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Introducing Needlestack Music Search for Music Xray Industry Professionals

Posted by Mike McCready | April 13th, 2014 | 1 Response

Introducing Version 1 of Needlestack Music Search. It’s pretty cool and is already resuting in many more professionals finding the songs and acts they want to work with.

Our intention with this product is to make it an indispensable tool for industry professionals, giving a competitive advantage to those who use it and leaving those who don’t behind. Given that it’s free, there’s no reason not to give it a try and decide for yourself.

We’re announcing it’s launch today, April 14th at Sync Summit Paris. Click the video below to see how it works.

“There has been no genuine A&R filter in the industry… We are building that now.”- Guest Post by Jack Ponti

Posted by Mike McCready | February 23rd, 2014 | 27 Responses

This article was originally posted by Jack Ponti as a response to this pov piece written by Music Xray Co-founder & CEO, Mike McCready.

…………………

There’s a vast misconception concerning the way new music and talent is discovered in the new paradigm of the Internet.


Where are all the DIY success stories?

While it’s true that anyone can now simply create a web page, populate every social media site there is, and virtually self-promote and distribute music, the reality is that 99.99% of that music will only be heard by family and friends. If the rallying cry of “we can do it ourselves” were true, then why are there not thousands of success stories? Because the ability to market and promote inside a clogged bandwidth is virtually impossible. You can’t build critical mass. This also creates a big problem for the industry. There is no filter.

Now, one may say the lack of a filter, gate keeper, standard, etc. has allowed music that would have never been heard a chance to be heard. But by who? Surely not the masses. It’s most likely to be heard by only a few. Sure, now anyone with a song can go full-bore Internet crazy and do all the wonderful things that people claim will help build their career, but it’s just not true. Again, where are all the success stories?

The industry’s pre-Internet filter:

Pre-Internet, the music industry had a filter. Perhaps it didn’t work all of the time and I am certain some great music was lost along the way due to that filter. The filter involved the artist knowing someone with genuine access who could get their music to someone who could actually do something about it. The filter also involved a policy of “no unsolicited material”. Meaning it would not be listened to unless someone vouched for it.

There was a dual role in the no unsolicited material policy.

One, was it avoided deep pocketed and pointless lawsuits. If unsolicited submissions were allowed, someone could randomly send in a demo and then months later find some ambulance chasing attorney to file suit claiming infringement, hoping the label/artist would settle. But the primary reason for the policy was that if you allowed unsolicited material you opened the door to everyone on Earth who believes they have talent. And most don’t. The mountain of material that would have been sent in would have taken thousands of people to sift through. So yes, we more than likely lost some genius talent due to the restriction of that filter but we also found plenty as well.

The industry believed that if a known manager, lawyer, publisher, producer, etc. was presenting music, it must be somewhat good. Now granted, it sometimes wasn’t. But for the most part, it met a standard and certain level of professionalism. It also spoke of the artist’s, writer’s, or producers’s, own ability to hustle and get to someone with genuine access. It worked well, as evidenced by decades of music.

But I have always said, the next Beatles were in a basement somewhere and will never be discovered due to lack of industry access. I’m sure we missed out on plenty.

In my 35 plus years in this business, wearing every possible hat that you can, 99.99% of my success was directly due to a filter. I was hammered by one of my clients to listen to India Arie. My manager introduced me to Jon Bon Jovi. A&R men brought me countless projects in development. Lawyers made introductions. The list is endless.

So here we are in the Internet age. No filter, no gate keeper, it’s a free for all!

But what do you do to genuinely find exceptional talent? Google search “good music”? Good luck with that. YouTube? If you have a decade of time on your hands. Reverbnation, Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter, sure there are a multitude of possible places, but none of this has been filtered.

Unfortunately without a filter, you have to sift through hours of horrendous music to find even a remote possibility. Why? Because just like in pre-Internet days, anyone who can play any instrument or remotely sing is now convinced they “have what it takes” and they just clog the bandwidth with music.

