April 13, 2021 • 38 mins
In this episode, game-changers Roneil Rumburg (Co-Founder and CEO of Audius), Elomida Visviki (Co-Founder and CEO of Weav Music), and Matt Block (Head of Production at Splice and Co-Founder of La Reserve) discuss the new paths they’ve created for artists to interact with fans. From creating equitable platforms for bedroom producers to inventing new technology, they’re redefining the nature of artist and audience.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jay (00:06):
Welcome to the Drop the Mic podcast where we'll dive into
conversations with some of themusic industry's most
established professionals Likeall of our episodes, what you
will hear today has been createdand curated by Stanford students
who are breaking their way intothe music scene.
I'm Jay LeBouef and I leadStanford University's music
industry initiatives.
Whether you're aspiring tolaunch your career in the music
industry are already a musicindustry pro, or just curious to
(00:29):
learn more.
We've got you covered.
Jeff Zhang (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to Drop the Mic, Stanford's
Music Industry Podcast.
We're:
Alisa Wang (00:44):
Alisa Wang a sophomore at Stanford.
Ayanna Minnihan (00:47):
Ayanna Minnihan, a freshman at
Stanford.
Riddhi Singh (00:49):
Riddhi Singh, a freshman at Stanford.
Jeff Zhang (00:52):
And Jeff Zhang a first year MBA at the Stanford
Graduate School of Business.
This episode is all aboutentrepreneurship and music.
In the next half an hour, we'regoing to showcase some companies
that are on the cutting edge ofinnovation in the music and
music tech space, changing theway that both artists and
listeners interact with themusic around them.
We're diving into three domains: startups that focus on the (01:15):
undefined
audience, startups that focus onthe artist, and startups that
thread the middle ground.
Ayanna Minnihan (01:24):
Alright, let's meet our interviewees!
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (01:27):
Hey, how's it going?
I'm, Roneil Rumburg I'mco-founder and CEO of Audius
which is a digital streamingservice that connects fans
directly with artists andexclusive new music.
Matt Block (Splice, La Rese (01:40):
How are you doing?
My name is Matt block.
And, Splice sounds, it's thelargest royalty free sample
subscription-based service inthe world.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (01:48):
Hi, I'm Elomida Visviki, CEO and
co-founder of Weav music.
Weav music is a music techstartup that aspires to change
the way we experience a recordedpiece of music.
Alisa Wang (02:08):
awesome, thanks everyone! Let's start everything
off with a speed round of a fewquick and fun questions.
Here we go.
What kind of music do you enjoylistening to the most?
Who are some of your favoritemusical artists?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (02:23):
Oh man.
That's such a tough question.
Yeah there were two albums thatstick out it's Lincoln Park's
hybrid theory from like theearly two thousands.
And Blink 182, enema of thestate from 97, 98.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (02:39):
I mean, we came to Greece about three
weeks ago and there's this younggirl.
Her name is[unclear] She's myabsolute new favorite.
I listened to her songs all thetime and it's so cool.
It's such a melodic, beautifulvoice.
Matt Block (Splice, La Rese (03:03):
um, my favorite artists right now I
don't really know if I have afavorite artist.
That's such a hard, it's a hardquestion, but, what I've been
listening to lately that's like,you know, not music that we're,
I'm working on with the label.
I mean, it's been out for aminute now, but the new Cali UGC
record is, uh, is pretty awesomeand she's having some crazy
(03:25):
spike on that track[unclear] andso I think I've been like, just
seeing that, and I've beendiving back into that record and
like with a whole new lens andI've been like really on that
tip this week, like listening tothat record a bunch.
Riddhi Singh (03:40):
if you had the option of choosing any career in
music besides entrepreneurship,what career would it be?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (03:45):
I believe I would be a good
manager.
I have a passion about promotingartists.
I mean, there are people whobasically burst because they
need to give.
So facilitating this, in myopinion, it's divine.
It's a God.
Alisa Wang (04:09):
How do you recenter or ground yourself?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (04:12):
I really enjoy spending time
outdoors and going on a hike orgoing skiing
Alisa Wang (04:18):
Hi Roneil, thank you so much for being here! We're
super excited to learn aboutyour story behind how you
started Audius.
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (04:27):
Thank you for having me.
Ayanna Minnihan (04:28):
Yeah, thank you so much.
So can we start with a littlebackground on you and Audius?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (04:32):
Yeah for sure.
So I'm Roneil I'm one of theco-founders of Audius and my
co-founder Forrest and I came tostart the project basically as a
result of seeing a lot of ourfavorite creators getting kicked
off of SoundCloud, for the mostpart, and that was back in 2015
or so.
We were actually both studentsat Stanford at that time.
(04:53):
And we used to, this was backbefore, like Uber was as
accessible and whatnot.
We would take the Caltrain up toSF on the weekends, go out to
electronic shows, and anywayyeah.
So like we just started to see alot of our favorite creators
getting kicked off of SoundCloudand not really understanding why
that was happening to them.
(05:14):
So we started to ask ourselveswhat if there was a way for
artists and fans themselves toeffectively self operate and own
a streaming service of theirown, almost operating a co-op
rate.
And at the time we looked into,it felt that the tech didn't
exist to do that.
So he and I went off and diddifferent things.
(05:35):
So I'm more a software engineerby background.
I worked in tech from that anglefor a while, during school and
then soon after school.
And then found my way over to uha venture firm called Kleiner
Perkins and spent a couple ofyears there.
So me and a few others started aseed practice there and I was
covering crypto from theinvestment side.
So continue to stay close tothis like decentralized tech
(05:59):
stuff.
But I kind of wanted to get backto building stuff, ended up
leaving there in like mid 2017or so.
And Forrest, my now co-founder,ended up leaving.
He started a company straightafter school that was acquired.
And he ended up leaving theacquirer around that time.
So yeah, we just started hackingon stuff and we were like, oh, I
wonder if that Audius thingcould work well, it wasn't
(06:21):
called that actually at thattime we didn't have a name, but
we were like I wonder if wecould make that work.
So we put together a littleprototype and convinced
ourselves that this wastechnically possible.
And then ended up heading off.
