Monday, July 13, 2020

Surround Invests in Music Finance Startup Vezt, Bolstering Their Music Industry Marketplace

Surround, the music and entertainment division of Bitfury, is announcing a recent investment in and partnership with Vezt, the mobile app that allows fans to participate in the royalties of their favorite songs - allowing artists, songwriters, producers, labels and publishers to immediately monetize their work in a meaningful way. Vezt will be a cornerstone in the Surround marketplace launching later this year.

The deal strengthens key elements long missing in the music industry. Surround is building a marketplace for asset management and music IP using a suite of technologies that includes AI and blockchain, where artists, labels, publishers, CMOs, and other music stakeholders can distribute assets, track payments, and engage with innovative new products and platforms, all in a highly secure, radically more efficient way. Vezt will be a vital partner in this ecosystem, offering creatives helpful means to finance important projects by enabling fans and supporters to invest directly in their creative output.

“Artists, managers, and labels struggle with transparency, efficiency, and liquidity as things stand in the music business,” Surround CEO Stefan Schulz says. “Surround provides the foundational data layer that’s the rock of Gibraltar. On top, we’re creating an artist-readable layer that fits into a musician or music professional’s day-to-day workflow and makes important tasks easy. The liquidity part is what Vezt is bringing to the table, as artists and labels are struggling to bring liquidity to their assets.”

“The business of music is changing very rapidly, and we recognize the importance of providing a transparent and efficient compensation method that will benefit artists and creators worldwide, in a way never seen before,” notes Robert Menendez, Co-founder and COO of Vezt. “The connection between artists and their fans will be much stronger going forward.”

“The creator side has been disintermediated, and technology is now bringing it back,” reflects Schulz. “This connection is usually only happening live or via performance, but it’s happening now on the recorded side, as well, thanks to Vezt.”

Vezt has already helped a number of established and emerging artists monetize their rights to ensure creative independence and financial stability. Featuring rights in songs recorded by the likes of Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, Maroon 5, Nipsey Hussle, Panic At The Disco, The Weeknd, John Legend, Mary J. Blige, and hundreds more, Vezt launched in both the Apple and Google app stores 18 months ago. Surround is currently working with select artists and securing partnerships with music technology companies for their beta launch later this year, with a full public launch slated for Q1 2021.

About Surround

Bitfury Surround was founded in January 2019 and is the music and entertainment unit of the Bitfury Group, the largest and most innovative global company in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. It tackles the challenges of artists and other stakeholders in the music industry. The Surround platform is a fully interoperable digital ecosystem for the exchange and monetization of copyrights. It will improve economic opportunities for the entire music industry by providing multiple blockchain-based management services, including the secure transfer of copyright assets. Surround’s goal is to significantly increase the value of copyrights and strengthen trust, transparency and efficiency in the industry. www.surround.com

About Vezt

Vezt is the first mobile app where music fans can share royalty rights for songs and recordings by artists they love. We exist to improve the music industry by providing artists, songwriters, and producers with funding sourced directly from their fans on a global basis. In exchange, fans get the right to receive royalties earned by their favorite songs and recordings. Vezt collects these royalties on behalf of fans from performing rights organizations, publishers and record labels and tracks such royalties through proprietary blockchain technology. www.vezt.co

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Audiobridge announces new Audio Effects, the first major step in the next generation of music recording

Why spend hours, days, even weeks wrangling with hundreds of audio recording software features when four main effects are the key ingredients to creating a quality, professional sounding song?

The vision of audiobridge is simple, to create a digital audio workstation so intuitive that any user, musician and non-musician alike, can record a song on their mobile device that sounds professional grade, without the assistance of an audio engineer. 

With its latest release of Audio Effects on the mobile app, audiobridge is doing just that: expanding a growing suite of features giving users powerful but simple-to-use tools that enhance recording experiences and bypass the clunky complexity of expensive desktop audio software. 

After surveying musicians and audio engineers worldwide, audiobridge decided on four sonic staples to kick off their Audio Effects suite:
- Reverb 
- Delay 
- EQ
- Compression 

Anyone familiar with audio software will recognize these as standard features to any sound recording studio — but audiobridge is redefining how music is created, and simplifying the process in a mobile-first, tech centric world.  

