We are back from the Music Tectonics Conference and it was a lot! We had an amazing three days at the carousel and on the Santa Monica beach. This episode brings a tiny sample of some of the conversations that were to be had at this year's Creator Fair, a new edition to the conference.
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6th Annual Music Tectonics Conference October 22-24, 2024 Santa Monica, California
Episode Transcript
Machine transcribed
0:00:11 - Dmitri
Wow, wow, wow. Welcome back to Music Tectonics, where we go beneath the surface of music and tech. I'm your host, Dmitri Vietze, also the founder and CEO of Rock Paper Scissors, the PR and marketing firm that specializes in music, tech and innovation, and I am back from the Music Tectonics Conference in Santa Monica, which was a couple of weeks ago, just starting to get back on my feet. It was a lot those of you who were there who know we had an amazing three days along three different beachside venues in Santa Monica, from the Santa Monica Pier Carousel to the Beach House, to Expert Dojo, a rooftop venue. All of it was great and I thank you all so much who were able to make it. Those of you who weren't you've got to come to the next one next year. It was great. So this episode I want to bring a bit of a snippet, little samples of what some of the conversations that were happening at the conference. So before I get to those, I want to let you know that we did something different this year. We added a creator fair to the Music Tectonics Conference. So, in addition to the traditional conference with all the networking opportunities and parties and panels and so forth, we also had more musical instrument companies come and give people a chance to put their hands on new instruments, new inventions, as well as jump onto a creator stage where they demoed those instruments. Or we had some musicians and artists who work primarily in the social media realm that create videos and build a career around doing demos and education and that sort of thing, speak at the conference as well, and so this gave a whole new flavor to the conference. We had some great conversations about the music tech space and the music industry, and then we had this element where we brought in artists and creators and musical instrument companies to have conversations as well, because there's so much that's happening with the convergence of this new generation of artists that are playing on new types of instruments or using software and apps to make music in ways that could never happen before. We saw a lot of global participation this year as well. Because of our pandemic days, where we did all things online, we were able to grow our international footprint and had people from all over the world joining in person as well this year.
So for this episode, I'm not going to give you a whole overview of everything. We do hope to release some of the conversations that were there, some of the panels and keynotes as podcasts, but for this episode I kind of just checked in kind of man on the street style with a few different folks that were there. So you'll hear from Tony Kim from August Lab, which is a kind of educational smart guitar company. We also interviewed Kevin Bruner with Band Lab, the phone and cloud-based music creation app, daw platform, whatever you want to call it. He does a great job at sort of like tying these worlds together, and we also got a little more snippets from a new musical instrument called the Demon Box. So I was able to talk to co-founder Alexandra Fiera from Eternal Research and give you some little sound samples of some of the kind of sounds that were being made there.
It was a very creative space and I just wanted to capture some of that and some of these conversations. Let's go over to those conversations now. Hey, I'm here with Tony Kim from August Lab. How are you doing, tony?
0:03:40 - Tony
I'm doing great. I'm really great. I'm also very excited to attend this Music Tektronix conference.
0:03:50 - Dmitri
Yeah it's so great to have you here. We've got a great contingent from South Korea, thanks to Koka, who's our Korean partner, that brings over a trade mission of great startups. Every year they bring such interesting companies. Tell us what is August Lab, your company?
0:04:04 - Tony
Yes, the August Lab we founded on 2022, end of 2022. And actually we spun off from the Samsung Electronics. You know, in Samsung Electronics there is a startup incubation program inside. So we finalized that program and spun off from the Samsung and we are developing and selling smart guitar and the playing instrument music application as well. So we are willing to people to know and spread the inspiration and the fun to play guitar. That is our vision.
0:04:45 - Dmitri
So it's a smart guitar. Does that mean it has a tablet on it?
0:04:49 - Tony
You know it's like the outfit of the guitar is a traditional guitar, but we integrate all things inside. You know, when you play electric guitar there's a lot of devices out there. You need pedals, you need amps and etc. Etc. So, especially for beginners, it is quite heavy to start guitar. So we integrate all the sound effects and headphones and also the small speakers in it. So for beginners especially, they don't need to buy anyone else, just need our guitars, then they can start to learn the guitar. And also we do provide the contents and application as well. Inside our application there is lectures for beginners and also we do provide the songs to play with and the other things as well. So to start the guitar, our product is best for the beginners.
