Music Xray's Blog - Diagnostics

The Key To Understanding Music Xray is Understanding “Diagnostics”

Posted by Mike McCready | June 27th, 2015 | 27 Responses

Music Xray’s primary job is to find the needles in the haystack. A needle is any song or act deserving of being selected for any opportunity throughout the industry. Diagnostics insures we gather the information to enable us to do our best.

What is Diagnostics? Diagnostics is a one-time per song purchase that costs $10 and must be purchased for each song that is submitted directly to any opportunity or any industry professional on the site. Once Diagnostics has been purchased for a song it becomes “Diagnostics Exempt” and may be submitted to an unlimited number of opportunities without ever being required to purchase Diagnostics again.

Diagnostics serves two purposes:

1. It tells you where your music stands compared to other music that may be competing for similar opportunities. It generates recommended next steps based on the industry and fan reaction. And perhaps most importantly, it shows you the likelihood your music will be selected for an opportunity via the site, assuming you employ a best-practices submission strategy.

2. It tells the industry where your music stands and how to find it. Because Diagnostics enables us to gather enough information about your music to make it easily searchable for industry professionals in our industry-only search & discovery engine called Needlestack. This increases the chances your music has of being discovered by industry professionals who conduct searches for music with specific characteristics, such as high production quality, interesting hooks, mood, topic, etc.

We cover both purposes in detail below.

Purpose 1: To tell you where your music stands…

See the key for each item below the graphic:

A. The number of professionals who have heard and rated this song (at least 5 professionals rate the song upon your first submission – serious professionals from among our over 1500 professional users currently seeking songs and talent, so if the song blows one of them away, a deal or relationship may ensue and often does).

B. The average of the ratings received from industry professionals.

C. Where the song stands among all other songs that have been rated on Music Xray (hundreds of thousands).

D. The percentage of potential fans who after hearing the song for the first time became a direct fan (which provides that fan’s email address and Facebook profile link to the musician). As part of your first transaction with us, we send the song to a pool of 20 potential fans we’ve identified based on the fan’s music taste. We have a pool of tens of thousands of fans (and growing fast) who have signed up on Music Xray to discover new bands and songs.

E. Typically, we target potential fans from that pool for you (when there’s a match between the song and the fan’s taste profile) for $0.33 per fan. If 100% of those fans convert to direct fans of yours, the cost per acquired fan would be $0.33, but at a 35% conversion rate, that cost is $0.92 per acquired fan. A 35% conversion rate is not bad at all! The cost reflected here is what real contactable fans will likely cost you if you were to continue targeting fans on Music Xray. It’s up to you to decide what is acceptable to pay per acquired fan, based on your ability to monetize their fan base.

F. Based on the information in A. B. C. D. & E., we tell you the likelihood your song will be selected for an opportunity on the site. To reach this result, Music Xray uses machine learning algorithms and statistical probability calculations. It also requires the artist to employ a “best practices submission strategy”. To learn what that is and how we calculate the results, click here.

G. Based on the information in A. B. C. D. & E., we provide recommended next steps for submissions to opportunities and the industry professionals behind them. If the results are not encouraging, we recommend not to submit the song to further opportunities and sometimes we recommend you get song help improving the song. We make many top industry professionals on the site available to offer song critiques and career coaching.

H. Based on the information in A. B. C. D. & E., we provide recommended next steps for fan acquisition. If the data is not encouraging, we often recommend not continuing using the song to acquire fans.

I. This is the song activity chart that tells you what is happening with your song on the site at any time. Did you acquire a new fan? Was your song heard by an industry professional? Was your song displayed in a search result etc.

Purpose 2: To make your music searchable for the industry…

Music Xray offers industry professionals access to a sophisticated search engine called Needlestack Music Search.

Every day professionals use this search engine to find the best new music on the site. They usually do this by first seeking certain characteristics such as mood or a certain lyric phrase, or bpm – which are things you enter as meta data for your song. But then they filter for quality, so they look for songs that at least a few industry professionals have heard and that obtain good ratings on things like composition, productions, and hit potential. Each professional can decide which attributes are important and adjust the filters accordingly to find they songs that match their criteria.

Most professionals set the filters in Needlestack to display only the songs that have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals.

In other words, if your song hasn’t been heard by at least 5 professionals, it is unlikely to be found. That’s why Diagnostics obtains 5 industry ratings immediately for your song, upon your first transaction on the site. And this is showing results. About half the deals between artists and the industry on Music Xray occur due to Needlestack music search.

Below is an image of Needlestack. Notice the search criteria settings. This particular search is showing:

All the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that in the past month have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals and that have received average ratings of at least 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria (composition, production, arrangement, performance, and hit potential.

Show me all the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals in the past week and that get an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria.

Selection Prediction On Music Xray

Posted by Mike McCready | June 26th, 2015 | 3 Responses

See the video announcement!

We’ve come up with predictive data model that is over 90% accurate. That is to say, if we tell you your song is 84% likely to be selected for an opportunity on Music Xray, we say that with over 92% confidence.

