Music Industry Archives - Page 2 of 5

Music Genre Finder – Biggest Web App Update Ever!

by Simon | Jul 4, 2024 | Announcement, AI Analysis, Company

Biggest Web App Update Ever!

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our biggest web app update since its launch. We’ve been listening to your feedback and have updated the web app with the world’s most accurate genre model, over 40 new instruments, and new library views.

Best of all: It’s free for all our users.

The World’s Best Music Genre Finder: Free Genres

We know that finding the right genres for your music can be a challenge – and with all the feedback we have received over the months, we have developed the most accurate genre auto-tagging algorithm in the world – with over 1,500 genres. Missing something? Let us know.

You can find our new free genres next to the web app’s main and subgenres.

Werbsiteupdate2FREEGENRES-ezgif.com-crop

40+ New Instruments

We also added 40 new instruments to our web app – on top of our existing instrument tags. Everything you need – from Steel Drums to Glockenspiel.

You can find the new advanced instrument tags right next to the regular instruments in your library.

New Library Views

With over 35 tagging classifiers, metadata can be overwhelming at times. That’s why we chose to let you decide how deeply you want to explore your song data.

You can choose between three different views of your Cyanite library just by clicking the “view” drop-down in your library. Select between:

Compact View (ideal to get an overview)
Full View (dive deep into all the Cyanite metadata for your tracks)
API View (the full view with our API classifier names)

Curious? Try it out!

All of these new features are free for all our users. Don’t have a Cyanite account yet? Click here, or the button below and get started. 5 analyses per month are on us! Start using the world’s best genre finder now.

Your Cyanite Team.

Start Analyzing

The Importance of Music Auto-Tagging for Content Strategies

by Simon | Jul 2, 2024 | AI Analysis, How-to Guide, Music Industry, Resources

An Introduction

By Jakob Höflich, Co-Founder and CMO of Cyanite

When I was 19, I worked at community radio 4ZZZ in Brisbane, tasked with digitizing daily CD deliveries, tagging their genre, and sorting them in the library. It was a tedious and challenging task – every mistake could persist in the library until corrected. And let’s face it, this rarely was the case. This was one of the experiences that motivated me to found Cyanite many years later, also to help catalog owners tag their catalogs with AI and to eradicate the legacy of tagging mistakes made in the past 25 years of digitization.

While Auto-Tagging to create a clean and better searchable library has become a commodity, with various music companies worldwide leveraging this to alleviate the burden on their tagging teams and create more space for creative work, there is one underappreciated use case that has recently grown in significance: using Auto-Tagging data on a global catalog basis to derive actionable insights for your content strategy.

From Hunches to Data-Driven Insights

If you own or work with a music catalog, you likely have a solid understanding of its character. But what if the number of songs goes in the tens of thousands or even beyond? How confident can you be to know the profile of the catalog and what it stands for? When making important decisions about the creative direction of your catalog, especially with multiple stakeholders involved, this ‘feeling’ can tend to be subjective and leave room for guesswork. It’s the music’s subjective and “magical” nature that makes it hard to quantify and discuss.

That’s why keywords remain crucial when managing and developing a catalog where AI can be so helpful to your work. By providing data insights, AI can turn these hunches into consistent and concrete knowledge.

Here are three benefits of leveraging music Auto-Tagging for your content strategy.

1. Deep Understanding of a Catalog’s Character

AI music Auto-Tagging dives deep into the sound character of a catalog. By translating the complexity of music into concrete datapoints such as genres and moods, it allows for a shared, objective and consistent understanding across your team or company. Imagine having a precise breakdown of your catalog’s characteristics at your fingertips. Like, which percentage of my repertoire is Rock, Funk, Disco? Does it stand for upbeat or more melancholic tones? Do I maybe have a gender problem by favoring one more over the other? This not only enhances internal cohesion but also aligns strategies and decisions.

Pro Tip: Our Auto-Tagging focuses on creative metadata, extracting information such as genres, BPM, key, and energy. Curious? Check out our full taxonomy. It does not extract copyright or performance metadata. A smart move here is to pair the AI-driven insights with other data pools. For example, pairing AI-insights with performance and sales data can reveal things like: Only 2% of my catalog is Hip Hop, yet this content has a 200% higher performance rate.