Alisa Wang (06:33):
That's an amazing story! So, for the viewers, how
would you describe Audius andwhat it does?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (06:41):
So uh yeah, Audius is a digital
streaming service that connectsfans directly with artists and
exclusive music.
But that direct bit I think iswhat differentiates us.
So there's this fullydecentralized network of
artists, fans and node operatorsthat have organized to operate
this network that's all builtatop open source software that
(07:01):
our team and other teams havepublished.
And yet today, so the productlaunched in late 2019, today we
see about 2.6 million or sopeople listening to stuff on
Audius every month.
And I think about a hundredthousand artists have uploaded
stuff so far.
So still early days, there's alot more work to do, but we've
been excited about what'shappened so far.
Riddhi Singh (07:22):
Wow those are impressive numbers! So earlier
you talked about how bycombining tech and music
distribution you're able todemocratize the decision-making
process so I was curious aboutthe inspiration behind this
specific focus.
Roneil Rumburg (Audius (07:37):
Totally.
The Audius platform kind of, youcan think of it like a right to
make decisions about how, Audiusworks and a right to operate a
business or a service withinthis ecosystem.
So, these tokens effectively canbe what's called staked or
locked in the system to operatea node or to provide other
(07:58):
services to the broader networkthat can earn you revenue in
exchange.
But you can also earn thosetokens by contributing content,
by curating content, by engagingon Audius.
And the goal with thateffectively was to get back to
that like vision I laid outaround this user owned and
operated streaming network.
(08:18):
We wanted ownership of andcontrol of these tools
effectively to be as broadlydistributed in the community as
possible.
Again, no one individual or onecompany should ever be in a
position to like make decisionswe felt about things like how
does monetization work?
Because if there's one companythat has a profit motive in the
(08:39):
center making those choices, youend up with things like Spotify
taking advantage of artistswanting to get exposure.
Right?
Which is just really sickening,right, or at least it is to me.
But yeah, I think that's reallywhere we didn't see a way to
distribute control and ownershipof this effectively public
(08:59):
utility or common good that wewere trying to make without
something like a cryptographictoken.
So there's actually thisgovernance system that lives on
chain where like users of thattoken can vote on what features
to add, what code changes tomake.
So any change to this system, asit exists today, actually has to
(09:19):
be approved by the users of thesystem as a result of that token
dynamic.
And yeah, really the thinkingthere was there's this shared
collective incentive now to makeAudius as useful and functional
as possible.
Because all of the users ofAudius would get to benefit uh,
you know, if Audius becomes verylarge and, you know, actually
(09:41):
meaningfully challenges folkslike SoundCloud and others.
All of the users of Audius wouldbenefit from that in a way that
no other platform ever cut theirusers into the actual flow of
capital within the system oranything else.
So that's the thing that we werereally excited about here.
We even, when we pitch ininvestors on working with us at
Audius in the early days andwhatnot, we were always like
(10:03):
this is not a business, right.
If you're looking for us to makemoney, our company actually is
not capable of taxing thissystem or like grabbing a
profit.
We would actually, if Audius thecompany wanted to make money
from Audius the network, wewould have to actually ask the
community put a fee in placethat goes to us.
And maybe they would say yes,but maybe they would say, no, I
(10:23):
think they should say no.
Right?
That would be the right thing todo.
But I think that's what allowedus to be very, approach this
problem I think from a verydifferent direction, which is
that it's not like there's noprofit motive within this
system.
There is if people can look athow that token operates and is
designed and form their ownconclusions about it.
I think what's different herethough is that there's an
(10:45):
opportunity for anyone who wantsto contribute value to Audius to
earn their way into an ownershipposition within the system.
And then you actually,effectively, like the more
reliant you are upon Audius togenerate income for you or
whatever else, the more votingpower and the more control you,
you get to aggregate within thesystem over time in return for
(11:07):
that so to vote on features andall those things.
Ayanna Minnihan (11:10):
Wow.
That is amazing.
And I want to ask with that.
I know that it's still, probablyvery young, but are there people
that you do communicate with allthe time, or certain aspects of
the community.
Have you seen people start tobloom and really tangible ways
or anything that you've reallyjust been amazed has already
happened so far?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (11:28):
Yeah, totally.
So we've just been reallyhumbled and blown away by like
how the community has respondedto this.
So I mentioned we've seen Ithink at this point over a
hundred thousand artists uploadto Audius so far.
There are these kind of Discordcommunities around Audius that
have sort of self-organized andstarted to evolve that I think
(11:49):
there were like over 10,000people there now just sharing
each other's music and hangingout and I think that very
inclusive, welcoming communityvibe that, I don't think we like
intentionally did this, in thatthose early phases of growing
the artists community.
But I think naturally the typesof artists that were responding
to, that, just us being like,hey, we're just trying to build
(12:12):
cool stuff, whatever createdthis cultural dynamic around the
Audius community.
That is just one that's verywelcoming and friendly and that
people feel very comfortable andeven like learning about things
like how crypto works or howthese platform tokens work or
whatever, it's there, there areno dumb questions there, right?
I think just the way that thesecommunities self-organized in a
(12:33):
way that is not really, youknow, I guess, and this is one
of the really coolest aspects ofgetting to do what we do every
day.
It's just so much bigger thanthe little team that built the
first version of it.
We're like 14 people.
And when they're seeing giantcommunities that have started to
evolve and emerge around this alot of what we do is, you know,
(12:55):
almost chasing and catching upto what's already happening
around this thing.
It's like this thing has grownso far beyond what any one of us
is capable of staying on top of,right.
We just have no idea what'shappening broadly in these small
corners of the internet and,whatnot.
And I think there are some folksthat have really emerged in our
(13:15):
community as being, just reallywanting to like step up and help
do the work of making this, youknow, something that's useful,
broadly useful for everyone.
Some of those folks are like, Itext with them on a weekly-ish
basis.
Just being like, Hey if we likebuilt this thing, what would you
think of it?
Do you think that would beuseful for the community?
(13:36):
Is that something that you wouldvote yes on in governance, for
example?
You know?
And I think what we're going tostart to see emerge in these
crypto, these decentralizedcrypto communities is almost the
role of the initial team thatbuilds the initial version
almost evolves into kind of apolitical role.