Even from a psychological point of view, pre-Internet, people somewhat filtered themselves, thinking (or knowing) they were just OK, and why bother. But with the proliferation of TV shows like American Idol, we are now in the “yes I can” stage. Though that is wonderful, it can also be painfully unrealistic. Then with the advent of sites like CD Baby, people assume stardom is around the corner. For some it is. For many it’s not. But the illusion is real and by having a web site and distribution, suddenly you are there, or so you think.

I am not condemning that nor making fun of it. It’s wonderful to share your music with people and even if that means sharing it with only one other person that is a success and should be applauded.

What’s needed?

However the heartbeat of the music business is new talent and there is a tremendous amount of undiscovered new and brilliant talent lurking out there caught in the miasma of a clogged Internet. Like I said, we missed some great talent along the way and truth be told, we are missing way more now.

A true and accurate filter will bring that talent to the forefront in rapid time. I salute and respect those who chose to go it alone, DIY, indie, whatever you chose to call it. But this business needs new talent and for those who want to be within that framework, they need to be discovered. Be it an artist, writer, producer; they need to have access and we, as an industry, need to access them or we’re all in trouble.

There has been a method of A&R research in place for over a decade now. It works very well, however it relies on spotting blips on the radar screen of something already in motion, something that has traction. Be it local or regional sales or radio airplay, it is already moving.

The same can be said for the recently announced deals with Twitter and Shazam moving into the label space. That is not discovery of talent, rather that is identifying moving targets after they start moving. The very essence of how Shazam works is you have to be searching for something you have already been exposed to. The same can be said for the concept of using Twitter as an identifier. Both are post, not pre.

There has been no genuine, and accurate, A&R filter in the entire industry to sift through the clogged space that we are currently subjected to. In order to do that properly you need to create the proper mechanism that is human based and software synergistic.

As you know, Mike [McCready of Music Xray] and I began in a highly acrimonious relationship, one of war. We have been speaking and meeting for months now, coming from opposite ends of the spectrum to find a genuine solution for the lack of a true A&R filter. We had opposing views but have come to agree. Chances are this is something monumental. I am convinced we are building that now.

The benefits to both the artists and the industry are enormous and I truly believe we can make a difference.

…………………….

Musicians can submit music to Jack Ponti’s Merovee records by clicking here.

Stricter Guidelines and Rules for MIP Accounts on Music Xray

Posted by Mike McCready | November 8th, 2013 | No responses

As Music Xray has evolved, we’ve learned a lot of lessons. We’ve always had guidelines and rules for industry professional accounts but as our profile has grown and higher profile companies have joined the site, Music Xray has become a target for some bad behavior. The site must be a place where legitimate industry professionals and companies feel they are represented alongside other legitimate professionals. Shysters, hustlers, and professionals pitching their services to musicians are not welcome.

While we have always monitored for this kind of thing, we have begun cracking down on this behavior with some new zero-tolerance policies and we’re asking our community of users to help us police the site even more strictly than in the past.

How to open a professional account on Music Xray:

Professional accounts on Music Xray are offered via invitation. Professionals may also apply for an account by simply signing up and filling out a profile. However, at the end of the process, professionals must click the button to request approval for their account.

All accounts are reviewed by our team. Identities are verified and the authenticity of the listed opportunities are confirmed to the best of our ability. We have an increasingly strict screening process. For example, in October 2013 there were 160 applications for professional accounts but we only approved 24.

Professionals must keep in mind however that musicians are able to rate professionals and leave comments on their profile page and they can alert us by sending an email to support@musicxray.com if an opportunity is suspected of not being authentic. Such emails automatically will trigger a new investigation by our team of the industry professional and the account.

Our team will look at the communication and other behavior patterns of the professional during this investigation. If we detect issues with the professional account we will contact the professional to try to rectify the situation as a first step. However, if we deem the opportunity was posted in bad faith, the professional account will be immediately removed. Professionals may appeal this decision with us and appeals will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Intolerable behavior:


Music Xray must stand on its reputation of hosting only authentic opportunities. If an artist is selected for an opportunity it must result in a commercial or exposure event for the artist.