0:05:52 - Dmitri
Nice, that sounds super cool and super helpful, because I think that's probably true. You get your guitar, but then what are the other pieces to get started, what are your goals of coming to a place like Music Tectonics Conference?
0:06:04 - Tony
Okay, my goal is to connect with people in the US and all around the world. Currently, our target market was only in Korea, but I am starting to see the overseas market, and not only for market, but also the technology-wise and trends. I want to be connected with the guys in global. So I've heard that Music Tectonics there are a lot of guys like in mind with us, so in the same industry, so I believe I can make some business with the other guys and companies.
0:06:45 - Dmitri
That is my goal, right yeah, I'm excited for you to see the Creator Fair as well, where we have musical instrument companies here as well as creators, artists that are trying out new equipment, other inventors of musical instruments, that sort of thing. That's great. I'm so glad you're here. Tell us, just as a little context, what's the music tech scene like in Korea?
0:07:05 - Tony
Okay, it is rapidly growing in Korea as well because you know, the K-pop and K-cultures is widespread currently. Recently it's very hot all over the world, you know. So based on that contents and cultural power in Korea, a lot of music startup is growing and few years ago, like us, the Korean startup only saw the domestic market in Korea, but With the kpop contents we are starting to see the global market. So in music tech, music tech companies in Korea are music tech companies in Korea are growing rapidly and we are seeing overseas market and very have a lot of enthusiasm about it.
0:08:01 - Dmitri
Yeah, yeah, in the United States there's quite a difference between, say, the streaming music, streaming, the social media, the licensing and distribution all that is almost like one part of the industry. And then the musical instrument industry is totally different. It's a separate industry. Is it the same in Korea?
0:08:21 - Tony
Yes, that's definitely similar to Korea, but I believe it is basically connected, but the distribution channel and the market is separated currently. But we are trying to connect them to yeah, um, basically someone who wants to play guitar, they want to play a song, so we need to connect together, so they have they. Uh, we need to provide the content to learn the song how to play. So basically it has to be delivered together, but the market is separated currently.
0:09:02 - Dmitri
It is interesting as I think more technology enables more people to play music, learn music and so forth. There is an opportunity to have more interactive music right. It's not just passive listening but really engaging with, and then for you to build a smart guitar that allows you to connect it in a way. I mean there's a lot of talk about AI generative tools for new creators to try to maybe they text to music or describe a song and a song gets created, or they can write lyrics and hum a melody that turns into MIDI, that becomes something. But to have the musical instrument, a form factor that people are used to, but then to also give that sense of like anybody can pick up the guitar.
0:09:48 - Tony
Exactly that is my goal and vision. So I wanted people to engage the song, not just passively listen to it. I want people to know the joy of playing guitar, joy of playing musical instruments, and be part of the music, not just listening. Yeah, and I saw, the market definitely goes that way.
0:10:15 - Dmitri
Yeah, what's the name of the guitar that you're demonstrating here today, and I saw the market definitely goes that way.
0:10:19 - Tony
Yeah, what's the name of the guitar that you're demonstrating here today? Yeah, peoz, small Guitar. Peoz that's the brand name of my small guitar Nice.
And now that you're here demonstrating it for people how does it feel to be here at Music Tectonics? It's incredibly exciting because people love it and also, you know they understand my goal and the product very easily because they are in the same industry and they all love music. So when I explain my product and my company to the guys in Music Tectonics, it is incredibly easy and easy to understand and share our mind and thinking. It is, again, incredible and I'm really honored to be part of this conference.
0:11:13 - Dmitri
Tony, this is so great. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, introducing us to what's going on with your company and in Korea and the music tech scene. It's great to have you. We're honored to have you too. Thank you so much, Tony.
0:11:23 - Tony
Thank you, dimitri, thank you so much.