You want to do your best to sortof represent broadly the
(13:56):
interests of the community, butthe only way to do that is by
getting out and talking to folksand understanding it.
But we're never going to beperfect at that.
Right.
Like, it's just not, we can'ttalk to a hundred thousand
artists nor can we talk to like2.6 million users or listeners.
Right.
We try and do our best torepresent them, with at least
the choices of what things do webuild or things like that.
(14:18):
But ultimately like, theydirectly get to vote on whether
those things that we builtactually like become part of the
system or not, which is alsocool.
Um, early on we always liketalked about these things
happening and sketched out thatroadmap, but like actually
seeing it kind of happeningbefore our eyes.
I don't know, like it, I guessit's sorta like you, you don't
necessarily like fullyinternalize your own rhetoric
(14:40):
until you actually see it justhappen in front of you.
And it's just really cool.
Again, a very humblingexperience.
I know I keep using that word,but it's, I don't know how else
to describe it.
It's just this thing has takenon a life of its own.
That's, you know, like I'm fullyconfident right now that if
Audius, the company shut down,like if all of us stopped
working on this, this would keepgoing, virtually forever.
(15:03):
Right?
Cause there's nothing, there'snothing that we do right now
that is like necessary tooperate this network.
And, you know, through theselike decentralized technologies,
you can create public goods thatactually have the ability to
like capture value on behalf ofthe operators of of those public
goods, where the operators arethe broad community that exists
(15:23):
around around Audius, which is,which has been really cool.
Alisa Wang (15:28):
Wow.
It's amazing to hear about howmuch Audius has grown.
Thank you so much for suchinsightful responses.
Riddhi Singh (15:38):
Hi, Elomida.
Thank you for taking the time totalk to us.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (15:41):
I'm very happy to be talking to you and
thank you for inviting me.
Riddhi Singh (15:46):
Of course.
Yeah.
So to start, what was your pathinto the music industry like?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (15:50):
I mean, very often I hear people that
they're quite frank and say,dude I, bummed it to that it
just happened to me, which ofcourse no, it wasn't like that
for me.
I very shortly.
I started my career in finance,actually I worked for a bank.
I was a credit analyst.
I did that four, five, sixyears.
(16:14):
And at the same time I was atthe university and I was doing a
little bit of economics andliterature.
So, I got this scholarshipfor[unclear] and I went there it
just hit me that.
That's not what I want to do.
I had this idea about music,actually following the beat.
(16:36):
And we said, you know what,maybe we try to do that.
And this is how it all started.
And it was fun because theoriginal product feat was about
lovers.
It wasn't about running oranything else.
So I would use the music as ameans of communication and he
would have to adapt or the otherway around.
(16:59):
And that was the first productfeed.
Riddhi Singh (17:01):
Thanks for providing that background.
It's always interesting to hearhow everyone's story leads them
to where they are now.
So as for jumping into the musicindustry specifically were there
any aspects you had to beparticularly mindful or cautious
of?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (17:16):
It is a crazy process.
Everyone cautioned us music issuper difficult.
Don't get in there.
The licensing is crazy.
It wasn't, a decision that wetook spare of the moment we
looked into that very carefullyand we knew, straight ahead for
the problems would be, weinterviewed other co-founders
(17:38):
that dealt with the problems andthey failed.
Actually pretty much the roadmapof the core technology back in
the day was built having in mindthese problems.
Alisa Wang (17:50):
That is so interesting to hear about.
So, we were wondering, how havenew social media platforms or
technologies, such as Tik Tok,affected the way in which Weav
is being used?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (18:02):
So the mission is to to see recorded
music in a new way so there's ameans of the music to reach the
ears of the fans and thelisteners.
Uh, originally the music wasenjoyed when someone was likely
performing it for you or.
Yourself, you would sing or playan instrument, but at some point
(18:25):
it scaled up.
But when the artist is there andperforms their song, they can
make artistic decisions tobetter align the song with the
moment so.
We felt that is totally lost.
Your always comes to your earsthe same way.
So what about the possibility,all these different forms to
(18:48):
coexist in a song and then howto make it behave as if it was
lively performed.
And that is a tool initially forthe artist, the artist can give
more information, more language,more material into their songs.
And me as a consumer, I canexplore it.
(19:10):
I can do more.
I can get The unplugged version,probably when I'm chilling out
and meditating but when I go outand play games or dance with my
daughters or do this or theother, I get other versions, but
all the exploration.
Is a result of an artisticchoice that was pre decided.
Ayanna Minnihan (19:35):
Oh that's so interesting! So in the most
simplistic terms, for someonewho has no idea regarding this
technology, how does themovement responsive technology
work?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (19:44):
I there, there are different parts of the
technology, the core technologydoes the following.
Let's say that you have a songand a few different variations
of the song.
And then our softwarecalculates, uh, all the
in-between versions.
Let's, assume that what I wantis to change the tempo.
(20:05):
And I would like.
The change, the energy, the, anorchestration, the arrangement
of a song, and then create allthe variations between those
different, uh, three differentversions for four different
versions I create.
And then the software decides todo that for you.
So creates all of the, between.
(20:27):
Steps so that when you'relistening to the song, it feels
natural.
The change comes in a moreliquid form in your ears and
it's not abrupt.
So the seamless part is becauseour software calculates all
these.
Then we have a way of playing itback.
Now augumented song open.
(20:49):
If we use this word and thenresponding with the right remix
on the fly, depending on whatyou do.
So now we created a bunch moreAlgorithms that read your body
movement, your speed, yourbreathing.
We can, make different triggersdepending on what's the
occasion.
And then we understand thechange and we aligned the beat
(21:13):
of the song with your feet.
That creates a very interestingeffect that creates the feeling
of synchronization.
Then what's the most clever wayof playing back the music to
better serve the occasion andthe work you're doing, and also
the time you're listening.
Here's another, example westarted now looking.
(21:38):
Inc to think called adaptivevoice as well.
So we launched about, um, sixmonths ago and new technology
that takes the voice of, uh, ofthe present.
And adopted as well.