Explained briefly, the Selection Prediction calculation presumes a song will be submitted to at least 20 opportunities on Music Xray and that the submissions will be done intelligently and realistically. That means, our calculations presume, for example, that rock songs will not be submitted to opportunities seeking EDM, female singers won’t be submitted to opportunities seeking male vocalists, etc. It also presumes submissions will go to a variety of opportunity types.

Keep in mind that labels sign only a few bands per year, whereas music supervisors license many songs per month. Submitters shouldn’t make only “long shot” submissions but rather take aim at a variety of opportunity types.

Selection predictions are based on a number of calculations and high scores are not a guarantee of a track to be selected. Low scores do not mean a track will not be selected. In fact, we’ve seen tracks selected for opportunities that according to our data would have only had a 10% chance. Selection Prediction scores are meant to help you decide which of your songs should get more of your time & effort when it comes to pursuing opportunities.

Variables that shift and that depend on the submitter include a ‘best practices’ submission strategy and continuously shifting market variables such as the number of available opportunities that are appropriate for the track.

We re-calculate every few weeks so that the probability of a song being selected reflects the current state of the variables mentioned above.

Continue reading for more information…

Music Xray observes every touch-point between many of the industry’s top
professionals and the songs and acts they react to every day. We’ve been doing it for over 5 years and in that time we’ve accumulated a lot of data.

We’ve observed things such as:

The average number of songs each professional tends to hear before selecting one for their opportunities.
The minimum ratings on criteria such a composition, production, arrangement, performance, and hit potential that selected songs have received.
The correlation between the ratings songs are given by professionals and the likelihood a song will be selected for an opportunity at all.
The average number of “intelligent” submissions required for songs receiving specific ratings to be selected for an opportunity.

How we compute the percentage

We’ve plugged our data into Amazon’s Machine Learning platform and we’ve been able to make some very interesting and accurate predictions about a song’s potential performance on Music Xray.

By observing:

Your songs ratings
Your songs genre
Music Industry Professional acceptance and rejection rates

Best Practices Submission Strategy:

Of course, it all depends on the submitter employing a “best practices” submission strategy. Submitters who do this will outcompete those who do not and thereby increase their song’s chances of garnering a selection.

A best practices submission strategy can largely be accomplished by applying common sense:

Don’t submit your song to opportunities seeking songs in different genres from your song.
Always fill out the meta-data for your songs including lyrics, artist bio, an image, etc…
Don’t take unrealistic shots. For example, don’t submit to a major label unless you’re confident you have what it takes to get on their roster – they don’t sign many acts and the ones they do tend to have significant traction.

The best way to make sure you follow a best practices strategy is to buy and read this book, published by former Columbia Records executive and hit song writer, Norman Dolph.

It’s short and to the point and it will save you a lot of time, money, and
frustration. It will help you out-compete those who choose not to read it.

Why might the likelihood change over time?

Music Xray is a dynamic site. These are some of the things that could change the likelihood your song may be selected:

New songs entering the site with especially strong ratings or especially weak ratings change the competitive landscape, making it easier or harder for your song to be selected.
An increase or decrease in the number of professionals seeking songs like yours. Fewer opportunities will increase the competition for the opportunities.
The selection rates of professionals with the opportunities (sync license opportunities tend to select many more songs/acts than record labels, which may only sign a few acts per year.

What’s the point of Diagnostics?

Posted by Mike McCready | December 24th, 2014 | 4 Responses

One of the most interesting aspects of Music Xray is how all its parts work in unison to maximize the likelihood your songs will be discovered by the industry.

As you know, before a song can be submitted to an industry professional on Music Xray, it is required that users purchase Diagnostics. Some users of Music Xray have suggested that perhaps this requirement is frivolous and simply a way for Music Xray to capture more revenue from users than they would normally spend.

But what is often misunderstood about Diagnostics is that it helps the industry discover your songs.

Music Xray offers industry professionals access to a sophisticated search engine called Needlestack Music Search.

Every day professionals use this search engine to find the best new music on the site. They do this by looking at the ratings a song has been awarded by other industry professionals. However, there would be way too much music to listen to if every industry professional didn’t have intelligent ways to filter.

So, most professionals set the filters in Needlestack to display only the songs that have average high ratings by 5 or more industry professionals.

In other words, if your song hasn’t accumulated at least 5 industry ratings, it is unlikely to be found. That’s why Diagnostics gets your song 5 industry ratings immediately, upon your first transaction on the site. In fact, each month an increasing number of deals occur due to songs having been found by professionals using Needlestack.

Below is an image of Needlestack. Notice the search criteria settings. This particular search is showing the industry professionals:

All the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that in the past month have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals and that have received average ratings of at least 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria (composition, productions, arrangement, performance, and hit potential.

Show me all the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals in the past week and that get an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria.

Even including the modest cost of Diagnostics, Music Xray remains the most transparent, affordable, and straight-forward way of getting your music to industry professionals with the guarantee of a listen and response. Remember, Music Xray charges no membership fees. There are no hidden costs. There is no competitor who can even come close to providing the value we provide for a lower (or even a comparable) cost.

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.