0:11:31 - Kevin
Hey, this is Kevin Bruner, head of Artist Development and Education at BandLab Technologies.
0:11:37 - Dmitri
This is Dimitri Vitsa, with Music Tectonics. We're here at the conference this year. We're doing something a little bit different. We've added a CreatorFair component, and Kevin and BandLab have come in as part of that, as we continue to do some of this kind of B2B music tech streaming, distribution, licensing, innovation, ai, all that stuff but also wanted to bring creators into the mix Having artists here, having musical instrument companies and having companies like BandLab that create tools for music creators and I really wanted to talk to you, kevin. You've got a background as a former major label musician. You've put out records, you've toured the world, you worked for many background as a former major label musician. You've put out records, you've toured the world. You worked for many years at a distribution platform focused specifically on helping artists just get on to well, streaming services, before that iTunes, before that Amazon, before that.
Yes, Before that just CDs shipped to their house Exactly, their house Exactly, and so it's really interesting to me that you've got this perspective from major label and touring artists to helping very DIY indie artists get there. And now there's these people, all of a hundred million people around the world using BandLab to create music on their phone.
0:12:45 - Kevin
Yeah, it's a pretty incredible thing. The tools that exist now for artists just blow my mind. I was dress shopping with my daughters for their homecoming dresses the other day and while I'm standing there, bored because they're taking forever, in the changing room, I was writing a bass line, collaborating with an artist that I'm actually interviewing at the conference for the Creator Fair. He and I were working on a track together and it sounds amazing and I'm just like where have things come? This is unbelievable. I would have never imagined this when I started in music.
0:13:18 - Dmitri
Wait, are you debuting a track, a collab you guys did later at the conference? I don't think it's going to debut, but hopefully it'll see the light of day, but it's cool to see that kind of collaboration happening remotely from your phone in the dressing room.
0:13:34 - Kevin
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun. And was I actually have a photo? My daughters took a picture of me cause I had a dress hanging off my arm and the baseline I wrote is awesome and I got dialed in the sound and I was just in my own world there and I'm like we can shop all day if you want. I don't care, I'm, I'm writing. I'm writing music.
0:13:48 - Dmitri
That is crazy. Okay, if anyone hasn't heard of BandLab or tried it yet, what's your first kind of like? I'm sitting next to you on an airplane. Here's who I work for. This is what we do.
0:13:56 - Kevin
We're a social music creation app.
It's really collaborative. You can write and record anything you can imagine inside of it. It has probably millions of sounds in there that are all free, and it also has a social component so you can connect with other artists and share tracks. People can play on your tracks. It makes it really easy to make your musical works portable, and I mean that's just scratching the surface, and we've got all these amazing AI tools. What most people don't realize is the microphone in your iPhone is pretty awesome and we just launched a voice to MIDI.
So, speaking of that track I was working on, I was standing there in that dress shop singing a line that I wanted the keyboards to be Hit voice to MIDI. It turned it into MIDI, selected a synth sound and there we go Dang, that is insane, yeah. Into MIDI. Selected a synth sound and there we go Dang, that is insane, yeah. So what I love about it is that it gets rid of a lot of the barriers to creation. When I started out in music, having professional gear was very cost prohibitive, very expensive. Before personal computing, before everybody had a home computer that was fast enough to run Pro Tools with lots of tracks and things like that, and so the idea of making actualizing an idea in your head was like you probably would never get around to it or be able to do it, and now you can just make it happen. So it focuses on the creative aspect of making music and less on all the other stuff that can sometimes be a barrier to just getting your good ideas down.
0:15:40 - Dmitri
Man, I love the way you talk about it from this creation, this creator perspective of how easy it is to do. Something that's come up at the Music Tectonics Conference from the beginning is this convergence of the traditional recording slash streaming industry. I'd say 2019 is when we started the conference, and so that was kind of the economic model that's continued to grow to today. But there's this parallel universe where people might be out shopping or they might be at home and they might pop into their own closet not a dressing room and record a song that ends up being a hit song or something like that and what's you know like. What does that mean for the record industries? What I'm so curious, since you've been at all these different tiers and now you keep going to the more and more like more indie, more like open access levels what does that mean for the larger recording industry?
