user was referred, even months down the line.

 

If you run a website dedicated to providing services to musicians and those musicians have uploaded music to your site, you are an ideal potential user of Music Xray’s API. You can build it into your site as deeply as you’d like. You can do it in a way that alerts your users via email that they have opportunity matches or you can build it in to display the matched opportunities on a musician’s dashboard – or any other implementation idea you have.

 

Please see the documentation and integration instructions here, and/or get in touch with us for any help you need during the implementation.

Submission fees: Music Xray’s greatest weakness is also its greatest strength

Posted by Mike McCready | April 29th, 2012 | 6 Responses

Here at Music Xray, we’re nothing if not candid. OK, we’re not going to disclose sensitive business information but we are a very transparent company when it comes to discussing the thinking behind our strategies and business model. And, when what we do doesn’t work, we talk about it openly, make adjustments and come at it again. I believe that sharing our challenges offers more benefits to our company than risks. We want to provide the best possible service to both industry professionals and musicians – and one of the best ways to do that is to simply be forthcoming about whom we are and what we’re trying to accomplish. When we do this, the feedback is invaluable.

 

First, let’s be crystal clear about what we do.

 

Our overarching goal is to help the industry identify high potential songs and talent at the earliest possible stage – well before those bands and tracks have time to gain social traction on their own. But it’s not just hit music we help the industry identify. We help the industry find appropriate music for every opportunity, such as a movie soundtrack or an advertising jingle or video game music. We do this by opening up the A&R and music supervision process to independent musicians and songwriters everywhere and then by providing the industry with the tools and technology to make the screening and filtering process efficient, accurate, and more enjoyable than via ANY other method.

 

While everyone who should know us still does not, Music Xray is, hands down, the best at what we do. We didn’t get in this to be second best. We will never stop improving and innovating, but we are confident today that no one can find a more effective service on the market and one would have to be genuinely bonkers to think the pre-Internet way of doing these things holds a candle to Music Xray.

 

That said, the question we hear the most is:

 

Why do musicians have to pay to submit music to industry professionals on Music Xray?

 

Often, that question is the sole reason a musician decides not to even give Music Xray a second glance. It’s impossible to know how many potential users we lose simply because our model is so off-putting to them on the surface that they look no deeper. I’m sure there are many. And unfortunately, when that happens, everyone loses a little bit. The musicians miss out on what truly is the best system ever developed to get their music to the right ears. The industry misses out on some very worthwhile music, and we miss out on the opportunity to delight a user while doing some business.

 

We address this question in multiple places on the site. We write about it fairly often on our blog and we regularly engage users on social networks about this one single topic.  Even so, it remains a persistent question and sometimes it even provokes such a visceral reaction in people that they become incapable of engaging in critical debate on the subject.

 

The fact that this question is asked so frequently is a weakness our company must continue to overcome.

 

Don’t get me wrong. Music Xray is growing robustly at about 25% a month so clearly, we’re doing a lot of things right. Most of our business is repeat business and since there are no membership fees, those returning customers are obviously finding value the first few times they give the site a try. The reason we give all new users a $4 credit is so that they can indeed try the site for free before they spend any money.

 

Counter-intuitively though, our business model, which requires that submitters pay a fee to submit music to the industry professional of their choice, is one of our greatest strengths. And I don’t mean it’s our greatest strength because it provides us with a revenue stream. That’s actually secondary.  Let’s look, point-by-point, at why this model is so effective.

 

First level of screening:

 

Many young musicians have no recollection of how the music business used to work in terms of music submissions. A&R people and music supervisors used to become completely overwhelmed with envelopes full of tapes and CDs all over their desks. It got to the point where they simply adopted a policy of not accepting unsolicited material. That means, if they didn’t request to receive your music, it never got listened to. In fact, it went right into the trash bin the moment it arrived.

 

Imagine that. People had to put their music on a CD, make it look as professional as possible, put all their lyrics and bios and photos into a big envelope, pay the postage and send it away. Even so, the music companies were completely overwhelmed and had no way of cost-efficiently screening that music. Sure, a lot of gems were lost to the trash bin, but there was no solution.

 

That’s the way it remained at many companies until Music Xray.

 

But imagine if Music Xray had simply just lowered the barrier by only eliminating the need to package up all your music and send it off. We gave that a try and while there are many responsible musicians out there who only make relevant and carefully targeted submissions, there were many who simply sent in every song they ever wrote and recorded to every opportunity. The industry professionals were more overwhelmed than ever.  It didn’t solve a problem for anyone. The professionals were just as frustrated (and eventually never logged in to attend to their submissions) and the musicians were not getting heard.