Let me give you an example ofguided workouts in running a
quite popular.
So you have someone in your earand they're telling you what to
(22:03):
do, The problem is that normallythe music and the voice are
baked together, which means thatall the commands and all those
structure, the regime of theworkout is pretty much it
doesn't is not aligned with youractual performance is pretty
much at perceived a Fort likerun faster lumber.
(22:26):
So stuff like that, which is, itdestroys the feeling of doing
it.
So we created a new.
Part of our tech now takes thevoice of coach.
Riddhi Singh (22:40):
Yeah.
There's so many uses for thistechnology.
And actually this conversationreminds me of how platforms such
as Spotify or Apple music.
They create and curate playliststhat are a specific, for heart
rate based workouts.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (22:54):
Listen, the technology is there and tech
solutions are fantastic what isthe most difficult thing is the
licensing of the music, which ofcourse,It's a hurdle or a very
real one because artists need toget paid.
So publishing is there and allof that royalties should be
(23:16):
given back, but to get throughit is a very difficult thing.
So this is what holds back mostof the innovation rather than
anything else, but I think we'rein a good space.
We did try the first year and ahalf, maybe two, we said, okay,
(23:37):
let's commission songs.
Let's not at all have to dealwith labels.
Publishing rights and all thesecomplicated systems.
So we said that actually andthen people they would like,
that's very cool.
I like the fact that the musicchanges, but I don't want to
(23:58):
listen to this, the music I likeit's like that was a very
difficult moment actually.
,because I had to persuade teamthat we need to go into real
music as I called it.
And they said, but that's realtoo.
And I said, listen, people lovetheir songs.
You can't just ignore this factbecause you've created the
(24:19):
technology that makes musicplayback.
Yes, it's fine.
If it's the background of thevideo, but it's not the same.
And the problem with music todayis that it's so much.
So the real fans, if they wantto have an, a live experience of
what is going on, they have togo into a concert.
This is where they see theirartists.
(24:41):
This is where they connect withthem.
Riddhi Singh (24:44):
I completely agree.
And I feel as though every timeyou listen to a song, Yes you
are listening to the lyrics butthe artists themselves singing
the song is what adds to thatfeeling
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (24:54):
You know, this is all about music.
This communal feeling of, theconcert is one thing.
But the relationship with theartist, the artist has a tone.
It has a style, it has somethingto say.
They have so much to give and wereceive them and you need that.
(25:17):
You need that to get through.
You need that.
So actually we started withfitness for this exact reason.
Riddhi Singh (25:25):
Wow yeah that's a great way of articulating what
music is able to create and onthat note thank you for this
opportunity this conversationwas very enlightening and i'm
sure all listeners willappreciate all the wisdom you
have provided
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (25:39):
you're such a great person to talk to.
I wish you the best.
I wish you a beautiful time.
Ayanna Minnihan (25:47):
Hey, Matt.
Thanks again for coming to talkwith us.
So how about we start off withsome background on who you are?
Matt Block (Splice, La Rese (25:52):
So, yeah, my name is Matt Block.
I'm from Philadelphiaoriginally.
I'm actually down inPennsylvania right now.
I've been living down here withmy girlfriend.
Um, we're, we're usually basedin New York, but I'm just living
down here with family and, um, Igrew up playing trumpet.
And, uh, my grandfather MortBlock is a musician, a trumpet
(26:12):
player, and that's kind of whogot me into music.
So I grew up playing jazz,playing black American music,
from age like 10.
Like I was kind of like a bebopkid and like really was into
Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk,Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie.
And like, I really wanted toplay bebop for like my entire
life, move to New York and dothat whole thing.
And I moved to New York, likeright after graduation to pursue
(26:34):
that.
And where it kind of led me hasbeen kind of as a whole
different path.
Cause I worked, um, for aboutlike four or five months as an
assistant at a studio calledAntfood.
That's run by Wilson Brown.
Really amazing music house.
And, um, I did really incrediblecreative work, but I just, I,
when it came to have aconversation around coming on
full time and doing that wholething, it just, the economics
(26:56):
didn't make a ton of sense tome.
And, um, I also realized in thattime, I just maybe didn't want
to be producing with the timepressure every day and creating
with a time pressure, which issomething I just don't think I
enjoyed that much.
And so I started to really likeactually do research and read
about the music industry andlearn what was out there.
And, um, in that, in, talkingwith tons of different friends
(27:18):
and friends of friends and likerandom people.
I met a company called Flavorlabthat's an audio post facility in
New York and they were lookingto grow a catalog.
They were founded by twoincredible composers, Eric
Blicker and Glenn Schloss, andthey had another partner, Brian
Quill, who was running theiraudio posts, and they wanted to
have, um, someone help them outand just building out a
(27:39):
production music catalog.
And so they took a big, big riskon me and chance on me and give
me my first shot.
I convinced them to hire me andnot hire me as an intern.
They wanted to have me be anintern.
I was like, nah, I can't do thatfor you.
So I made a very, very, verylittle amount of money to start
out.
And then in three months, afterthis trial period was done and I
had gotten a lot of the worktogether for the catalog, the
(28:00):
rest was history.
And, um, you know, they werereally amazing, like early
mentors because they let me justbe me and do my thing and, fail
and succeed.
And we're like there and taughtme a lot.
But I was able to learn thepublishing world, the sync
world, the world of adminpublishing and working with
ASCAP and BMI and C-SATcollecting royalties
(28:20):
internationally.
I was able to, to learn a lot,because it was just kind of like
me and two people who are reallyhands off and let me do my
thing.
And so, you know, throughoutthat time, I, grew the catalog.
I signed probably over 200different writers and producers
to make music for sync mainlylike shows on Viacom and CBS
and, um, some differentproduction companies.
(28:40):
And you know, I think I startedto learn, grow, and have other
interests.
And a lot of my friends fromPhilly started to kick off
careers in New York as jazzmusicians and start to pop off.
And so that's kinda how the, therecord label started because at
that same time, my brother movedto the city, he's younger than I
am.
And, um, my other friend, Greg,is older than me, was having
(29:02):
success as like anR&B artist onhis projects called Yellow
Shoots.