Utilizing its intuitive, mobile- and tablet-only interface, audiobridge is infusing machine learning into the standard reverb, delay, EQ and compression offerings to not only simplify a user’s experience, but also to fit professional quality music into a handheld device. They are giving musicians a simple way to create music, and using artificial intelligence to handle the minute details. 

“We have built a tool that guides musicians through music creation. It will be like having an audio engineer in your pocket,” says audiobridge founder and CEO, Matt Miller. 

Though there are other companies utilizing machine learning and AI in desktop music software, no one is offering the tools audiobridge has delivered on exclusively the mobile and tablet interface. And most of audiobridge’s direct competitors are primarily focused on social media for musicians with a secondary emphasis on audio recording features. Meanwhile, audiobridge is keeping their music editing and recording tools front and center, with a goal of making them smarter and more intuitive. 
Audiobridge is asking the question, why rent a recording studio or grapple with bulky digital recording software when an intuitive mobile app can produce the same result?  
“Revolution comes from musicians, from the people,” Miller said. “We are breaking down the barriers of entry, making the process more accessible for all. We want to replace the 1,200-page Pro Tools user manual with a red record button.”

About audiobridge
audiobridge is revolutionizing how the world makes music. By building an easy, yet powerful recording and collaboration platform exclusively for the mobile devices that the majority of the world already uses daily, audiobridge significantly lowers the barrier to entry for creatives around the world. The audiobridge team is combining cutting-edge software techniques with a carefully planned user experience, creating the world’s first fully guided music creation platform. This will allow creators to focus on the nuances of their song rather than the nuances of the software.

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Bandsintown LIVE Programming Week Of 7.13.2020

In addition to its regular daily live music programming, the Bandsintown LIVE and Bandsintown OUTSKIRTS channels are hosting three special events this week.

This Wednesday, July 15th in celebration of music from Ingrooves Music Group artists around the globe, Bandsintown Live will be broadcasting Ingrooves Brazil Day, featuring an all-star cast of Brazilian pop, funk, and hip-hop artists. Brazil’s music scene has surged in the last few years, making them one of the top music markets worldwide. Stay tuned in for sets from Clara Valverde, Pagan John, Luana Berti, Hariel and MCG15.

On Thursday, July 16th Bandsintown is teaming up with London and L.A. based music promotions agency, Listen Up for a day of programming spanning across House, Techno, R&B, Soul, Dancehall and Afrobeats. For this special day of music, they've chosen to raise money for two organizations which are close to their hearts and support the Black Lives Matter movement - Color of Change (US), and Black Minds Matter (UK). Tune in for performances from artists and DJs they represent including Bobby Brackins, Cuppy, Mason Collective, Jake Isaac, Joël, Blinkie and Mega.

On Saturday, July 18th Ocean Meets Music brings the online world of e-sports and the biggest names in electronic music together to build awareness and save the famous Vancouver Aquarium, which is at risk of closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aquarium is home to thousands of ocean species and inspires millions of visitors to minimize their impact on our world's oceans. Catch amazing DJ sets, gaming tournaments and an array of global music and gaming partners coming together to save a cornerstone of the ocean world.

MONDAY - JULY 13 - Bandsintown OUTSKIRTS           
Live on outskirts.bandsintown.com
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT         Devon Gilfillian
3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT    Ellis Delaney
4:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM PT    Distant Cousins
5:00 PM ET / 2:00 PM PT    Wild Ponies

TUESDAY - JULY 14 - Bandsintown DISCOVERY
Live on live.bandsintown.com
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT    Freja the Dragon
3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT      Mykey   
4:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM PT    TBA
5:00 PM ET / 2:00 PM PT    PHANGS

WEDNESDAY - JULY 15- Bandsintown FUSION
Ingrooves Brazil Day. More details above.
Live on live.bandsintown.com starting at 4:00 PM EST / 1:00 PM PST
Clara Valverde, Luana Berti, MC Hariel, Pagan John, MC G15

WEDNESDAY - 7/15 - OUTSKIRTS DISCOVERY      
Live on outskirts.bandsintown.com
5:00 PM ET / 2:00 PM PT    JoLivi
6:00 PM ET / 3:00 PM PT    Ski Team
7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT    Jason Lee McKinney Band
          