 

At Music Xray, we solved this problem by creating a kind of tollbooth. By charging a small, $4 transaction fee to make a one-song submission to the industry professional of their choice, musicians must screen their own music before submitting. Most of those musicians who were previously submitting every song they had to every opportunity were throttled, and that had the immediate effect of reducing the load on the professionals so much that they were no longer afraid of their in-box. It also drastically increased the quality of music the professionals were hearing because musicians were being more careful to submit only their best material or only the music they truly believed had a shot at making the final cut in the professional’s decision-making process.

 

Then, it turned out that some music companies with big names like MTV or Columbia Records were still getting too many submissions via Music Xray and it was still impossible for them to keep up – not because artists continued to submit too many songs each, but rather because there were simply too many artists overall willing to pay four dollars to reach those companies. Keep in mind, another feature of the site that makes it all work is that we require every industry professional with an account to attend to each and every submission they receive. They must listen and respond to the submitter whether they select the track or not. So, we had to give the professionals a tool to help them regulate the pace of submissions.

 

One way to solve this was to simply enable them to close the drop box after it contained a certain number of submissions. You know, kind of like the way mobile phone voicemail works. When it’s full, you can’t leave any more messages.  But that didn’t seem like the best solution since it was simply delaying the closed-door policy rather than eliminating it. Another idea was to enable musicians to submit only one or two songs to each drop box or to limit the number of submissions they could make overall in any given month. That created artificial barriers and also resulted in the unanticipated problem of Music Xray needing to staff-up with customer service representatives because it seemed so many artists requested exceptions to this rule – some of them were very legitimate requests with solid reasoning behind them.  Our customer service requirements would have become so costly that we would have had to raise the $4 transaction fee significantly.

 

We had established the $4 transaction fee as a sort of throttle, so being consistent with our own thinking, it seemed logical to simply enable the professional to add an additional submission fee (on top of our $4) which they can raise and lower as needed to increase or decrease the pace of submissions. If they’re getting too many submissions they can raise the fee. If they are getting too few, they can lower it.

 

The solution worked perfectly in a practical sense. But it does raise other questions like, isn’t paying a fee to industry professionals to listen to your music sort of like bribery? Is it ethical for them to take money from musicians who are supposed to be paid for their music, not pay to have it heard?  Given the sometimes-unrealistic aspirations of musicians who are just starting out, others have asked if it’s even ethical for Music Xray to charge starving artists for a shot at something they have no realistic chance at achieving.

 

Those too are fair questions. We acknowledge that there is more than one answer and perhaps more than one way to address these issues. For the most part, we think we’ve settled on what works best but we’re always re-thinking and we’re always open to new ideas. For now, our thinking goes like this:

 

Isn’t paying a fee to an industry professional to listen to your music sort of like bribery?

 

Keep in mind that the primary function of the fee is to serve as a first level filter. The fact that money ends up on the table is a bit of a side effect. It must go somewhere, so who should get it?

 

Music Xray takes part of it. Doing so enables us to leave the initial transaction fee at the reasonable amount of four dollars. Otherwise, we’d have to raise it so we can keep the lights on. We have a growing staff. The website and underlying technology were very expensive to build and we employ a full time development team that keeps rolling out new features and enhancements. We operate leanly but not without significant costs.

 

For the remainder of the money, we offer a couple options. Music industry professionals can keep their portion as long as they genuinely use it to offset the costs of screening music, such as paying their A&R staff a little bit of overtime to attend to the submissions they receive via Music Xray. It’s not foolproof but, as per our policy, they cannot use the money as any kind of significant revenue stream that keeps their lights on. We acknowledge that is not easy to police, but there are a limited number of professionals on the site. We have a relationship of some kind with most of them and some extraordinary insights into their businesses. Usually, we can tell if an industry professional is abusing the site and its users. We can monitor things like number of songs received vs number of songs selected. If we’re suspicious, we can monitor an industry professional’s activity on the site a bit more closely. It’s not a perfect system, but we have deleted professional accounts for abusing the system so it is effective. We have very good tools that enable our musician-users to police the site and to alert us if they suspect a professional is abusing it.

 

Of course, there are some companies who simply cannot accept submission fees as a matter of policy which would require a board-level decision to change. To account for those cases, we’ve set up a number of charities on the site such as Musicares, Save The Children, and UNICEF. Many industry professionals divert some or all of their submission fees to those charities. Some say so publicly on their profiles. Others do it quietly. It’s their choice.

 

Shouldn’t musicians be paid when their music is heard rather than pay someone to listen?