0:16:28 - Kevin
Well, I think for the artist community, it means that any song, any idea, there's nothing stopping it from reaching the world. I mean literally, and we've talked about that for years in the indie distribution space, but I think there was still the barrier of like but can you create something that sounds good? Do you have the ability to do that? That's still hard, hard. One of our biggest artists, david.
I got to catch his tour in Toronto and he was talking about yeah, I thank my sister because I turned her closet into a recording studio.
I'd just be sitting in there with my phone just getting the ideas in my head out, and that's what I love about it. I mean, you hear people like Rick Rubin talk a lot where he's like I don't know anything about music. He knows stuff about music. Well, I think what he's saying is like I'm not the guy that's going to walk into a recording studio and know what everything is and know what all the buttons do, but I'm somebody that knows what good ideas are and how to pull those out of people and bring them together. And I feel like that's what. When I'm using the BandLab app, that's what I feel is happening to myself. I'm like these are just ideas flowing in a different direction than I might have if I just had my electric guitar. I'm a guitar player as my main instrument where I feel like it helps me explore and expand beyond just the little box. Sometimes we can put ourselves in creatively.
0:17:48 - Dmitri
The implication here to me is that lots of new people are going to have these barriers removed and be creating music. And you know, we have Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Sirisano from MIDI Research speaking at the conference about this fork in the road between platforms where you play music and platforms where you listen to music, like right now, the streaming is the listen and then the play might be. Maybe it's the band lab. You know, and I just don't know what that means for, like record labels, for example. Have you thought about that?
0:18:18 - Kevin
Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely is going to be. I think one thing that's good and I think labels have started to look more international, because one thing that you know, people have talked about democratizing the, the, the music space and indie artists having a better footing and being on the same playing field. But I think band lab has really opened up doors for people in developing countries, that they've got a phone, they can download BandLab. There's nothing that can stop their voice from being heard and new blends of music, new styles of music. We're seeing that a lot with labels from Mexico finding talent that's just exploding. A lot of Latin American countries, a lot of artists finding a voice and I think BandLab has helped them do that.
But for the labels, I think you know, I think for them the challenge is, you know, they're trying to. Their job used to be to find talent, find that diamond in the rough, help them develop and make something out of them. I think now their whole role is going to shift in the industry and where the deals are far better for artists than they were when I got into it. There's still a lot of work to do in that area but because artists a lot of times are coming with great-sounding master recordings. They've got a fan base on social media that's growing. What they need is somebody to help them throw fuel on the fire and build out a brand, a business that's bigger than what they can do on their own. A lot of times they don't need somebody to buy a recording or get recording studio time for them. They don't need all those things anymore. Yes, those pieces of the business still exist, but for artists, you know, you can do pretty much anything you want on your phone or on your computer, and it's pretty amazing.
0:20:00 - Dmitri
So do you see this as, like, top of funnel A&R channel for the traditional music industry, or do you see it as this other thing, like, are people making songs because they think they're going to be commercial and listened to, or they just do? I mean, I think about, like the blogging revolution or the tweeting revolution, where people were just doing the thing. You know it wasn't like, oh, I'm not going to get a job, I'm going to be a blogger. Now, some people did turn it into a business. Or even with YouTube and TikTok, there's yeah, sure, there's people who have become what do you call it? Creators, which they mean video creators by, or social influencers or whatever, but most people it's just like I'm just going to shoot a thing, you know.
0:20:38 - Kevin
Well, I would say both. Your original question like is this going to be top of funnel? There's definitely labels that that's what their focus has become. It's like how do we find out what's happening on these platforms, places like BandLab, tiktok, where artists are at the early point of creation or their career and they're really starting to bubble up and take off.
But at the same time, I think what's amazing and why BandLab is growing so much, is that creating music is awesome and sometimes that's that's all that needs to be is just creating music is awesome, and as an artist and somebody who's been in the business for a long time, both as an artist and as an industry professional, it's still funny to me how many people that work in the music business just don't understand what drives the creative person, that for us, it's just something we have to do. It doesn't matter if this is going to be a hit or not. I had to write this song and I got to write another one tomorrow and another one, and I hope, if I'm trying to make it a career and pay my bills with it, that the industry and all the other support stuff happens that can make it financially viable. But at the end of the day, these tools are just helping people realize that making music is awesome and it can be fulfilling just at that.
