Artists

Music Xray Will Seek a New CEO

Posted by Mike McCready | October 14th, 2010 | 1 Response

I have already initiated the search process to replace myself as CEO of Music Xray. It’s time. I’m not going anywhere. I will remain as chairman and will continue in a key executive roll after the hand-off.

We’ve obtained much of the funding we need to get the job done and while I’m confident we can do it with our current team, I believe Music Xray could use the skills of a seasoned entrepreneur/executive in this space who has previously taken a company from our current stage through a successful exit. There are a few in my network to whom I’m reaching out and we’re also meeting new people. There’s no rush but sooner is better than later given all we have to do in 2011.

We launched our new site out of beta on January 20, 2010 at MIDEM and since then Music Xray has grown very quickly. As an example, our opportunity emails were reaching about 12,000 artists in January. Today, just ten months later, that number approaches 200,000. Traffic and revenue have been growing too and we’ve gone from a team of three to a team of 12 people – soon to be more.

Over the same period, we’ve gone from hosting a few dozen opportunities to hosting thousands. Top music industry professionals at major and independent labels use Music Xray to source songs and talent and so do music supervisors, celebrity artists, advertising agencies, music bloggers, journalists, producers and more. Just about anyone who conducts A&R as part of their business is finding that Music Xray’s enhanced A&R tools help them get the job done faster and more efficiently. It also helps them lower costs while reducing risk when it comes time to invest in the music and talent they find.

Any interested candidates should contact me directly mike(at)mikemccready(dot)com.

 

Tip of the Week: Music Xray is hiring…

Posted by Mike McCready | October 12th, 2010 | No responses

OK, our newsletter might not be the most optimal place to tell you we’re hiring a couple developers but you never know from where the next superstar will emerge.

We’re seeking experienced Ruby on Rails developers. You can be based anywhere but if things go well for the fist few months we’d like you to be willing to re-locate to the Boston or New York area.

Here’s what we’re seeking:

understand object-oriented design and development 
4+ years programming experience 
2+ years RoR 
strong CSS, XHTML, AJAX, JSON and Javascript skills 
understand and deploy Agile development practices 
familiarity and experience with Amazon’s web services 
must be local to the Boston area 
self starter, excellent communication skills, team player, detail and results oriented, etc. 
Bonus skills:

objective-c 
prior startup experience

Interested parties should contact jeff (at) musicxray (dot) com

Import Your Music from MySpace, Reverb Nation, Sonic Bids and Many More

Posted by Mike McCready | September 24th, 2010 | 1 Response

Tip of the Week: Music Xray Can Now Import Your Music From the Sites Listed Below For Free & We’ll Match Your Songs to Opportunities – Also for Free!

Import Music Logos

We thought you’d appreciate it if we made it dead simple to get all your music into Music Xray without the hassle of uploading. Once your music is in our database it will be automatically matched to opportunities – now and whenever in the future a match is detected. Here are the steps:

  1. Log in or open a free account here.
  2. Click the button on the dashboard that says, “Import Music”
  3. Enter your profile URLs from as many sites where you host your music for online streaming.
  4. We do the rest and you will receive email alerts every time any of your songs are matched to opportunities with our new song to opportunity matching system which you can read about here.

Tip of the Week: Do You Have What It Takes? Find Out For Free!

Posted by Mike McCready | September 14th, 2010 | No responses

Music Xray is dedicated to helping musicians advance their careers. We’ve already created the fastest and most affordable way to reach top industry professionals and to be guaranteed consideration and feedback. To think that under a year ago artists still had to send their music into the void…

As much as we harp on the truth that due to the changes in the music business over the past decade,if you don’t invest in your career no one else will – we also know that sometimes the stars align and things just happen.

This week we want to put special emphasis on the fact that there are a growing number of 100% free submission opportunities on our site. These are offered by professionals who want to give back or who are eager to provide you with real and honest feedback – sometimes in exchange only for the opportunity to tell you about other services they offer. We believe there’s no harm in that as long as you’re getting real value up front.

We want Music Xray to be the first place you go with your music.
Here’s what you can do for free on Music Xray:

Upload your music and get an immediate email letting you know if anyone is currently seeking music like yours.

Create awesome EPKs and Song Presentation Packs (called Music Xrays).

Submit your music to free opportunities & get qualified feedback.

Be sure to join our Facebook page to network and share experiences.

Be sure to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focussed discussion of opportunities for songs, artists and other careers in music.

Tip of the Week: Ask Questions When You Submit Your Music

Posted by Mike McCready | September 9th, 2010 | No responses

This week we’re rolling out some new features that enable seamless, threaded conversations between artists and industry professionals.