 

That’s one of those questions that sounds reasonable on the surface but really springs from fallacious logic.

 

The professionals who are being paid a token amount to hear tracks on Music Xray would not be “paying customers” anyway. These are people who are screening a musician’s music as a sort of audition for an opportunity. There are many parallels in other industries where this has been standard practice for a long time. Many schools charge an application fee. Processing fees are common in many industries as well. Doctors charge patients for check-ups and evaluations even when there is no diagnosis to follow. By spending their time with one patient, they’ve had to forego seeing another patient.  Attorneys charge consultation fees. Accountants charge for just looking over documents.

 

Of course, in the end, a musician should expect to make money from their music if it’s good enough. But we live in an attention economy and before anyone is going to give you any money, they must first give you their attention.  Attention is a limited resource. Putting a price on it is a completely legitimate thing to do. Is it ideal? Perhaps not. Is there a better way? Maybe, but perhaps not. Is it somehow unethical? Absolutely not.

 

Is it ethical for Music Xray to charge aspiring musicians for a shot at something they may have no realistic chance of achieving?

 

I don’t think this is even a fair question. On Music Xray, the submitter receives value for every submission they make. In the worst of cases, they get a response from the industry professional they submitted to even when their song or act is rejected. Their song also gets rated by the industry professional across several criteria such as composition, arrangement, production, and hit potential. After they’ve submitted their song five times and accrued five ratings, they can see the average of those ratings. For just a few dollars, the musician is getting sincere, transparent, and professional feedback that could have taken them months or even years to acquire via any other method.

 

Secondly, we make available on the site a lot of professionals who are there solely to provide feedback and career coaching.  Those who don’t want to spend money to be considered for a concrete opportunity are encouraged to get professional feedback to learn if they’re ready. Just like with anything, one can learn by taking life’s knocks. A few rejections and scraped knees is part of life. We make a concerted effort to post success stories on the site and link to the music and bands that have been successful.  Anyone can hear the other bands and tracks they must compete against in order to secure a deal.

 

 

 

But more importantly is how success on Music Xray is defined.

 

Sure, success is landing a big, career-changing deal. But success is also making a key connection with an industry professional that blossoms into a working relationship that otherwise would not have occurred. It’s getting a song into a small podcast or connecting with a blogger that writes about your band.  Success is really anything that helps a musician advance their career to the next level, whether that’s the stage at Madison Square Garden, their song in an episode of CSI, getting onto The Voice as a contestant or simply meeting a producer who helps them improve their sound.

 

The music space has changed so much over the past decade that business model innovation is inevitable. Some people will resist. Some people will never get it despite lengthy explanations like this one. Some people will not be convinced by the fact that we’ve attracted serious institutional investors who would never back a shady company. Some won’t be swayed by the fact that world class business schools conduct analytical case studies precisely on our business model innovation. Many of those people will unfortunately be left behind, out-competed by their contemporaries who embrace change as has happened time and time again over the course of human history (pockets, the Internet, rock and roll… all just fads).

 

When an easier, more efficient way of doing something exists and that way actually gets better results, no one wants to go back to the hard way.

 

Mike McCready

Co-founder / CEO

Music Xray

Music Xray’s Revenue Grows 25% per Month as the Company Approaches Cash-flow Positive

Posted by Mike McCready | April 11th, 2012 | No responses

Sustained twenty-five percent monthly compounding revenue growth is not breakneck speed in the realm of booming digital businesses such as Pinterest or Instagram. But, it is very strong growth for a two-year-old music tech site like Music Xray and what’s more, we’re measuring growth in revenue dollars rather than number of free users joining the site. That’s a BIG difference. Music Xray’s user base, both industry professionals and musicians, is already on the larger side relative to those of other companies in the music tech space and is growing at a quick pace, too.

Obviously, this is an indication that we’re effectively solving a problem for both constituencies. A quick scan of tweets that mention “MusicXray” shows that our users carry our message forward and are finding the site very compelling. Our Facebook fan page is similarly filled with positive and sometimes embarrassingly gushing comments. Industry professionals are finding the songs and talent they’re seeking faster and more effectively than anywhere else and musicians are getting the deals and/or the feedback they need to get their careers to the next level. Our platform is transparent, straight-forward, and our customer service is second to none. Our pursuit of excellence is paying off and it’s very gratifying. We insist on providing solutions that work and that are clearly superior to any similar services.

But more importantly, and more interestingly to you, is that I think this says something important about the indie music space overall. Musicians are understanding that times have changed and that they need to invest in the advancement of their careers the same way they invest in recording great music. They are identifying the legitimate businesses that they find effective and they are counting Music Xray among them. We are thrilled and determined to continue to warrant the accolades.