0:21:50 - Dmitri
That's super amazing. So sometimes I think of, like, the social video revolution YouTube, and then TikTok. Well, vine was in there too, but nobody remembers Vine, unless they're watching 10-year-old videos that are repurposed on Facebook or something like that. But you know, like the TikTok revolution was a lot about CapCut, about the tools to do this. Why did it take so much longer for music apps to come out that were good enough to make full songs?
0:22:16 - Kevin
Well, I think on the whole music tech side of things, they were trying to sell an expensive product to less people studios and it takes people a while. Even Adobe with Photoshop is in the same spot. They're all realizing, hey, we'll make more money if we enable creativity, because creativity is what people want to do. It's something that brings joy and excitement to their life, and there'll be a group of those people that do it professionally. But you can cast a wider net and enable a whole lot of people to just make cool stuff. And then you can still focus on the professionals, and I think that's what it took a while for people that had established businesses. It took a lot of research and development to make those tools initially, and things get cheaper and cheaper and realizing, hey, if we go wider with these people, we'll just make cool stuff, we'll have a bigger audience.
And you know like CapCut's a perfect example that. And it fuels other businesses, because without CapCut, I mean, tiktok would still exist, but it has really been a key piece of fueling social media. I mean, I have two teenage daughters and one of them came up to me the other day and said hey, dad, I've been using this thing called CapCut and I'm like I use that almost every day and it just made me laugh. I'm like, yeah, these people understand that the future generation wants to create and it's something that, uh, they like doing and sharing with their friends super cool.
0:23:43 - Dmitri
Um, what do you think will be the next phase for where things go with music creativity? I mean, I feel like you guys are already on the cutting edge. There's lots of talk about ai and generative music tools and things like that. What do you think comes next? I mean, if you guys are the the, if streaming was the 1.0 and and and social music creation or mobile music creation is 2.0, what comes after that?
0:24:06 - Kevin
Well, in my opinion, I, I, I think we've just scratched the surface on collaboration. I think we've sort of looked at collaboration with like sort of the old school lens and and you know some of the of the uh things that the streaming platforms have locked into about. Hey, this is how you credit tracks and stuff. But that's one of the things I love about band lab that I think is uh. Still people are just discovering is like how much that we can take pieces of various music and recreate something new and everyone gets attribution.
The cool thing about BandLab is that if you're using the app, we keep every single version you save and you can go back and reference anything you want. It's incredible. It saved my butt a few times when I accidentally deleted stuff but that allows you to really track who's involved and really get creative with like hey, let's collaborate with that person over there and bring in some new styles that we wouldn't do. Let's put this out to the web or just on BandLab, we have a social feature that you can post your track and allow anyone to import your tracks into a session and start recording on top of it. What does it look like for this whole community to just be like creating genres and things that we've never even heard of before, so I think that's one of the things I'm looking forward to, that we've just, in my opinion, feel like we just scratched the surface on.
0:25:25 - Dmitri
Kevin, this has been a blast. Thanks for letting us dive into your world of the creativity of BandLab and also where the industry is going, and thanks for being a part of the Creator Fair Absolutely anything for you, dimitri Thanks.
0:25:34 - Kevin
Anything for you, dimitri Thanks.
0:25:41 - Dmitri
Hey, I'm here at the Music Tectonics Conference and Creator Fair with Alexandra Fiera. How are you doing?
0:25:47 - Alexandra
I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
0:25:49 - Dmitri
Alexandra was on the podcast back in August. Tristra interviewed her and she's the inventor of the Demon Box with Eternal Research and I thought it would be fun to bring her on and actually hear the instrument. Let's play a little bit. What are we looking at actually?