THURSDAY - JULY 16 - Bandsintown ALL THE VIBES   
Listen Up curates a day of special programming to raise funds for Color of Change (US), and Black Minds Matter (UK). More details above.
Live on live.bandsintown.com
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT    Mega
2:20 PM ET / 11:20 PM PT    Joel
2:40 PM ET / 11:40 PM PT    Jake Isaac
3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT         Bobby Brackins
3:20 PM ET / 12:20 PM PT     Cuppy
4:20 PM ET / 1:20 PM PT     Blinkie
5:20 PM ET / 5:20 PM PT     Mason Collective
      
Octopus x Space Yacht   
Live on live.bandsintown.com
Every Thursday Octopus Recordings & Space Yacht delve into their underground network to celebrate the forefront of Techno & House artists dropping red-hot sessions.
8:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM PT    Kill Frenzy

FRIDAY - JULY 17- Bandsintown #MOSTLIKED  
Live on live.bandsintown.com
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT    Juice
3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT    The Elwins
4:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM PT    Moon Taxi
5:00 PM ET / 2:00 PM PT    Jared & the Mill

OUTSKIRTS REWIND  
Live on outskirts.bandsintown.com  
5:00 PM ET / 2:00 PM PT    Liz Longley
6:00 PM ET / 3:00 PM PT    The National Parks
7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT    TBA

SATURDAY - JULY 18  Ocean Meets Music Festival  
Live on live.bandsintown.com
E-sports and the biggest names in electronic music come together in support of the Vancouver Aquarium - at risk of closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
6PM - 1AM ET / 9PM to 3AM PT      

About Bandsintown

Bandsintown celebrates artists and helps them grow their careers. As the most trusted source of live events recommendations, Bandsintown helps fans discover artists, their music and go more often to live events. With a reach of 160M Monthly Active fans globally, 55M registered concert goers and 530k touring artists registered to the platform, Bandsintown is a world-leading marketing solution for brands to engage with music enthusiasts at scale.

Visit the Bandsintown website at www.bandsintown.com/.

About Bandsintown LIVE

The Bandsintown LIVE streaming music channel has attracted 25.1 million viewers since launching in May with daily themed music programming. Two weeks ago Bandsintown launched the Bandsintown OUTSKIRTS channel programming Americana and Country artists on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That channel has already attracted nearly 2 million viewers.

Watch Bandsintown LIVE at live.bandsintown.com
Watch Bandsintown OUTSKIRTS at outskirts.bandsintown.com

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The Community Where Music Meets Tech

Music Tectonics Launches Social App for Music Tech Networking and Community

As Music Tech events of the spring and summer fell like dominos to coronavirus cancellations, Dmitri Vietze knew that he couldn’t just wait for conferences and trade fairs to return. After all, he started the Music Tectonics podcast and conference to connect a community he loved. Vietze and his team quickly responded with #WeeklyWebsday online meetups and “Isolate or Innovate,” a two-day crisis response forum. As many as 250 participants gathered at these online events, from L.A., NYC, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, and beyond. It became clear that Music Tech innovators around the world hungered for a space to meet and connect. That’s why Music Tectonics has created a free community mobile app for everyone working where music and tech meet (now available: App Store, Google Play, launch events start July 13, 2020).

Music Tectonics’ guiding vision is to create a space where the innovators of music tech—from all walks of the music and tech industries—can create opportunities for each other 24/7/365. With the Music Tectonics mobile app, members can connect with and message leaders across the music tech macrosystem. They share successes, challenges, and insights in the Community Forum, ask for advice and back up from their Music Tech fam in the Ask & Answer board, and contribute to a curated news feed of what’s happening in the epicenter of music and technology in News Articles. Membership includes exclusive access to video from Music Tectonics events, live streams, and downloads.

Vietze’s commitment to community building in Music Tech is inspired by his own experiences launching self-service music PR startup StoryAmp several years ago: “I found a welcoming community of free-thinkers who wanted to change the world through the convergence of music and innovation,” Vietze recalls. “ Whether you were at a major label or idea-stage startup, whether you wrote for a trade magazine or were an indie label testing out new B2B marketing tools, we became a tribe of like-minded people who were fighting for a better way for artists and their teams to succeed, with less friction and more creativity.”

Vietze went to as many industry conferences as he could to push his startup and to do business development for his music tech PR firm rock paper scissors. But something was missing. Each industry event had its own flavor, but most followed standard conference protocol: the same talking heads on the same panels, with little attention to attendee experiences. With that in mind, he created the Music Tectonics Conference in 2019 with less traditional presentation formats, diversifying voices across the music tech landscape, and even a set of Seismic Shift Trading Cards to enliven and deepen the conversation.