We set out to re-imagine the A&R process, make it more fair and transparent, while at the same time improving accuracy, offsetting costs and saving time for industry professionals who earn their livelihoods with their ears. While our service is never complete, we have achieved the goal of being the best professional music filter / discovery platform that exists or has ever existed.

As we approach cash-flow positive in the very near future, we observe the landscape ahead. There are serious unresolved challenges musicians face that are not being addressed effectively by other companies and services. We plan to propose new ideas and introduce solutions while maintaining a laser-like focus on providing the tools to help professionals identify high potential songs and talent at the earliest possible stage.

As we progress through spring and summer, we’ll be reinforcing our New York office with more customer service and community management team members. We’ll be releasing new features and even a completely new service, about which we’re really excited! Stay tuned!

We want to say thank-you to all our users, especially the early adopters.

See how Music Xray works for musicians and songwriters.

See how Music Xray works for industry professionals.

by Mike McCready – Co-founder/CEO

Need a Refresher on How Music Xray Works?

Posted by Mike McCready | March 13th, 2012 | No responses

Hundreds of industry professionals log in every day and listen to the songs that have maintained high ratings after being heard by a few of their peers to whom you’ve submitted your songs.

That means that songs that get positive ratings get heard by more and more professionals and get multiple, ongoing shots at being offered a deal – at no further cost!

Click the image to see the quick video demo.

 

Are You an Industry Professional? See How Music Xray Changes the Game for You.

Posted by Mike McCready | March 7th, 2012 | No responses

Music Xray harnesses the collective filtering power of the music industry.

With over 1300 industry professionals screening and selecting the best of the best, there’s nothing and no one who can compete with Music Xray’s ability to help professionals identify high-potential songs and talent at the earliest stage possible.

Click the image to see the quick video demo.

A refresher on how Music Xray merged a few features to create the world’s best song and talent filter

Posted by Mike McCready | February 8th, 2012 | No responses

Step 1: Open a free account as an artist and upload your music (or select the option for us to import it for you from Soundcloud or other sites).

·As soon as your music is in the system, you will receive an email for each song letting you know if there are currently any industry professionals on Music Xray actively seeking songs like yours. We use acoustic similarity software to do this. You can read more about it here.

·We then send you one email per week if there have been any changes (if any industry professional has started or stopped seeking songs like yours). 

 

·We also alert you when your songs have been displayed in search results (we have an awesome search engine used by many of the 1300 industry professionals with active accounts). 

· If your songs are being passed over, we help you understand why. 

· We also send you an email each week listing all the new opportunities that have opened on the site in the previous 7 days. 

Yeah. That’s all free. 

Step 2: Submit your best track to a few industry professionals. We give you a $4 credit so you don’t pay the first time.

· Submit your music to be considered for any of the opportunities you see by browsing the site or by referencing the emails you’ve received that have matched your songs to specific opportunities. 

·Although some industry professionals have a higher submission fee than others, we give you a $4 credit. In many cases, that will make your first submission at no cost. 

Step 3: Your music is heard and responded to (GUARANTEED)- and you may land one of the deals with no further action.

Landing a deal at this stage is very common. You can read some success stories here.

You can ask users hanging out on our Facebook page.

Or read our blog for tips and information. 

Then what happens?

Regardless of whether or not your song is chosen, the industry professional will rate your song. 

After your song has five ratings (from 5 separate submissions to five professionals of your choice), we show the average ratings to you. 

The ratings are like a fortune predictor. 

High ratings mean you’re likely on your way to a deal and that even if your song has not yet been selected, keep submitting. It’s probably only a matter of time. 

We also show well-rated songs to the entire community of industry professionals.


Hundreds of industry professionals log in every day and listen to the songs that have maintained high ratings after being heard by a few of their peers to whom you’ve submitted your songs. 

That means that songs that get positive ratings get heard by more and more professionals and get multiple, ongoing shots at being offered a deal – at no further cost! 

Ratings not going so well? Don’t worry. We know some people who can help.

If the ratings you’re getting from professionals aren’t as positive as you’d hoped, don’t worry. We give you access to Grammy-winning producers, hit songwriters and a few celebrity artists who will give you honest feedback, advice and tips regarding your music and your submission strategy. 

Even musicians at the peak of their career continue to seek coaching. We make it easily accessible. 

Did we mention the focus group? Yeah. That’s free too.

We enable you to conduct a free focus group with 25 random music fans giving their feedback on any one of your tracks. 

Lastly, keep all your rights. Keep all your revenue on deals you get. No strings! No catches!

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