Posted by Mike McCready | June 22nd, 2010 | No responses
1.
Get professional feedback on your music.
2.
Submit your music to real opportunities
3.
If you’re not getting placements or signed go back to step one.
4.
Upload all your songs here and Music Xray will alert you any time an industry professionals is seeking music like yours via ourS₂O Service.
Posted by Mike McCready | June 15th, 2010 | No responses
You upload your original music here.
We analyze the acoustic properties and mathematical patterns in your music.
We send you an email telling you if any industry professionals are currently seeking a song like yours. (What? How does that work?)
For as long as your songs remain in our database (forever unless you remove it) we will alert you any time any professional is seeking songs with characteristics similar to your songs.
Put as many songs in the database as you’d like. It’s free.
Subscribe to the new Song Cat A&R Podcast to hear great Music Xray songs and discussion about the music business.
Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focused angle on all things music.
Posted by Mike McCready | June 9th, 2010 | No responses
Upload any song for free by clicking here.
feedback welcome
Subscribe to the new Song Cat A&R Podcast to hear great Music Xray songs and discussion about the music business.
Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focused angle on all things music.
Posted by Mike McCready | June 5th, 2010 | No responses
What I’ve learned is that nothing replaces the expert human ear when it comes to A&R. However, technology has emerged that can enhance the music industry’s human skills in much the same way a medical doctor’s skills are enhanced by the X-ray machine and other modernities. The X-ray machine doesn’t do the job of the doctor. It just gives the doctor additional information upon which better decisions can be made. Today, no one would consider seeing a doctor who doesn’t use state of the art technology.
So whether it has been using computers to help predict hit songs or developing an A&R platformthat harnesses state-of-the-art technology to help the industry perform better, solving the music filtering problem has been my passion for a long time.
I’ve been thinking about a clever way to describe Music Xray’s new Song to Opportunity (S₂O) Matching system and the best way I’ve come up with (so far) is that:
It turns your songs into opportunity magnets.
Or maybe it’s the match.com for songs and opportunities to find each other.
Maybe it’s the Pandora for A&R…
However we describe it, I think it’s pretty cool. You upload your songs for free and then sit back and wait to be alerted when an industry professional is seeking a song like yours. Give it a shot. The more songs you upload the more alerts you will get.
Here’s how it works:
1. Some of the hundreds of music industry professionals who use Music Xray to find songs and acts have given us a few “seed” songs. That is, songs that have a musical style and sound similar to what they would like to have submitted to them. For example, if they are seeking a new single for Britney Spears they might give us a few of her songs plus an additional song in the style and sound they are seeking.
2. Music Xray uses software to analyze the acoustic properties and underlying mathematical patterns of the “seed” songs and compares them to those in songs that have been uploaded for free into the company’s system by artists and rights holders.
3. Music Xray notifies the artists when there is a match between what professionals are seeking and the artists’ songs.
We’re not making any formal announcements nor really talking much about this while the service is in beta. Nevertheless, we’re thrilled that Music Xray is pushing the envelope. It’s the first enhanced A&R platform in the world. It harnesses cutting edge technology to enable the industry to filter through large quantities of music to find the most appropriate songs for each opportunity.
This is A&R on steroids.
Click here for more information.
Posted by Mike McCready | June 2nd, 2010 | No responses
Music Xray is an A&R platform that helps people who professionally receive songs manage and make sense of them easier than ever before.
By creating a state-of-the-art, efficient and organized A&R Platform that the music industry can use for free, we enable many of the industry’s top companies and talent buyers to make themselves directly available to artists, songwriters, song owners and performers via song drop boxes. Even companies that previously did not accept unsolicited material have found that Music Xray enables them to open their doors. The platform is also a facilitator of communication and conversations between artists and industry professionals that makes the interactions rewarding for both parties.
Additionally, Music Xray has made it easier for top producers, coaches and even artists themselves to offer song critiquing and career coaching services, (sometimes for free), making Music Xray the easiest and fastest way to get advice, education and insights about music and the music business.
Subscribe to the new Song Cat A&R Podcast to hear great Music Xray songs and discussion about the music business.
Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focused angle on all things music.
Posted by Mike McCready | May 29th, 2010 | No responses
We’ve all heard the old stories about the artist who submitted their song to someone in the music business and never heard back. Then, at some point in
the future they heard their song on the radio as a smash hit recorded by someone else and the whole thing ended up in a contentious lawsuit or simply
never got resolved. These days, some artists believe that when they put their songs “out there” they run the risk of it spreading virally and millions of
people will end up listening to the song but the artist never will never see a dime.