To fill the gaps as coronavirus restrictions prevented gathering in person at SXSW, Music Biz, Midem, and more, the Music Tectonics team started #WeeklyWebsday, a no-charge, networking-focused online experience with highly curated topics and speakers and a curated audience. While holding these successful online events in challenging times, Vietze and his team saw an unfilled need: spaces for Music Tech networking and community that aren’t bound by Zoom rooms and time zones. Creating a Music Tectonics community mobile app was the logical next step: “We are constantly hearing about connections made and business achieved thanks to everything we have already done,” Vietze remarks. “We want to empower each of you in the community to put up your own shingle and use the Music Tectonics platform to get further faster with innovating, partnering, doing deals, and helping inspire more creativity in our shared field.”

When the Music Tectonics team organized a two-day forum on Music Tech responses to crisis, “Isolate or Innovate,” they invited attendees and speakers to try out a pre-release, web-only version of the community app. The response was overwhelming: over 250 members joined. “All those early adopters are going to love the ways the mobile app improves on the web experience!” explains Eleanor Rust, Music Tectonics community manager. “It’s easy to find other members and connect with them, share posts to other social networks and messaging apps, and get notified when members respond to your posts.”

Why not tap into the group networking platforms provided by Facebook or LinkedIn? “We want to practice what we preach to artists and entrepreneurs in the industry: own your data, own your relationships,” Vietze explains. “We are happy to play with all parties, but do not want to put our fate in the hands of someone else’s advertising goals or hardware sales. So we rolled the dice on creating our own app. Now it is our challenge to make it valuable enough for you to choose to spend your time there.” Join the growing community and take part in our launch events the week of July 13: get the app on the App Store or on Google Play.

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America’s Top 25 Lyrics of 2020 (so far) [INFOGRAPHIC]

  1. Yummy - Justin Bieber
  2. Dance Monkey - Tones and I
  3. Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi
  4. The Box - Roddy Rich
  5. One Man Band - Old Dominion
  6. Roxanne - Arizona Zervas
  7. Even Though I’m Leaving - Luke Combs
  8. More Hearts Than Mine - Ingrid Andress
  9. Old Town Road - Lil Nas X feat. Billy Ray Cyrus
  10. Hot Girl Bummer - Blackbear
  11. Say So - Doja Cat
  12. Godzilla - Eminem feat. Juice WRLD
  13. ME! - Taylor Swift feat. Brendon Urie
  14. July - Noah Cyrus
  15. Ritmo - Black Eyed Peas, J. Balvin
  16. Bad Guy - Billie Eilish
  17. Be Alright - Dean Lewis
  18. Circles - Post Malone
  19. Everything I Wanted - Billie Eilish
  20. High Fashion - Roddy Rich feat. Mustard
  21. Tusa - Karol G, Nicki Minaj
  22. Goodbyes - Post Malone feat. Young Thug
  23. Highest in the Room - Travis Scott
  24. Juice - Lizzo
  25. Life is Good - Future feat. Drake
About LyricFind
LyricFind is the world’s leader in licensed lyrics solutions and is trusted by some of the biggest names in the industry, including Amazon, Google, YouTube, Deezer, Microsoft, Soundhound, iHeartRadio and many others. LyricFind provides its partners with an extensive catalog of accurate and fully legal lyrics, licensed from all the majors, as well as 5,000 other publishers and PRO’s around the world. LyricFind's premium reporting infrastructure is also built to properly track and pay royalties to songwriters and rights holders on a song-by-song and territory-by-territory basis.

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Monday, July 6, 2020

Tapping into the artistic value cycle

As artists, we begin by giving things away. By giving things away, we build our audience. As our audience grows, we introduce them to opportunities they can take advantage of. But the value cycle is not complete until our audience chooses themselves.

Crack the code on the music business: https://musicentrepreneurhq.com/code



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Friday, July 3, 2020

When considering any artistic venture, the economics have got to make sense

When you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to charge for your work. And, as a musician, you ARE an entrepreneur. So, when you’re considering whether to take on a new artistic venture, make sure to crunch the numbers first.

Crack the code on the music business: https://musicentrepreneurhq.com/code



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David began work on The Renegade Musician during the pandemic and, later, what he describes as “One of the most tumultuous times in my life,...