Because it is now easier for industry professionals to respond and create open dialogs with artists, you can provoke this by asking specific questions with each submission.

Give it a shot and see how it goes. Keep in mind that not all professionals guarantee feedback and may not engage in conversations even when asked specific questions. Nevertheless, by making it easier and by creating an environment that makes interactions rewarding we expect to see more relationships develop.

Be sure to join our Facebook page to network and share experiences.

Be sure to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focussed discussion of opportunities for songs, artists and other careers in music.

Tip of the Week: Getting Access to Top Opportunities & Music Industry Professionals

Posted by Mike McCready | September 3rd, 2010 | No responses

We all think it would be great if we could just upload our songs, make a nice looking page and then wait to be discovered. Unfortunately, that almost never happens. It’s up to you to insure your music is heard by the right people. Accessing the “right” people has always been tricky. Even knowing who the right person is doesn’t often help since many music companies don’t even accept unsolicited material (until now).

Before Music Xray launched, if you were a performing act trying to break out, you could expect to spend years and a lot of money playing gigs, touring and trying to generate enough buzz to get the attention of someone in the business who can help you get to the next level. You could expect to attend events and gatherings where you network, build relationships and hope to make a solid connection or two. Even though you must also conduct online networking, it can be slow and very time consuming.

Music Xray doesn’t guarantee you will get signed or that you will place your music in a revenue-generating deal. That depends on you and your music. But, we do guarantee you will get access to top industry people and real opportunities at the click of a mouse and for a fraction of the cost it would require via any other means.

Music Xray levels the playing field when it comes to “access” and provides you with a guaranteed way to rely more on how good you are and less on who you know.

Be sure to join our Facebook page to network and share experiences.

Be sure to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focussed discussion of opportunities for songs, artists and other careers in music.

Tip of the Week: For best results on Music Xray, fill out all the information in your song presentation packs

Posted by Mike McCready | August 26th, 2010 | No responses

Our Song Presentation packs are called “Music Xrays” and they enable music industry professionals to see all the relevant information about you and your songs.

Notice that the song search bar at the top of almost every page of our site enables people to search for songs based on song lyrics? It only works if you’ve entered your lyrics in the song lyrics module for each of you songs.

The same is true for every other module. If you don’t include your email address in the License module no one who stumbles upon your song will know how to reach you.

Did you know that you can group your songs together, re-order them and make them look however you want with our new EPKs? Take a look at a good example of one here.

Be sure to join our Facebook page to network and share experiences.

Be sure to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focussed discussion of opportunities for songs, artists and other careers in music.

Tip of the Week: What Do You Get At Music Xray?

Posted by Mike McCready | August 10th, 2010 | No responses

What do artists get at Music Xray?

Good question. We’re glad you asked.

These are some of the features Music Xray offers acts, songwriters & music rights holders:

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No membership fee. Just sign up and you’re in.
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Free automatic song to opportunity (S2O) matching
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Hundreds of song submission opportunities from major and independent labels, Hollywood Movie studios, advertising agencies, radio stations, music blogs, TV Shows and much more
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Song critiques, advice & career coaching from top industry veterans
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A weekly email alerting you to new opportunities posted to the site
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An email alert any time an industry professional is seeking music with your song’s characteristics
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Free song & EPK creation and hosting
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Make your songs look like this and your EPKs look like this and share them with everyone
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Free “Next Big Sound” tracking of all your performance stats/metrics across all social networks, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Last.fm and more

Be sure to join our Facebook page to network and share experiences.

Be sure to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focussed discussion of opportunities for songs, artists and other careers in music.

Tip of the Week – Check out Music Xray’s commitment to artists

Posted by Mike McCready | June 29th, 2010 | No responses

Music Xray is far from perfect and we’re working every day to improve upon existing features while we continue to develop new ones. At the same time, we work every day to live up to our commitment to music artists which can be found on our site and reads:

In building Music Xray our intention has been, and it always will be, to solve marketplace problems for artists.

No dream vultures. We will not permit users of our Interaction Engine to peddle false hopes to artists.

We are incorporating numerous mechanisms to ensure transparency and to encourage artist feedback.

We believe we are democratizing the ability to reach the people that can either teach you something, and/or potentially help you gain access to mass-exposure opportunities.

If you find otherwise, contact us and we will fix the problem.

Be sure to join our Facebook page to network and share experiences.

Be sure to join our LinkedIn group for a more business focussed discussion of opportunities for songs, artists and other careers in music.

Tip of the Week – The Best Way to Use Music Xray

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.