2. Uncovering Blind Spots and Highlighting Trends

AI’s ability to uncover blind spots and highlight trends within a catalog is another significant benefit. This data-driven approach can reveal underutilized niches or trends when data is placed on a timeline. Whether it’s identifying a resurgence in a particular genre or pinpointing areas with high sync opportunities, AI insights shed light on the hidden corners of a catalog. Particularly for sync teams of companies that do not have a distinct genre profile it is beneficial to have a balanced catalog to answer to the upmost possible amounts of briefs with adequate content.

3. Informed Decisions for Catalog Acquisition

Lastly, AI-driven insights are not limited to managing your existing catalog. They are invaluable when evaluating to-be-acquired catalogs. While frontline repertoire might be familiar, B-sides and deep cuts often remain mysterious territories. By thoroughly analyzing these lesser-known tracks, AI can contribute a creative due diligence aspect by providing a comprehensive understanding, which in turn informs better acquisition decisions. This ensures you’re investing in a catalog that has the ability to complement your existing one.

Contrarily, if you want to sell a catalog, comprehensive tagging data on your repertoire can help you identify the perfect acquirer or prove the future longevity of your catalog to drive up the multiple.

A Real-World Example

A German publisher utilizing Cyanite’s AI insights discovered previously underappreciated genres, allowing them to optimize their catalog strategy effectively. The analysis showed that the genres Hip Hop, Funk, and RnB and the mood Epic were underrepresented even though both have been extremely valuable qualities for successful sync placements in the last years.

Visual representations, such as pie charts and graphs, can further show how AI can dissect and categorize catalog elements, providing clear, actionable insights.

All data above can be retrieved via our API.

Conclusion: Embracing the Future with AI

AI music Auto-Tagging can be a great help for developing content strategies in the music industry. These actionable insights provide a deep, data-driven understanding of catalogs, uncover blind spots, highlight trends, and inform strategic decisions for catalog acquisitions.

Undoubtedly, AI can’t and shouldn’t replace the final decision-making process as it can’t anticipate the future as us humans do. But it can be used as a great tool to navigate this process with data that make it easier – and often more convincingly – to talk about the magic of music.

As we live in a time where content production is at an all-time peak providing the sync market with opportunities as never before, every song in the catalog should have the same chance of being discovered. Having a well-organized and indexed catalog is key to that.

Try Cyanite for Free

AI Music Discovery: How Marmoset Uses Cyanite | A Case Study

by Simon | Apr 13, 2024 | AI Analysis, Case Study, Interview, Music Industry

Founded in 2010, Marmoset is a full-service music licensing agency representing hundreds of independent artists and labels. At the heart of it, their core experience involves browsing for music. They offer music discovery for any moving visual media. From sync (movies & TV) to advertisements, video games, and wedding videos. Powered by Marmoset is Track Club, which is subscription-based as opposed to a la carte or custom licensing. Find out below how they use Cyanite for both of their services to amplify AI music discovery.

In 2019 Marmoset became the first Certified B Corporation music agency on the planet, providing tangible metrics, social sustainability, and fulfilling environmental standards.

2 Screenshots of Marmoset Music and Tracklcub - both utilizing AI music discovery through Cyanite.

https://www.trackclub.com/ https://www.marmosetmusic.com/

We sat down with Alex Paguirigan, product manager at Marmoset, to learn more about how Marmoset uses Cyanite both within their internal processes and on the front end of their services through AI music discovery and more. Cyanite and Marmoset have been working together for over 1.5 years now.

“We utilize Cyanite’s API and web app on a daily basis for auto-tagging, and similarity search.”

Alex Paguirigan

The Key Elements Within this Case Study

Challenges that Marmoset encountered before engaging with Cyanite.
Exploring the specific Cyanite solutions currently employed by Marmoset.
Understanding the benefits Marmoset derives from Cyanite’s AI solutions.
Delving into the integration process.
Marmoset’s future roadmap and strategic outlook.

