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

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

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.
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 AppAllows 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.

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

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

Similarity SearchGet 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. 

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!

How to Use AI Music Search for Your Music Catalog

How to Use AI Music Search for Your Music Catalog

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.

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

Sonu x Cyanite: Streaming Service Integrates AI-prompted Playlists

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.”

– Laura Jaramillo, CEO at Sonu

VibeCheck is live now at app.sonu.stream. Sonu launched its beta streaming service in December 2023 and is available in the U.S. only, with plans to expand to Europe soon.

In the meantime, you can experiment with our Free Text Search and Similarity Search in our free web app here.

Interested in integrating Cyanite into your Platform? Send us an email to business@cyanite.ai and we’ll find out how we can help with your vision.

 

Your Cyanite Team

Video Interview: How DJs, Artists, and Labels Can Use Cyanite’s AI

Video Interview: How DJs, Artists, and Labels Can Use Cyanite’s AI

Managing Music Catalogs with Cyanite

Following up on our presentation at Music Tech Germany, we recently did an Interview with Berlin House Music, discussing what tools we offer the music community here at Cyanite through our Web App

We summarized the most important topics to provide you with a short overview of what we talked about. Scroll down to check out the full 13-minute interview on YouTube.

Features for DJs, Artists, Labels:

    • Cyanite aims to empower DJs by assisting in set-building and suggesting tracks based on energy levels and various tags.
    • DJ features include a similarity search where users can find tracks with a similar vibe.
    • Using the Camelot wheel for harmonic mixing

Promotion Tools:

  • Labels and agencies use Cyanite for categorizing new music, finding suitable songs, and making product decisions.
  • Cyanite helps in selecting preview sections for music distribution to platforms like TikTok.
  • Users have successfully used Cyanite’s Augmented Keywords to instruct ChatGPT-3 in generating detailed song descriptions.

To find out more about this read our how-to blog article about it here.

Playlist Matching Feature (BETA):

    • Cyanite has just released a BETA feature to recommend playlists on Spotify that match a user’s uploaded song.
    • Future plans include recommending DJ crates and suggesting where in a playlist a song should be placed

 

Curious? Click here or on the video embedding above to watch the full interview on Berlin House Music’s Channel. 

In case you don’t have a Cyanite account yet, click the button below to Sign Up for free!

The Future Of Catalog Management: A Rep(e)rtoir Revolution

The Future Of Catalog Management: A Rep(e)rtoir Revolution

Managing Music Catalogs with Cyanite

In a recent panel discussion hosted by Digital Music News and Reprtoir, industry experts, including Cyanite’s co-founder & CEO Markus Schwarzer, discussed the challenges that music professionals encounter in effectively managing music catalogs and assets.

We summed up the most important points from the over 1-hour long panel talk for you below.

The Issue with Subjective Metadata 

Juvenal Juarez from Gerencia 360 mentioned the difficulty music companies encounter in comprehensively knowing their entire catalog. This challenge is further complicated by the subjective nature of metadata tagging in music, where subjective interpretation often prevails. To tackle this, Danny Dunlap from Beacon Street Studios pointed out the advantage of leveraging AI-powered tools like Cyanite and Reprtoir to introduce a level of standardization, removing subjectivity from metadata tagging.

Shifting Power in the Industry

The incorporation of Cyanite in catalog management, as expressed by Markus from Cyanite, is transforming how professionals interact with their catalogs. The goal is to make catalog value accessible to all, not just large companies with massive resources. Lara Angelil from Reprtoir then emphasized that anyone can now harness their catalog’s potential without years of study.

Additionally, with our Free Text Search, we allow users to articulate their preferences in natural language and receive personalized recommendations. This aligns with the current demands of the industry, particularly in the realm of sync, where Cyanite helps to find the perfect track for any occasion.

A peek into the Future

Later in the panel, there was a focus on AI’s role in predicting trends and its potential impact on the discoverability of new artists. As the industry grapples with an influx of data and metadata, concerns about managing this information effectively are growing with it. Lara Angelil addressed these concerns, pointing out that scalability and the right tools, such as Reprtoir, which uses Cyanite, enable professionals to navigate the increasing volume of information and maintain transparency.

 

For a more in-depth exploration, feel free to check out the panel discussion replay here.