Alternatively, it can result in a pre-selection whereby the selected song or act is further pitched for a final decision by another party. However, Music Xray will require the professional to disclose to Music Xray to whom the selected songs or acts will be pitched. In general, we will take this on face value unless we have reasons to be skeptical. For instance, if a professional who does not work directly with an major act is seeking songs to pitch to that act and we learn via other channels that the major act is not in fact seeking new material, we will open an investigation and will verify these pitches any time in the future the professional in question posts a similar opportunity.

Industry professionals must disclose in the opportunity descriptions if they (or the company they represent) is not the final decision maker for the opportunity. In other words, they will be required to state that selected songs and acts will be pitched to a final decision-maker for consideration.

Additionally, we will not allow opportunities to be posted in which selected artists are asked to pay for further interaction with the professional on the receiving end. Period. Professionals may pitch other services but none that are related to the submission itself. For instance, if a producer is offering an opportunity to for an artist to get their song produced, the selected artists should not be expected to pay for the production services. The producer may offer to produce additional songs for a fee but the initial selection must provide the artist with the service offered in the opportunity free of charge.

We want Music Xray to be a place where only real and authentic opportunities are offered and provided to artists and one where legitimate industry professionals feel confortable listing their opportunities and are not listed along side shady companies and professionals who attempt to use Music Xray as a place to troll for business and as a place to pitch their services for which they wish to be paid.

These are certainly not the only rules and regulations for industry professional accounts. We are in the process of updating all the terms of service for the site and will will post a link to them here on the blog once they’ve been officially issued.

Song to Opportunity Matching (S2O) is Back!

Posted by Mike McCready | September 29th, 2013 | No responses

Want to know what kinds of songs and talent these companies are seeking?

After more than a month on hiatus, Music Xray’s song to opportunity matching service (S2O for song 2 opportunity) is back and better, with over 50 new labels having uploaded seed songs that sound and feel like your music. If your music acoustically matches what they are seeking, you’re alerted via email.

Check it out by uploading a new song today.

Heidi Merrill discusses how she got herself and her song on TV

Posted by Mike McCready | September 22nd, 2013 | No responses

See tons of Music Xray success stories here.

Why Do Submissions Have Variable Prices?

Posted by Mike McCready | August 11th, 2013 | 9 Responses

… and why is Diagnostics a required purchase for each submitted song?


Even though we love serving musicians, at its core, Music Xray is a site where over 1500 industry professionals combine their collective capacity to screen music. This helps them efficiently find the needles in the haystack.

In fact, by applying music-analyzing software and the collective screening efforts of 1500 industry professionals, Music Xray makes identifying high-potential (and opportunity-appropriate) music like finding a needle in a needlestack.

Previously, identifying that music has been a daunting task and social traction surrounding most music only surfaces a small number of obvious hits leaving most music with commercial value buried in web obscurity. Now, with over 1500 industry professionals pitching in to screen music daily, over 1,000 songs & acts per month are singled out for various types of deals.

The notion that content owners would pay a few dollars for a submission crystalized as we began to think about how to find the needles in such a large haystack. After all, today there are more than 11 hours of audio uploaded to SoundCloud every minute. Screening that much music is nearly impossible.

Song owner as first filter:

But when you place the song owners in the position of having to spend a few dollars in order to have a song considered by the industry, they must screen themselves. If one of their songs isn’t appropriate for the available deals or if they have low confidence in its ability to secure a deal at all, they decide not to submit it. This phenomena reduced the listening load on the professionals by enough to instantly make the impossible possible – and it cleared the field for the more serious bands, acts, & songwriters.

In other words, once much of the hay was removed from the haystack the needles became easier to find.

Our goal was to help the industry identify commercially valuable music quickly and efficiently. So, we needed a way to gather as much information as possible about a song quickly.