A screenshot of a youtube video on how Marmoset uses Cyanite for AI music discovery with a middle aged man smiling.

Check out this 2-minute summary of our video interview.

“What made you initially reach out to us and how do you use Cyanite today?”

“Before I was a product manager, I had a catalog management position tagging music with metadata manually. Because of how subjective music is, we always wanted to make sure that a human was behind the wheel to attribute metadata.”

“But when it comes down to calculating the BPM and key of any given song, you would have to put someone behind a piano with a metronome, which is completely unsustainable and a strange use of labor. So that, plus the challenge of significantly growing our catalog told us – we are behind the times here.”

Initially, Marmoset was trying to improve and speed up their tagging process with Cyanite. 1.5 years later they ended up with much more than only a tagging solution. To make their catalog even more discoverable they integrated an additional solution powered by Cyanite: the Similarity Search.

The Products that Marmoset Currently Uses

Web App – Allows you to upload your entire catalog into your Cyanite library, creating your own Spotify with our Similarity Search and Free Text Search. No coding required.

API – Lets you integrate Cyanite into your own system. Implement Cyanite’s full-scope analysis and search technology into your current environment! Coding skills required.

Auto-Tagging – Let Cyanite tag your music with Genres, Moods, Keywords, Brand Values, Auto-Descriptions, and much more. Explore all the tags.

Similarity Search – Get similar songs recommended for either tracks from your library or external reference tracks from Spotify and YouTube.

Using these in combination allows for superior AI music discovery.

How Marmoset Benefits from Cyanite – AI Music Discovery

[Click on any of the headings below to find out more about them.]

Reduced search time for the right songs

“With this feature we allow our users to discover similar songs to the ones they think work best for their needs.”

“We never want to be a site or a product that you spend hours of your day on. We would much rather you look through fewer things and get what you need within 10 minutes and never visit the site again because you already have exactly what you need. And this feature definitely helped with that.”

Faster song-to-market time

“Getting our artists onboarded faster with us quite literally has been a major benefit of integrating Cyanite.”

“Some artists and labels offer us their entire back-catalog dating back over 20 years. There’s only so much time in the day for a human to tag all of that and although we are still humanly involved in the tagging, Cyanite gives us a head start with this.”

“We don’t want to tell an artist ‘Hey, you’re gonna have to wait a bit because it takes time to tag your music and get it in the system.’”

AI music discovery with a consistent language across Marmoset's catalog

“Cyanite’s Auto Tagging makes our catalog more discoverable by people who are not you.”

“After I learned Marmoset’s internal tagging system and got a lot of practice with tagging the first 50-100 songs without any assistance, I suddenly developed my own system within a system. And I stuck with that.

When you’re tagging the music with the help of Cyanite, it forces the person behind the computer to reconsider what they hear.”

“On the worst days, that means you are questioning your musical knowledge. But on most days, Cyanite hears something that you don’t, and you expand your knowledge of music because you reconsider your judgment call. Or it gives out the exact tags that you thought of before and simply reassures you in your confidence.”

“And that only makes our catalog stronger.”

“Someone in Germany may have a very different definition of confidence, so it allows us again to close that gap of mistranslation or misunderstanding between people who may come from completely different cultural backgrounds, but still need to get their confident song into their Instagram Reel for 2024.”

Want to know what tags we are talking about? Check out our full tagging taxonomy here.

Exploitation of hidden and unknown parts of the catalog

“Cyanite has maybe most significantly improved our work, with its Similarity Search that allows us to enhance our searches objectively, melting away biases and subjective blind spots that humans naturally have.”

“When getting a brief like ‘sunny and happy, with an acoustic guitar, piano, et cetera, et cetera’ we are talking about tens of thousands of possibilities here. Plus sometimes you only have half an hour to answer that brief.”

“While our catalog and search team are very well versed in our catalog, they naturally have their own internal biases and favorites—after all, that’s human. Cyanite adds some objectivity to that.”