And so we were kind of hangingout one day and we're like,
yeah, we should make a recordlabel and just protect our
friends, like help grow ourfriends.
You know, flash forward totoday, like I, I head up the
production there and we can talkmore about that later on, but
that's kind of what I'm doing.
I work at splice during the dayand hustle really hard.
And then at night and weekends,I'm working on La Reserve and
(29:23):
growing the label.
So yeah,
Jeff Zhang (29:26):
awesome.
Thank you so much, Matt.
That's a, it's so interesting.
Thanks for sharing your arc.
I was wondering if you couldshare a little bit more about
specifically, you know, whatthat role entails, what you do,
um, who you interact with, etcetera.
Matt Block (Splice, La Re (29:38):
Yeah.
So, splice is a lot of thingsand splice sounds, which is
probably what a lot of peopleare familiar with is the largest
royalty free samplesubscription-based service in
the world.
And, it was started bylicensing, incredible sample
packs and unpacking the samplepack and, um, really
revolutionizing it, thatindustry, um, for, for the
(29:59):
masses and democratizing musicproduction.
And, uh, so when I came on boardin 2018, that was when splice
started to want to develop itsown sample labels.
Like in a sample label isbasically it's a company that
makes sample packs.
So, I don't know how, like, Howfamiliar you are with a splice
in an ecosystem, but there'ssome amazing sample labels out
(30:21):
there, like sample magic andCapson pro audio, soul surplus
origin sound.
Um, and those labels are allowned by splice now.
And so I started at Splice whenthat process of acquiring a
bunch of amazing teams andcatalog store began.
And so with those teams, westarted to also develop our own
processes to empower like atscale, a lot of creators, people
(30:42):
who maybe haven't consideredmaking samples as a career
option.
And, you know, for example,like.
My, friend who is a great pianoplayer and organist down in
Miami and working like thetouring scene and, you know,
working as an artist down therewho also knows how to record
himself, like teaching him, whatit means to make a sample pack,
um, end to end and helping toempower him to make money on
like that little part of thesupply chain in music
(31:05):
production.
So the first Year and a half orso of being in splice was like
really working with the expertsfrom the labels that had joined
splice as full-time employeesand creating a system for that
and creating an operations and aprocess to really just spin a
ton of labels around differentgenres and styles to just
empower all different types ofcreators.
(31:25):
And we're still doing that.
We're still looking to developnew pockets of places where we
can tap into musicians whohaven't maybe made samples yet.
And then also putting to work,like lots of people who are
making sample packs and areveterans of the industry and
have been doing that as well andjust providing them more revenue
opportunities.
So, I think that's one part.
And as splice has developed,we're working on some other
(31:47):
things as well that are in theproduction realm.
So in a nutshell, we're makingthe highest quality, products
and paying artists and creatorsreally well to do that.
Alisa Wang (31:57):
That's amazing.
Thanks for sharing.
It's great to hear how splicethe streamlining of the music
creation process for manyartists.
What inspires you the most aboutSplice's mission?
Matt Block (Splice, La R (32:09):
Splice like our mission is to really
put, to enable as many people aspossible to make music.
And we really believe that athird of the world tries to make
music.
And so we want to help providethose resources and those tools
to make that journey easily and,um to help creators along that
journey.
So, yeah, it is kind of like atwo-sided marketplace in a
sense.
So it's musicians making musicfor musicians.
(32:29):
I think like some of the cooleststories I hear on splice are the
stories of the connections thatget made outside of splice.
Like for example, like there's aproducer who made a guitar pack
on, on splice and, you know, itdid really well.
And once that guitar pack gotreleased there were other
artists around the world whofound his sounds.
(32:52):
And I think that the beautifulthing about splice is every time
that a creator makes a pack andit gets released on splice, it's
like I'm in the room with youand you have those sounds.
And I think that those types ofconnections, have led to major
publishing deals for artists andhave led to artists to blow up
and other areas because of justlike how.
Intimate it is to get thosesounds and to really feel like,
Oh cool.
Like I have Matt blocks, liketrumpet in the studio with me,
(33:14):
even though you don't, I'm notthere.
But I think that therelationships that get formed
and the business relationshipsthey get built, because splices
and existence is one of the mostbeautiful things.
We have a lot of bedroomproducers We also have a ton of
top 40 producers and a ton ofpeople who are making music for
all the independent labels andthey, it's kind of a wide range
of who is using splice.
And so I'm at all differentlevels of their other musical
(33:35):
journey.
So I think that's the coolestthing to me.
Ayanna Minnihan (33:38):
Wow.
That is so cool.
I'd like to move on to LaReserve next.
My question is what's it beenlike starting a label and what
do you think your sort of uniqueperspective is slash you know
what are you doing differentlyversus other labels that might
be out there?
Matt Block (Splice, La Re (33:54):
Yeah.
that's a great, it's a greatquestion.
And like, you know, It's beendefinitely a very bumpy journey,
like owning a label.
For us, we started out.
Um, I worked in sync licensingand my brother works at the
orchard in sync.
And so, we were like, Oh cool.
We've got a lot of publishingknowledge, a lot of sync
knowledge.
And we got all these likefriends in Philly who produced
for all the biggest, like pop Rand B hip hop artists.
(34:17):
Let's make a sync catalog andlet's start that and we'll
distribute it through theorchard, but we'll really focus
on, sink and doing that.
And we started doing that withour other partner, Greg and
signing up on a bunch of artistsfor like sync deals.
And we're like, wait, hold on asecond.
how are we going to actuallycreate value for these artists,
if we're not knowing how todistribute well on Spotify or
Apple.
I think we need to understandwhat it means to actually put
(34:37):
music out and get traction andhelp build an artist and other
profile.
And, you know, you're not gonnamake a ton of money off of the
streaming platforms and youshouldn't be begging on that as
like your revenue source, butit's such an important tool and
it's such an important piecethat whole pie and even in a
pandemic even more so right now.
And so Yeah, we kind of took astep back and we're like, all
(34:58):
right, we got to figure out howto release music in the digital
modern landscape and do itbetter than anybody and leaner
than anybody else.
And so we started working on Rand D projects with yellow
shoots and had some really earlysuccesses and kind of put us on
the map a little bit.
