Announcing Music Xray Day & Future Music Forum in Barcelona September 17-19, 2014

Posted by Mike McCready | September 26th, 2013 | No responses

It’s true. In September of 2014 Music Xray is inviting all industry professionals with open and active Music Xray accounts to a three day event, party, & conference in Barcelona. You’ll be hanging with top A&R’s, music supervisors, managers, producers, radio station program directors, label heads, and music tech founders and CEOs. You’ll hear insightful panels, keynote addresses, TED Talk-style presentations and some fantastic music. You’ll be wined and dined by some of the top companies in the business.

And if that weren’t enough, the conference coincides with the hands-down best weekend of the year to be in Barcelona as the city celebrates its patron saint with the annual multi-day celebration called La Mercè. Music in the streets, parties, incredible nightlife, and it all culminates with an impressive fireworks display that rivals New York’s 4th of July bravura.

Day 1 of the event will be an exclusive, invitation-only session just for professionals with Music Xray accounts. Days 2 & 3 will be a larger event with pre-approved participants, there to do business, mix, and network.

Industry professionals’ event fees will be comped by Music Xray and package airfare and hotels will be arranged at lower-then-typical rates.

Space is limited so if you are an industry professional with a Music Xray account and you are interested in attending please express that interest by sending an rsvp to rsvpbarcelona@musicxray.com or by leaving a comment below.

Stay tuned to the blog and our email announcements as we add speakers, panelists, and parties.

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.

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:

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.

Music Xray Sits Down On The Hot Seat

Posted by Mike McCready | July 14th, 2013 | 3 Responses

Music Xray is about transparency and we know there are some tough questions users and potential users want to know the answers to. So we thought we’d sit ourselves down in the hot seat and address these issues head on.

When people think of innovation they tend to think only of technology innovations, and Music Xray brings many technology innovations to the table. But Music Xray also innovates with its business model (who pays, who gets paid, and what for).

Business model innovation generates a lot of questions because it creates a way of doing business that is different from what has gone before. It can even feel counter-intuitive. We recognize that and we try to address these concerns transparently. In fact, Music Xray is the subject of a business school case study by Harvard sister school IESE, the highest ranked business school in the world outside the US. See it here.

Rather than create a long essay, this post seeks to level the harshest misunderstandings about Music Xray and answer them head-on. So, here we go…

The question:

Music Xray charges uninformed artists who have no chance of making it and preys upon their aspirations, taking money from them as often as possible.

The answer:

In fact, Music Xray saves artists time and money while providing them with a fast low-cost reality check.

Music Xray provides the artist with a real assessment of their potential and the likelihood they will be successful with their music upon the artist’s first $10 transaction. The company’s goal is to set the artist’s expectations and to never encourage continued submissions of the music if success isn’t likely. Music Xray achieves this with its product called Diagnostics (see here).

Furthermore, we are aware that many musicians who are just getting started do not know the quality of music and performance that is required to get a deal or be signed to a label. Of course, it varies widely. With Diagnostics, Music Xray provides an very quick and very cheap reality check. Artists typically spend months (if not years) trying to reach the ears of people who can give them the kind of honest feedback Music Xray can help them get for $10 in just a few days.

The question:

The musicians are the ones who can least afford to pay. Why do musicians pay and not the professionals?

The answer:

Musicians already pay much more than Music Xray charges in the pursuit of the same results Music Xray provides (see above about saving money). As tough as it may be to hear, the reality is that Music Xray’s model simply reflects the laws of supply and demand.

Musicians need something that is scarce: the attention of industry decision-makers. The industry has no shortage of sources for new music. The laws of supply and demand require the platform to work this way or it simply wouldn’t work at all.

To illustrate this, keep in mind that companies that make products often spend more money creating awareness and getting their products into the hands of their potential buyers than they do creating the product itself. In the music business the music is a product. The same rules apply. Only after a buyer identifies a great product does the stream of money reverse and flow toward the creator. But it is the responsibility of the creator to insure their music reaches the right ears so that business can begin.

The question:

Music Xray shares fees with the industry professionals, professionals who in many cases are also paid a salary to find songs and talent. This double dipping is unethical.

The answer:

It’s not double dipping. The professionals are doing work that goes beyond the scope of listening to the music.

The professionals’ collective efforts create a valuable and highly-filtered database of great music and that ultimately rewards the artists with the best music by enabling Music Xray to highlight the songs and acts that have been highly-rated by multiple professionals. It is primarily for this work that industry professionals are paid on Music Xray.