As Jakob, one of our founders would say: “The AI doesn’t care if you’re Ed Sheeran or a bedroom producer. If your track fits the reference, it will surface it.”

Using Spotify & YouTube references to answer briefs

“With other types of briefs such as ‘Hey, this is what the head of music at McDonald’s loves but we can’t afford this song.’, using external reference tracks from Spotify or Youtube to find similar-sounding tracks in our catalog made things very easy for us.”

Increasing fair treatment of artists

“Using Cyanite we provided a more fair game for our artists to play. At the end of the day, that means more money in their pockets.”

“The moment we press ‘show similar songs’, the AI gives chances to people who may not have had the benefit of having that one crucial tag that would have surfaced their song to the top of our browse experience.”

“Maybe we’ve missed that when we tagged it back in 2016. Cyanite doesn’t care about that. Cyanite just says ‘This is a pretty good track based on what you’ve liked so far.’”

This way all artists benefit from AI Music Discovery.

Faster onboarding of new team members.

“What has been integral in onboarding new staff members, is allowing them to have a more organic discovery experience, because of the Similarity Search. Whether it was uploaded yesterday or uploaded 10 years ago, they’re gonna find it more easily.”

How Long did the Integration Take?

“Markus and Joshua were fantastic partners. Overall it took a few months to launch the ‘show similar songs’ button. But to be fair…could it have taken a shorter amount of time? Absolutely.”

“We did it in a very careful and methodical way. We put Cyanite under quite a serious magnifying glass, before committing and giving it out to our users.”

Check out the API docs to learn more about the process of integrating Cyanite into your system.

y -y – Where Is Marmoset Heading With All This?

“We are in a transitional period and we’re going to be considering full auto-tagging. There also always will be a human verification step, so it will always remain a human process. Compared to how we do things now, the idea is that Cyanite fits in a little earlier in the process as opposed to later.”

“We will start trying to find creative ways to utilize what is ultimately a very robust, very flexible amount of metadata not just to our benefit, but of course, to our end users’ benefit so that they can find the music they want faster.”

Marmoset AI Music Discovery – Long Story Short

Marmosets’ seamless integration of Cyanite into their workflow demonstrates the transformative impact of technology on the music industry – both facing the user front-end as well as internally improving workflows.
Combining trust in human processes and cutting-edge AI, Marmoset continues to define the future of music and AI music discovery.

Interested in trying out Cyanite for your company? Get in touch with us, or click the sign-up button below.

Many thanks to Alex Paguirigan for providing these amazing insights about how Marmoset uses Cyanite!

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How to Use AI Music Search for Your Music Catalog

by Simon | Apr 2, 2024 | Music Industry, AI Analysis, How-to Guide, Resources

The burgeoning field of artificial intelligence has brought forth more tools than we can count, aiming to revolutionize the music industry. Amidst this landscape, AI-based music tagging and search stand out as proven technologies with quantifiable benefits for music companies worldwide.

This article aims to demystify the potential of AI music search and recommendation systems, offering insights to help music catalog owners and distributors determine the relevance of this technology for their businesses. Whether navigating a vast catalog or seeking innovative solutions for content discovery, this guide is tailored to your needs.

If you are also interested in Auto-Tagging music, please check out our article on The Power of Automatic Music Tagging with AI.

Assessing Your Needs

Understanding the suitability of AI music search begins with assessing your specific requirements. Consider the following prompts:

- Has your catalog experienced significant growth from various sources?
- Do a variety of different users access and search through your catalog?
- Is sync a key aspect of your company?
- Do you find yourself repeatedly using the same tracks while underutilizing others?

If you answer affirmatively to at least two of these questions, further exploration of AI music search is advisable.

Exploring Options

Two primary AI-driven search options dominate this landscape:

Similarity Search: Ideal for discovering tracks similar to a reference song, this feature aids sync and licensing teams worldwide. Whether finding similar songs in your catalog to worldwide hits or augmenting your song collection for your sync pitch, this tool enhances any music search.