Like, you know, we, got on acouple of big playlists on
(35:18):
Spotify and a couple of thingswe were able to get an advance
from the orchard and a couple ofthings that just kind of
happened, but I don't think wereally knew what we were doing.
And like a couple of years ago,we're still learning.
Alisa Wang (35:29):
Great.
Thank you.
Could you tell us about somememorable moments of working
with artists at la reserve?
Matt Block (Splice, La Reser (35:38):
My friend Benny, v-neck the third,
he's a fabulous trumpet player.
Amazing vocalist.
Um, we met at Allstate jazz inPennsylvania.
He's from Pittsburgh.
I'm from Philly.
We met when we were like 14 andhe's like, yo, I want to take
you out to lunch.
Like I want to put my record outwith, with La Reserve.
And, um, I was like, all right,bro.
Like whenever we're not doingjazz, but like we'll talk.
And so, He linked up and I waslike, yo cool.
(36:00):
We'll do a distribution deal foryou.
Like we'll help hook you up andmake sure it gets put out the
correct way.
But you can't use our name.
You can't do anything.
Like we're not at where we're inthe R and B label and we're not
putting out jazz records.
And then we put out his record.
And it did really well and itgot on playlist and it was the
first success we had tasted outoutside of indie, R and B space
that we were trying to like onlybe in.
(36:20):
And so I'm like, all right,cool.
And then we kind of went back todoing the same things we were
doing.
And you know, fast forward to2019, we put out his next record
and then just started to commit.
Riddhi Singh (36:33):
Wow that's amazing to hear! So what differentiates
La Reserve from other recordlabels?
Matt Block (Splice, La Reserv (36:38):
I think what we've learned how to
do is, figure out what.
What makes an artist who theyare, and we amplify that.
We don't want to control or tellour artists like what to do.
It's more of like, cool, whatare you doing?
And how can we support?
And like, I think that there's alot of labels out there that try
to control and to own and do allthis stuff.
It's me and my brother justworking on this stuff.
And we just, we cause we enjoythe music and we want to just be
(37:01):
part of the artists team.
That's really what it is.
Like I don't even think we're alabel.
Like we're more of a team andwe're both invested in it.
Like we do our, everything on arev share deal.
So if an artist doesn't makemoney, then we don't make money.
And so we're always hungry andwe sign hungry artists.
And we just released, the firstsingle from Katie, George who's,
I think one of the best upcominglocalists in the world.
(37:22):
And you know, she's the face ofa few of the biggest Spotify
jazz playlist.
The thing that separates us, Ithink from other labels is our
process.
We have a lot of things that weneed from our artists and we
really figure out ways tocreate.
Like a moment, like a six toeight month moment out of any
project.
Like whether it's an AP or anLP.
Making music is really hard andmaking good music that you
(37:42):
really care about is reallyhard.
And like when we get a project,we want to take that and stretch
that out as long as we can.
And that's, I think why we'vebeen able to.
Build a label around thatbecause we try to we let our
artists do and be who they wantto be.
And then we figure out how toamplify that and like really
build a whole story and visionthat lasts a long time over
that.
Jeff Zhang (38:08):
That's about all the time we have today.
This has been theentrepreneurship in music
episode of Drop the Mic (38:13):
Music Industry Conversations.
Thank you so much for listeningto our podcast today.
We wanted to give special thanksto Roneil, Elomida and Matt for
taking the time to chat with us,as well as Jay LeBoeuf and the
MUSIC150P team at Stanford formaking this project a reality.
If you like what you heard,please feel free to subscribe to
(38:35):
Drop the Mic wherever you findyour podcasts.
Thanks again and have awonderful rest of your day.
Welcome to the Drop the Mic podcast where we'll dive into
conversations with some of themusic industry's most
established professionals Likeall of our episodes, what you
will hear today has been createdand curated by Stanford students
who are breaking their way intothe music scene.
I'm Jay LeBouef and I leadStanford University's music
industry initiatives.
Whether you're aspiring tolaunch your career in the music
industry are already a musicindustry pro, or just curious to
(00:29):
learn more.
We've got you covered.
Jeff Zhang (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to Drop the Mic, Stanford's
Music Industry Podcast.
We're:
Alisa Wang (00:44):
Alisa Wang a sophomore at Stanford.
Ayanna Minnihan (00:47):
Ayanna Minnihan, a freshman at
Stanford.
Riddhi Singh (00:49):
Riddhi Singh, a freshman at Stanford.
Jeff Zhang (00:52):
And Jeff Zhang a first year MBA at the Stanford
Graduate School of Business.
This episode is all aboutentrepreneurship and music.
In the next half an hour, we'regoing to showcase some companies
that are on the cutting edge ofinnovation in the music and
music tech space, changing theway that both artists and
listeners interact with themusic around them.
We're diving into three domains: startups that focus on the (01:15):
undefined
audience, startups that focus onthe artist, and startups that
thread the middle ground.
Ayanna Minnihan (01:24):
Alright, let's meet our interviewees!
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (01:27):
Hey, how's it going?
I'm, Roneil Rumburg I'mco-founder and CEO of Audius
which is a digital streamingservice that connects fans
directly with artists andexclusive new music.
Matt Block (Splice, La Rese (01:40):
How are you doing?
My name is Matt block.
And, Splice sounds, it's thelargest royalty free sample
subscription-based service inthe world.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (01:48):
Hi, I'm Elomida Visviki, CEO and
co-founder of Weav music.
Weav music is a music techstartup that aspires to change
the way we experience a recordedpiece of music.
Alisa Wang (02:08):
awesome, thanks everyone! Let's start everything
off with a speed round of a fewquick and fun questions.
Here we go.
What kind of music do you enjoylistening to the most?
Who are some of your favoritemusical artists?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (02:23):
Oh man.
That's such a tough question.
Yeah there were two albums thatstick out it's Lincoln Park's
hybrid theory from like theearly two thousands.
And Blink 182, enema of thestate from 97, 98.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (02:39):
I mean, we came to Greece about three
weeks ago and there's this younggirl.
Her name is[unclear] She's myabsolute new favorite.