With Diagnostics, each song is sent to five industry professionals who actively work in the song’s genre. The professionals are chosen at random for each song from among a large pool of professionals who volunteer for first screening.

The results of Diagnostics enables Music Xray to draw the attention of other industry professionals to songs that are appropriate for a wide array of opportunities.

While remaining in competition with each other to identify valuable music for their needs, each professional essentially enters into a pact with all the other professionals on the site to listen to some new, unfiltered music each day (submitted by the song owners themselves) and rate the songs according to their attributes such as production, performance, and hit potential. If in the process of listening, they hear something they want to license or sign directly, they get first dibs.

Otherwise, the songs and their ratings go into a communal database where the professionals can see the collective ratings. With Diagnostics, each song is heard and rated by at least five industry professionals so when consensus around a song begins to form it can be identified through the site’s advanced music search engine (see image) or through alerts (like Google alerts) delivered to an industry professional when the site identifies a song that matches their alert criteria (e.g. energetic pop songs for a male performer with 120 to 130 beats per minute and high hit potential).



Diagnostics is like a GPS for a song:

Diagnostics additionally provides valuable information to the artist, letting them know quickly and cheaply if their song is likely to land a deal, how much effort it is likely to require, and where their song stands versus all other songs on the site competing for similar deals.

Other information is provided too, such as how much time has elapsed since an industry professional or potential fan has heard the song or how long it has been since any song was selected by any industry professional across the site.

All this information helps the artist know whether or not continued investment in the song is warranted. And by giving high-potential songs increased exposure to industry professionals Music Xray reduced the needed investment in a song before it is placed in a deal or the act is signed.


About Music Xray:

Since launching its online platform in January 2010, Music Xray has been helping the industry identify high-potential songs and talent through a combination of new technologies and crowd-sourcing techniques made possible by the Internet. The result is a rich database of information related to the characteristics and commercial potential of over 1.3 million songs by more than 130,000 bands & songwriters. More than 1500 invitation-only industry professionals contribute to the collective effort of filtering the vast sea of music created each year by musicians everywhere and to use the site to discover new music that matches current industry needs.

The site has been behind the selections of over 21,000 songs and acts including placements in major films, TV shows, advertisements, and webisodes. Songwriters and bands have singed major label deals, publishing agreements, management arrangements, and song placements with top artists.

See some success stories here.

Music Xray is backed by Digital Assets Deployment, True Global Ventures, & individual angel investors and is based in New York.

Moneyball for the Music Industry

Posted by Mike McCready | August 10th, 2013 | No responses

Collaborative Song-Screening Effort by Music Industry Enables Identification of High-Potential Music & Talent From Among the Millions of New Songs Created Each Year


Over 1,000 songs & acts per month (and roughly 21,000 to date) are selected for opportunities across the industry ranging from major label signings to placements in film & TV

By applying music-analyzing software and the collective screening efforts of 1500 industry professionals, Music Xray makes identifying high-potential music like finding a needle in a needlestack.

Millions of songs are created and released each year by aspiring musicians, bands, and songwriters. In fact, there are 11 hours of audio content uploaded to SoundCloud every minute. If only 0.01% of that music were of commercial interest that would equal 1 hour 35 minutes and 2 seconds of music the industry should discover everyday. And that’s just SoundCloud. Add in YouTube and every other destination for undiscovered music and the number grow significantly. But identifying that music is a daunting task and social traction surrounding most music only surfaces a small number of obvious hits leaving most music with commercial value buried in web obscurity.

In January 2010, Music Xray began inviting industry professionals and the record labels, publishers, radio stations, & film production companies they represent to register for an account. Now, with over 1500 industry professionals pitching in to screen music daily, over 1,000 songs & acts per month are singled out for various types of deals.

While remaining in competition with each other to identify valuable music for their needs, each professional essentially enters into a pact with all the other professionals on the site to listen to some new, unfiltered music each day (submitted by the song owners themselves) and rate the songs according to their attributes such as production, performance, and hit potential. If in the process of listening, they hear something they want to license or sign directly, they get first dibs.