Free Text Search (Searching by natural language): Utilizing text prompts, this search method facilitates music discovery for visual projects and instances where translating thoughts into keywords proves challenging. Its versatility extends from B2B applications, common in music licensing, to B2C scenarios, as demonstrated by Cyanite’s collaboration with streaming platforms like Sonu.

Lyrics Search: Enhance your search experience by delving into the lyrical content of songs. This feature adds a contextual dimension to sound-based searches, allowing users to find songs based on specific words or themes within their lyrics. Whether you’re searching for songs containing a particular word like “love” or exploring themes such as “falling in love,” this functionality offers a nuanced approach to music discovery.

If you want to test those AI music search options, you can easily create a free account for Cyanite’s web app and try it out.

Building vs. Buying

Choosing between building an in-house AI solution or licensing from an external provider hinges on several factors:

- Do you possess an internal data science and development team?
- Do you have a meticulously tagged library of at least 500,000 audios?
- Can you allocate a significant budget for AI development (mid-six-figure sum) and ongoing updates?
- Are you prepared to invest in monthly maintenance costs for a proprietary AI system (monthly five-figure sum)?

Building your AI may be viable if you answer at least two of these questions positively. Alternatively, partnering with an AI provider like Cyanite presents a compelling option for those lacking the resources or expertise for independent development.

To book an individual and free consultation with our experts, please follow the button below.

Free Consultation with our Experts

Long Story Short

AI music search offers a transformative solution for navigating the complexities of music catalogs, empowering businesses with enhanced efficiency and discovery capabilities. Whether leveraging similarity search or text-based prompts, the adoption of AI-driven technologies promises to redefine content discovery in the music industry.

Explore the possibilities of AI music search with Cyanite, and unlock the full potential of your music catalog today.

Your Cyanite Team.

Sonu x Cyanite: Streaming Service Integrates AI-prompted Playlists

by Simon | Mar 12, 2024 | Announcement, Company, Music Industry

Music streaming platform Sonu has partnered with AI-powered music tagging and search company Cyanite to introduce VibeCheck, a fresh feature for listeners to generate playlists tailored to any desired mood, setting or situation.

Fair Music Streaming – What is Sonu?

Co-founded by producer TOKiMONSTA, Sonu’s vision is a music industry that’s more equitable and rewarding for both fans and artists. This starts with sonu.stream, a music streaming service that combines ad-free streaming with a marketplace for artists to auction one-of-a-kind digital twins of their songs and enjoy direct support from their biggest fans. Read more here.

A Collaboration to Create Music Moments

We partnered with Sonu, delivering the tech solution for “VibeCheck”. A fresh feature for listeners to generate playlists tailored to any desired mood, setting, or situation.

AI Playlists – Listeners simply enter a vibe, such as “cozy music for a rainy Sunday with my dog on the couch,” or “Friday night dinner party,” and are instantly provided with a playlist tailored to that specific moment.
The prompts can also help listeners find music that’s similar to their favorite artists, tracks, or albums, deepening discovery across Sonu’s music catalog.

A New Form of Music Recommendation

The result is a more immersive and personalized listening experience for users, without interference from editorial playlisting that often prioritizes a platform’s commercial considerations over a neutral recommendation engine.

“There’s just so much music available at our fingertips. Our collaboration with Cyanite is a significant step towards improving music discoverability and broadening horizons for fans. We built VibeCheck as a more fun interface for browsing music in this age of abundance. The goal is a playlisting experience that encourages a ‘lean in’ experience that feels a bit like crate digging in the age of AI.”

– Laura Jaramillo, CEO at Sonu

How it’s done

Cyanite leverages its advanced music analysis and AI recommendation solutions to enhance discoverability – a perfect companion for a music streaming service that prioritizes personal curation over algorithms.

The AI playlists are powered by our Free Text Search, as well as our Similarity Search, with some tweaking here and there we gave Sonu all the tools necessary for this exciting new way of discovering music.

“Music should match our moments. It’s the soundtrack to life. So it’s especially meaningful when we surface tracks from emerging artists that may have difficulty breaking through the commercial playlist firewall. This is another step towards our vision of fair music streaming for all.”