Music Tectonics

SXSW hosts a music tech hackathon every year, and 2020 was no exception. Except this was the year everything changed: the huge music and tech conference was cancelled due to the coronavirus.  We’re not going to let that stop us, however. To honor the spirit of the hackathon, we’ve brought together some of the mentors and thought leaders involved to talk about how music tech can transform our lives as we face crisis. What’s changing as we stare down our current moment of crisis? What does it say about where we want to head as a community and industry? How does our ability to respond to this fast-moving pandemic reflect our opportunities and possibilities as we approach even bigger challenges like climate change?  Artist Byrke Lou and music tech instigators Helen Sartory (Rattle LA) and Arabian Prince (Inov8 Ventures) join irregular podcast host Tristra Yeager and SXSW’s Luann Williams to discuss all that’s changed and all that could change in the world of music tech and creativity. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

If you are still trying to grasp best practices for monetizing recorded music in the streaming era, Label' Logic's Jay Gilbert lays it out for you with no hesitation on this episode. Music Tectonics host Dmitri Vietze dives headfirst into Jay's world of helping artists and managers understand the variety of experiences you can create for fans, the truth behind Spotify playlists, the role of your career narrative, and what data to track and optimize. If everything else is on hold, you can follow Jay's advice in the meantime and be ready for the music economy thaw that is inevitable when the pandemic passes. Jay also shares his thoughts on the importance of email (still!) and the effective way to use social media to attract more streams; not to mention name-dropping several apps and partners to check out on the marketing front. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

After selling his festival cruises company to Norwegian Cruise Lines, entrepreneur Andy Levine returns with his new startup Topeka, which gives artists an opportunity to get paid for online fan conversations, digital house concerts, and Zoom serenades. Music tectonics host Dmitri Vietze finds out from Andy why he started the new endeavor, and how it is well-suited for the current Shelter-at-Home moment. Andy's career focus has been on helping artists and fans connect with more authenticity while still generating revenue for those artists. He also talks about Topeka's social impact component helping single moms in Atlanta. This continues our series of interviews of new opportunities arising during the worldwide self-isolation period. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

What happens when your concert matchmaking platform comes to a screeching halt thanks to social distancing? Side Door co-founder Laura Simpson joins host Dmitri Vietze to talk about how the pandemic's crisis is leading to a new type of ticketed yet intimate performance. Laura talks about how she does not think artists should be forced to play for free, and the types of reactions they are seeing from fans who have bought a ticket. Because they use Zoom for their live streamed concerts from home, she also talks about what it means to be able to see the faces of your fans when you perform; people holding children on their laps, or holding up handwritten signs. Listen in to see how one music tech startup's pivot is unfolding in real time and still creating community and opportunities for performers. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

If anyone could see the immediate deluge of concert cancellations when COVID-19 became the planet's immediate reality, it was ubiquitous concert-discovery platform Bandsintown's co-founder and managing director Fabrice Sergent. Listen to his conversation with host Dmitri Vietze, as he describes how he watched 100,000 concerts get canceled in just a couple of weeks. He translated his team's passion for helping performing artists to raise money for artists in need, re-build touring revenue losses, and leapfrog the past barrier for live music video streams. In just a week, Bandsintown has had artists add listings for over 20,000 hour of live streamed concerts, regardless of what platform they choose to use. Fabrice talks about a new type of intimacy that is emerging and believes that this new form will not replace concerts but become an additional revenue stream and a new experience with staying power. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

Imagine you are editing sound for a TV program. You work together with the show runner, music supervisor, and director to get the sounds just right. You play portions back together several times discussing how every note and every effect should be timed with the video. But what happens when those teams are immediately dispersed for weeks thanks to COVID-19? Ameen Abdulla had already created a platform for just this type of remote collaboration. It's called Soundwhale. He schools Music Tectonics host Dmitri Vietze on all the tools you need--from video chat to remote synced audio-video review--to keep the work flowing, even when team members are far apart. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

  The founders of SoundStorming join Music Tectonics host Dmitri Vietze to talk about how their music collaboration app cracks open the song making process. Their vision is to allow fans and artists alike to collaborate at the point of creation. Capture an initial musical idea on your phone and before you know it someone across the ocean will add a layer that makes you think about your snippet in a whole new way. SoundStorming is already being used as an A&R tool to find up-and-coming artists or for collaborators to find each other and cut a record. The company is also finding traction with schools, where students from afar can record and archive their progress over time. While other collaboration apps are half instrument, half studio, SoundStorming is specifically for creativity for anything you can capture on a mobile device. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

Long before COVID-19, Ivan Talaychuk pivoted from artist to tech startup founder because it was such a challenge to collaborate with his bandmate in Kiev, Ukraine. He was tired of the tangle of emails, Dropbox, Google Drive, and text messaging to share and comment on music tracks while they were in process. He literally traded his synthesizers to fund his company Pibox at first. Now it's one of the favorite collaboration tools on the web. Now that everyone is on lockdown due to a worldwide pandemic, Music Tectonics host Dmitri Vietze interrogates Tavaychuk about the features Pibox offers to musicians, educators, and industry teams as they are thrown off course and forced to collaborate remotely. Find out about commenting on waveforms, in-line chats with cloud storage, and folder integration that makes sense for talks between band mates, artist and label, or teams and clients of production libraries. And hear tips for any artist looking to collaborate remotely for the first time on this timely episode in our series about remote collaboration, live streaming, remote education, and more. The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

Now that the concert industry has come to a screeching halt, the live music industry is turning its attention to livestreaming. A little startup formed in 2009 called Stageit is seeing an unprecedented surge in performances and revenue. They grossed $500,000 in 2019 and in just three weeks have seen $850,000 roll in. Listen to Music Tectonics host Dmitri Vietze talk to Stageit founder/CEO Evan Lowenstein about how artists are using Stageit to sell tickets, get tips, and engage their fans. Evan goes on to talk about a cultural shift that he thinks will last far beyond the current health crisis. The stigma of asking for money has been replaced by seeing that fans yearn for a connection with artists and are used to paying for things online now. And artists are no longer expecting to replicate an in-person performance online, but instead are creating a new type of intimate online performance experience. Find out why Evan thinks now is the greatest time to try live streaming for the first time.

Industry journalist Cherie Hu joins Music Tectonics host Dmitri Vietze for a conversation about her research and summary of live streaming music platforms. The two discuss the big picture of the music field's response to COVID-19, approaches of specific artists, and dive into how this moment might lead to leapfrogging some of the past barriers for music tech use cases like performing on a screen, virtual reality live performances, or collaborating remotely. Listen to the two compare audience engagement in live streaming versus in person shows and go down the rabbit hole of what makes artists feel like it's harder than ever to make a living in music.   The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit MusicTectonics.com to learn more, and find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!