Otherwise, the songs and their ratings go into a communal database where the professionals can see the collective ratings. Each song is heard and rated by at least five industry professionals so when consensus around a song begins to form it can be identified through the site’s advanced music search engine (see image below) or through alerts (like Google alerts) delivered to an industry professional when the site identifies a song that matches their alert criteria (e.g. energetic pop songs for a male performer with 120 to 130 beats per minute and high hit potential).



Additionally, Music Xray can alert individual musicians (from among the 130,000 who use the site) who have songs that sound and feel like music being sought by a particular professional. For example, a music supervisor for a Hollywood movie may wish they could license “Satisfaction” by Rolling Stones but simply doesn’t have the required budget. The supervisor can upload an MP3 of the original “Satisfaction” to their private dashboard. Music analysis software scans “Satisfaction” and compares it to the 1.3 million songs that have been uploaded by musicians into their own Music Xray accounts. Those who have similar sounding songs are alerted and directed to the interested professional.

“We strive to build remarkable tools for the industry and to apply new technology in innovative and practical ways; ways that solve real problems.” said Mike McCready, co-founder & CEO of Music Xray.

Professional Powered Music Search

The industry’s most powerful music search engine for undiscovered songs & talent


About Music Xray:

Since launching its online platform in January 2010, Music Xray has been helping the industry identify high-potential songs and talent through a combination of new technologies and crowd-sourcing techniques made possible by the Internet. The result is a rich database of information related to the characteristics and commercial potential of over 1.3 million songs by more than 130,000 bands & songwriters. More than 1500 invitation-only industry professionals contribute to the collective effort of filtering the vast sea of music created each year by musicians everywhere and to use the site to discover new music that matches current industry needs.

The site has been behind the selections of over 18,000 songs and acts including placements in major films, TV shows, advertisements, and webisodes. Songwriters and bands have singed major label deals, publishing agreements, management arrangements, and song placements with top artists. (http://www.musicxray.com/success-stories)

New York-based Music Xray is backed by Digital Assets Deployment, True Global Ventures, & individual angel investors.

Industry professionals’ tough ratings may be offset by better-than-average artists

Posted by Mike McCready | August 8th, 2013 | 2 Responses

Some users have recently written in regarding the integrity of the industry professional ratings on Music Xray. We especially hear from users when they get lower ratings than they are expecting based on past feedback they’ve received on their song.

The question users have is, “Are the professionals rating songs more harshly on Music Xray than they would elsewhere?”.

While we don’t have a definitive answer to that, our instinct would tell us they are. After all, it’s on Music Xray where they are actually thinking about the music from a commercial point of view. That doesn’t mean they’re benchmarking music against the Top 40 nor that they are always judging for mass appeal. It just means they are evaluating the commercial potential of the music and that may not be the perspective from which others were hearing the music previously.

By the same token, we would expect music submitted via Music Xray to be slightly above the mean in terms of quality and musicianship. After all, it requires a certain level of professionalism to invest in a pathway to success. Those who are unwilling to do so don’t frequent Music Xray.

Those two phenomena probably cancel each other out on the site. Tougher ratings criteria may be offset by a better-than-average user base.

As expected, the most frequent rating is “average”. Roughly 40% of songs receive a 3 star rating on at least one attribute, which is what we’d expect to see. While we can always make improvements to data collection and normalization, we’re pretty confident in the integrity of the data itself.

P.S. Even though Music Xray gives songs with high ratings more visibility to industry professionals, we observe many many songs with 2 star and 3 star ratings get selected for deals on the site. In judging the ratings you received on your song, be sure to pay attention to this portion (the one circled in red to the left) of the song’s Diagnostics.

Why songwriters & musicians pay Music Xray

Posted by Mike McCready | February 7th, 2013 | 4 Responses

Sometimes people want to understand why Music Xray’s business model works the way it does. We wanted to give you a thoughtful reply:

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