Remember, professionals have a choice of which music they pay attention to each day. By providing a small payment to them (or to their favorite charity) Music Xray insures the music gets heard and classified and that results in deals that often come about when the professionals search the filtered database they help create, not just when they listen to the music directly submitted to them.

The question:

There are bogus industry professionals on Music Xray.

The answer:

Industry professionals on Music Xray are on the site via invitation only or via approval after they apply for an account. We can’t vouch for the way each of them conducts their own business, the contract terms they offer, or their responsiveness once a relationship with an artist begins but we do investigate complaints. We have removed professionals from the site who are the subject of repeated complaints or the subject of one substantial and well-founded complaint.

Professionals and their companies must represent themselves truthfully and transparently and we strive to monitor this with the help of our you, our users.

All accounts are attended to by the professional or company listed.

We provide tools for community policing. You can leave ratings and comments on the profile page of each industry professional. We encourage our users to hold us to a high standard but to also recognize that one of the most effective way to police the site is to ask our users to help. Please don’t judge us by the shortcomings you detect. Judge us by how we react to them once they are brought to our attention.

The question:

All these sites are scams. It’s just pay to play.

The answer:

Music Xray does not allow accounts that simply take submission fees and then select every artist who applies. If you see something like that on the site, alert us and we’ll remove it. Occasionally, industry professionals make changes to their policies or to their Music Xray strategy after their account has been approved. We don’t always detect that the moment it happens but if our attention is called to it, we act.

Music Xray is a venture capital backed company. That means we have investors who protect their reputations and do not invest in companies that operate shady businesses. Music Xray offers our services in a way meant to be transparent, fair, clean, and completely legitimate.

Music Xray gets you to the table. What comes after that is up to your music.

Why Music Xray? A Level Playing Field for Musicians. 1500+ Industry Professionals. Transparency. No hype. Just useful data.

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

Bring your best song on a CD to Music Xray Live at New Music Seminar in New York June 10-11

Posted by Mike McCready | May 29th, 2013 | 7 Responses

Musicians, songwriters, bands, & other music performing acts can bring their best song on a CD to Music Xray Live, an A&R listening room in The Gramercy Room at The New Yorker Hotel with live A&R reviews, feedback, and perhaps more at this year’s New Music Seminar in New York City June 10 – 11 at 10:30 AM.

A&R scouts from Atlantic, Republic, RCA, Virgin, Label Recruit, LOCAL VIBES, Glassnote, Razor & Tie, Robbins Entertainment, Island, and Columbia are all participating.

Learn how A&R’s think, how they react, how much of a song they listen to, what they listen for.

Learn how industry professionals leverage each others’ screening work, how great songs get discovered, and how to measure a song’s fan conversion costs.

Learn how A&R is changing, how the youngest scouting talent thinks about their jobs as A&R professionals. It’ll be the most informative session you attend all year.

Music Xray is offering all of our artist users who would like to attend New Music Seminar a 25% discount off registration rates.

That’s a savings of $100. Just enter code: NMSXRAY13 at
http://newmusicseminar.com/registration

New Music Seminar is a fantastic event, full of insightful panels, networking opportunities, and incredible live music.

Music Industry Searches for Week April 14th – April 20th, 2013

Posted by Mike McCready | April 22nd, 2013 | 2 Responses

Music Xray will begin publishing some fun facts about the characteristics of what some of the music industry searches for each week. It’s interesting to observe as both topical and musical characteristics evolve from week to week. It will look something like this. Would you find this interesting? If you have music that matches any of these queries, it might be a good time to get your music into Music Xray’s search engine. It’s free.

Learn about Music Xray’s music search engine here:

Music Xray to Beta test a new “Marketplace”

Posted by Mike McCready | April 12th, 2013 | No responses

Today Music Xray announces a quiet little initiative we’ve been working on and we’re calling it “Marketplace“.

As you know, part of our tagline is our pledge to offer resources to you, the musicians to help you continuously get better, regardless of your current skill level or career-stage.

What better resources than some of the industry’s most accomplished professionals? As long as we’ve got them engaged on the site (and since we sorta have their direct email addresses :), we thought we’d reach out and coerce them to offer you their services at steeply discounted prices.

Once they agreed, we promised not to release the data we’ve collelcted on their true personal music taste. So, you get the discounts and they avoid public shame. Let’s just say Wang Chung are a lot more popular than anyone would have expected.

Here are some from the first batch. Each opportunity has limited slots. Get ’em while they’re hot!