I listened to her songs all thetime and it's so cool.
It's such a melodic, beautifulvoice.
Matt Block (Splice, La Rese (03:03):
um, my favorite artists right now I
don't really know if I have afavorite artist.
That's such a hard, it's a hardquestion, but, what I've been
listening to lately that's like,you know, not music that we're,
I'm working on with the label.
I mean, it's been out for aminute now, but the new Cali UGC
record is, uh, is pretty awesomeand she's having some crazy
(03:25):
spike on that track[unclear] andso I think I've been like, just
seeing that, and I've beendiving back into that record and
like with a whole new lens andI've been like really on that
tip this week, like listening tothat record a bunch.
Riddhi Singh (03:40):
if you had the option of choosing any career in
music besides entrepreneurship,what career would it be?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (03:45):
I believe I would be a good
manager.
I have a passion about promotingartists.
I mean, there are people whobasically burst because they
need to give.
So facilitating this, in myopinion, it's divine.
It's a God.
Alisa Wang (04:09):
How do you recenter or ground yourself?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (04:12):
I really enjoy spending time
outdoors and going on a hike orgoing skiing
Alisa Wang (04:18):
Hi Roneil, thank you so much for being here! We're
super excited to learn aboutyour story behind how you
started Audius.
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (04:27):
Thank you for having me.
Ayanna Minnihan (04:28):
Yeah, thank you so much.
So can we start with a littlebackground on you and Audius?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (04:32):
Yeah for sure.
So I'm Roneil I'm one of theco-founders of Audius and my
co-founder Forrest and I came tostart the project basically as a
result of seeing a lot of ourfavorite creators getting kicked
off of SoundCloud, for the mostpart, and that was back in 2015
or so.
We were actually both studentsat Stanford at that time.
(04:53):
And we used to, this was backbefore, like Uber was as
accessible and whatnot.
We would take the Caltrain up toSF on the weekends, go out to
electronic shows, and anywayyeah.
So like we just started to see alot of our favorite creators
getting kicked off of SoundCloudand not really understanding why
that was happening to them.
(05:14):
So we started to ask ourselveswhat if there was a way for
artists and fans themselves toeffectively self operate and own
a streaming service of theirown, almost operating a co-op
rate.
And at the time we looked into,it felt that the tech didn't
exist to do that.
So he and I went off and diddifferent things.
(05:35):
So I'm more a software engineerby background.
I worked in tech from that anglefor a while, during school and
then soon after school.
And then found my way over to uha venture firm called Kleiner
Perkins and spent a couple ofyears there.
So me and a few others started aseed practice there and I was
covering crypto from theinvestment side.
So continue to stay close tothis like decentralized tech
(05:59):
stuff.
But I kind of wanted to get backto building stuff, ended up
leaving there in like mid 2017or so.
And Forrest, my now co-founder,ended up leaving.
He started a company straightafter school that was acquired.
And he ended up leaving theacquirer around that time.
So yeah, we just started hackingon stuff and we were like, oh, I
wonder if that Audius thingcould work well, it wasn't
(06:21):
called that actually at thattime we didn't have a name, but
we were like I wonder if wecould make that work.
So we put together a littleprototype and convinced
ourselves that this wastechnically possible.
And then ended up heading off.
Alisa Wang (06:33):
That's an amazing story! So, for the viewers, how
would you describe Audius andwhat it does?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (06:41):
So uh yeah, Audius is a digital
streaming service that connectsfans directly with artists and
exclusive music.
But that direct bit I think iswhat differentiates us.
So there's this fullydecentralized network of
artists, fans and node operatorsthat have organized to operate
this network that's all builtatop open source software that
(07:01):
our team and other teams havepublished.
And yet today, so the productlaunched in late 2019, today we
see about 2.6 million or sopeople listening to stuff on
Audius every month.
And I think about a hundredthousand artists have uploaded
stuff so far.
So still early days, there's alot more work to do, but we've
been excited about what'shappened so far.
Riddhi Singh (07:22):
Wow those are impressive numbers! So earlier
you talked about how bycombining tech and music
distribution you're able todemocratize the decision-making
process so I was curious aboutthe inspiration behind this
specific focus.
Roneil Rumburg (Audius (07:37):
Totally.
The Audius platform kind of, youcan think of it like a right to
make decisions about how, Audiusworks and a right to operate a
business or a service withinthis ecosystem.
So, these tokens effectively canbe what's called staked or
locked in the system to operatea node or to provide other
(07:58):
services to the broader networkthat can earn you revenue in
exchange.
But you can also earn thosetokens by contributing content,
by curating content, by engagingon Audius.
And the goal with thateffectively was to get back to
that like vision I laid outaround this user owned and
operated streaming network.
(08:18):
We wanted ownership of andcontrol of these tools
effectively to be as broadlydistributed in the community as
possible.
Again, no one individual or onecompany should ever be in a
position to like make decisionswe felt about things like how
does monetization work?
Because if there's one companythat has a profit motive in the
(08:39):
center making those choices, youend up with things like Spotify
taking advantage of artistswanting to get exposure.
Right?
Which is just really sickening,right, or at least it is to me.
But yeah, I think that's reallywhere we didn't see a way to
distribute control and ownershipof this effectively public
(08:59):
utility or common good that wewere trying to make without
something like a cryptographictoken.
So there's actually thisgovernance system that lives on
chain where like users of thattoken can vote on what features
to add, what code changes tomake.
So any change to this system, asit exists today, actually has to
(09:19):
be approved by the users of thesystem as a result of that token
dynamic.
And yeah, really the thinkingthere was there's this shared
collective incentive now to makeAudius as useful and functional
as possible.
Because all of the users ofAudius would get to benefit uh,
you know, if Audius becomes verylarge and, you know, actually
(09:41):
meaningfully challenges folkslike SoundCloud and others.
All of the users of Audius wouldbenefit from that in a way that
no other platform ever cut theirusers into the actual flow of
capital within the system oranything else.
So that's the thing that we werereally excited about here.
We even, when we pitch ininvestors on working with us at
Audius in the early days andwhatnot, we were always like
(10:03):
this is not a business, right.