0:26:03 - Alexandra
There's 33 inductors spread across three channels, 11 inductors per channel. They're architecturally separated and there's five audio channels or five audio outputs. Three CV outputs are five audio outputs, three CV outputs. There's also MIDI CV and note data and then also auxiliary audio inputs as well.
0:26:24 - Dmitri
In other words, we're looking at a spaceship-looking cool black triangle. It's got a bunch of these little sensors on it and a handful of knobs. No instructions why does it look this way?
0:26:35 - Alexandra
Well, it looks this way because I wanted the final version is going to have graphic design on it but, I wanted the design of it. I wanted it to be a physical thing and respond physically with it, before, kind of, the words got in the way, because I wanted it to be a physical experience.
0:26:53 - Dmitri
I love it. Yeah, your earlier interview with Trish was a lot about the analog experience and the ability to make an instrument that you wanted to play that was so you could just pick up and made sense for you. All right, why don't we play a little bit of it? You've got a drill in your hand.
0:27:07 - Alexandra
You've got a little razor, it's a little hair trimmer. I have a phone, just a general cell phone iPhone, and then a power drill.
0:27:16 - Dmitri
Let's listen to you play. I mean, you play it by hovering anything with an electromagnetic wave over the device.
0:27:21 - Alexandra
Yeah, I mean you're going to be hearing it like a pretty dry signal because that's what we have here today, but you can put any effects on this and you know it's kind of every motor, every sort of electromagnetic field has its own signature and voice to it.
0:27:53 - Dmitri
So that's alternating the drill and the electric trimmer.
0:27:59 - Alexandra
And this is kind of lower. But this is just a cell phone on top of it and this is with a dry signal. But you can put it through effects and get some. I really love that sound. It's kind of more like bassy and mellow.
0:28:25 - Dmitri
That's the drill that one makes a nice sound. Let's hear it with some of the effects. Now, nice, what do you imagine people doing with this?
0:28:56 - Alexandra
I feel people could use it for sound design for video games. We have people in the world of video game using it for spatial sound. We have people in film music who work with huge Academy Award winning sound producers using it and live performers as well.
0:29:13 - Dmitri
I can imagine live would be super fun to watch people in the action.
0:29:16 - Alexandra
Yeah, I mean I developed it as a live performer. I used to do electric violin and I'd play a very early prototype of this. It was much simpler live and loop it and do some really intense industrial electric violin sort of stuff. What other devices have you used on it to get different sounds? I mean, we've like a old super nintendo on top and played it while we listened to the electronics in it. Um, you can use all different types of tuning forks. You can put a I like any sort of like. Yeah, I mean, that's not that it's more working on the visuals, because it's less of an audio signal, but pretty.
0:29:54 - Dmitri
I just put my watch over it and it kind of there's a visual effect too.
0:29:58 - Alexandra
So this is pushing midi to visual as well yeah, we use midi cc data through max patches to modulate video and also we convert that to dmx and we do live lighting as well, so you can operate strobes using the sound as well. So perfect.
0:30:13 - Dmitri
That was a blast. Thanks for that.
0:30:16 - Alexandra
Thank you so much for having me.
0:30:22 - Dmitri
So that was a blast checking in with Tony and Kevin and Alexandra, and if you weren't able to make it this year, I sure hope you're able to make it next year. We will be doing more online events. Our seismic activities will be coming up again soon. We'll announce those here on the podcast. But the best thing to do is to make sure to go to musictectonicscom and sign up to be on our email list so that we can let you know about when the next conference dates are scheduled, as well as any online events or conferences will be. In the coming year we're planning to be at CES and NAMM and South by Southwest and Music Biz and more, so make sure to go to musictectonicscom and sign up. Let me know that you've been listening to the podcast. I would love hearing from you and then we can also keep you up to date on what's next for Music Tectonics.
Thanks for listening to Music Tectonics. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app. We have new episodes for you every week. Did you know we do free? Thank you. Everything we do explores the seismic shifts that shake up music and technology. The way the earth's tectonic plates cause quakes and make mountains. Connect with music tectonics on twitter, instagram and linkedin. That's my favorite platform. Connect with me, Dmitri Vietze. If you can spell it, we'll be back again next week, if not sooner
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The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.
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