As in every industry, the music industry has its share of unscrupulous people so I’ll never go as far as to say that this won’t ever happen again but in my
opinion, the potential rewards of getting your songs heard far outweigh the risks. Here are four points that illustrate why:
industry professional would rather do legitimate business with a willing artist than to steal a song. There’s just too much hassle involved in stealing a song
and in today’s digital age. It’s pretty easy for an artist to prove a song is theirs.
If you don’t get your song in front of the right people you have no shot. There are plenty of artists out there who understand that hiding their music is
only going to lead to never getting a deal. In other words, competition is robust and if you don’t get your songs in front of the right people there are
plenty of other artists who will.
Right or wrong, most music business professionals believe that there is no song or artist that can’t be replaced. That is to say, no matter how good you
are or no matter how good your song is it really doesn’t make sense for a music business professional to try to “steal” it from you. Why get embroiled in
contention with an artist and damage your own reputation in the business when it’s so easy to find artists with great songs willing to do deals?
out there and to have it take off virally you will do really well. The currency of the digital age is attention. If you get people’s attention you have a better
chance of converting it into income than if you languish in obscurity. Unless you are a writer of hit songs with a proven track record, a network of
contacts waiting for your next creation and top artists beating down your door for your songs you need to do whatever you can to establish yourself.
Having one of your songs go viral will help you establish that.
There is one last issue you should understand. Most music professionals and companies will not accept music submissions if the music they receive is not publicly visible and streamable somewhere. There are a lot of complex legal issues surrounding this but explained briefly; industry professionals and their companies do not want to be put in the position of perhaps being the only people to have ever heard your music. If they were and someone were to copy your music, they could be liable. Industry professionals would prefer to never hear your music than to be put in that position. Therefore, one of the requirements of submitting music via Music Xray is that the music is streamable from the site. This is explained clearly in our terms of service. If you’re not comfortable with it, please don’t use Music Xray.
But again, there are lots of other reasons (see above) why making your music available is in your best interest.
Posted by Mike McCready | May 19th, 2010 | No responses
Check out this article on The Huffington Post:
It covers some of the new opportunities and paths to success now open to artists in the emerging new music business landscape.
“… after years of drought, we may now be moving into the best time to be a musical act in decades, if not ever. A time when there is less incentive than ever before for any business person to prey upon the aspirations and naivety of artists and a time when artists can hire their own business teams and be off to the races.
“I am certain that we will see some very creative ways in which artists will become famous. There will be more paths to success than we’ve ever seen. I don’t claim to foresee them all but here’s one replicable way I think it can be done.”
Subscribe to the new Song Cat A&R Podcast to hear great Music Xray songs and discussion about the music business.
Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focused angle on all things music.
Posted by Mike McCready | May 16th, 2010 | No responses
For those of you who have not activated it, the Artist Statistics module displays all sorts of data about the artist and help you see your traction and
progress at a glance.
However, YOURS MAY CONTAIN NO DATA and instead of seeing cool and informative graphs you
may only be seeing a message that says, “Could not locate any information for the artist name supplied.”
But you can change that
and we HIGHLY recommend you do, especially if you are submitting songs to industry professionals or have some of your songs pending review. Any
changes you make now will still be seen by professionals even though you’ve already submitted!
Here’s how you do it:
http://nextbigsound.com/#add) and set up an account at Next Big Sound (requires only email address and a password of your choice).
an account and are signed in.
you have not entered your artist name and song title in your song presentation packs you have to do that too before the graphs will appear properly.
It could be because you never claimed it after you uploaded it during the submission process.
Here’s how you do that:
presentation pack at that point.
Let us know if you have any questions by getting in touch with us via the contact page: http://www.musicxray.com/contact
Posted by Mike McCready | May 11th, 2010 | No responses
1. Get feedback on your songs from qualified industry professionals.
2. Submit your songs for roster consideration, song placements and much more.
3. Use your song presentation packs to promote your songs across the web while putting their best foot forward.
Subscribe to the new Song Cat A&R Podcast to hear great Music Xray songs and discussion about the music business.
Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focused angle on all things music.
Posted by Mike McCready | April 27th, 2010 | No responses
You’ve probably seen or been told that most music companies don’t accept unsolicited material (i.e. music they did not request be sent to them). There are many reasons for this but Music Xray is helping music companies solve the problems typically associated with unsolicited music. That is why you are seeing more and more of the traditional music companies joining Music Xray.
By solving problems for music companies and other music industry professionals, Music Xray is able to solve problems for you, like “How do I stand out? How do get my music into the hands of the people who can help me?
Music Xray is a platform that enables you to interact directly with top music industry professionals and submit directly to be considered for revenue generating deals.
Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focused angle on all things music.