If you're looking for us to makemoney, our company actually is
not capable of taxing thissystem or like grabbing a
profit.
We would actually, if Audius thecompany wanted to make money
from Audius the network, wewould have to actually ask the
community put a fee in placethat goes to us.
And maybe they would say yes,but maybe they would say, no, I
(10:23):
think they should say no.
Right?
That would be the right thing todo.
But I think that's what allowedus to be very, approach this
problem I think from a verydifferent direction, which is
that it's not like there's noprofit motive within this
system.
There is if people can look athow that token operates and is
designed and form their ownconclusions about it.
I think what's different herethough is that there's an
(10:45):
opportunity for anyone who wantsto contribute value to Audius to
earn their way into an ownershipposition within the system.
And then you actually,effectively, like the more
reliant you are upon Audius togenerate income for you or
whatever else, the more votingpower and the more control you,
you get to aggregate within thesystem over time in return for
(11:07):
that so to vote on features andall those things.
Ayanna Minnihan (11:10):
Wow.
That is amazing.
And I want to ask with that.
I know that it's still, probablyvery young, but are there people
that you do communicate with allthe time, or certain aspects of
the community.
Have you seen people start tobloom and really tangible ways
or anything that you've reallyjust been amazed has already
happened so far?
Roneil Rumburg (Audius) (11:28):
Yeah, totally.
So we've just been reallyhumbled and blown away by like
how the community has respondedto this.
So I mentioned we've seen Ithink at this point over a
hundred thousand artists uploadto Audius so far.
There are these kind of Discordcommunities around Audius that
have sort of self-organized andstarted to evolve that I think
(11:49):
there were like over 10,000people there now just sharing
each other's music and hangingout and I think that very
inclusive, welcoming communityvibe that, I don't think we like
intentionally did this, in thatthose early phases of growing
the artists community.
But I think naturally the typesof artists that were responding
to, that, just us being like,hey, we're just trying to build
(12:12):
cool stuff, whatever createdthis cultural dynamic around the
Audius community.
That is just one that's verywelcoming and friendly and that
people feel very comfortable andeven like learning about things
like how crypto works or howthese platform tokens work or
whatever, it's there, there areno dumb questions there, right?
I think just the way that thesecommunities self-organized in a
(12:33):
way that is not really, youknow, I guess, and this is one
of the really coolest aspects ofgetting to do what we do every
day.
It's just so much bigger thanthe little team that built the
first version of it.
We're like 14 people.
And when they're seeing giantcommunities that have started to
evolve and emerge around this alot of what we do is, you know,
(12:55):
almost chasing and catching upto what's already happening
around this thing.
It's like this thing has grownso far beyond what any one of us
is capable of staying on top of,right.
We just have no idea what'shappening broadly in these small
corners of the internet and,whatnot.
And I think there are some folksthat have really emerged in our
(13:15):
community as being, just reallywanting to like step up and help
do the work of making this, youknow, something that's useful,
broadly useful for everyone.
Some of those folks are like, Itext with them on a weekly-ish
basis.
Just being like, Hey if we likebuilt this thing, what would you
think of it?
Do you think that would beuseful for the community?
(13:36):
Is that something that you wouldvote yes on in governance, for
example?
You know?
And I think what we're going tostart to see emerge in these
crypto, these decentralizedcrypto communities is almost the
role of the initial team thatbuilds the initial version
almost evolves into kind of apolitical role.
You want to do your best to sortof represent broadly the
(13:56):
interests of the community, butthe only way to do that is by
getting out and talking to folksand understanding it.
But we're never going to beperfect at that.
Right.
Like, it's just not, we can'ttalk to a hundred thousand
artists nor can we talk to like2.6 million users or listeners.
Right.
We try and do our best torepresent them, with at least
the choices of what things do webuild or things like that.
(14:18):
But ultimately like, theydirectly get to vote on whether
those things that we builtactually like become part of the
system or not, which is alsocool.
Um, early on we always liketalked about these things
happening and sketched out thatroadmap, but like actually
seeing it kind of happeningbefore our eyes.
I don't know, like it, I guessit's sorta like you, you don't
necessarily like fullyinternalize your own rhetoric
(14:40):
until you actually see it justhappen in front of you.
And it's just really cool.
Again, a very humblingexperience.
I know I keep using that word,but it's, I don't know how else
to describe it.
It's just this thing has takenon a life of its own.
That's, you know, like I'm fullyconfident right now that if
Audius, the company shut down,like if all of us stopped
working on this, this would keepgoing, virtually forever.
(15:03):
Right?
Cause there's nothing, there'snothing that we do right now
that is like necessary tooperate this network.
And, you know, through theselike decentralized technologies,
you can create public goods thatactually have the ability to
like capture value on behalf ofthe operators of of those public
goods, where the operators arethe broad community that exists
(15:23):
around around Audius, which is,which has been really cool.
Alisa Wang (15:28):
Wow.
It's amazing to hear about howmuch Audius has grown.
Thank you so much for suchinsightful responses.
Riddhi Singh (15:38):
Hi, Elomida.
Thank you for taking the time totalk to us.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (15:41):
I'm very happy to be talking to you and
thank you for inviting me.
Riddhi Singh (15:46):
Of course.
Yeah.
So to start, what was your pathinto the music industry like?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (15:50):
I mean, very often I hear people that
they're quite frank and say,dude I, bummed it to that it
just happened to me, which ofcourse no, it wasn't like that
for me.
I very shortly.
I started my career in finance,actually I worked for a bank.
I was a credit analyst.
I did that four, five, sixyears.
(16:14):
And at the same time I was atthe university and I was doing a
little bit of economics andliterature.
So, I got this scholarshipfor[unclear] and I went there it
just hit me that.
That's not what I want to do.
I had this idea about music,actually following the beat.
(16:36):
And we said, you know what,maybe we try to do that.
And this is how it all started.
And it was fun because theoriginal product feat was about
lovers.
It wasn't about running oranything else.
So I would use the music as ameans of communication and he
would have to adapt or the otherway around.
(16:59):
And that was the first productfeed.
Riddhi Singh (17:01):
Thanks for providing that background.
It's always interesting to hearhow everyone's story leads them
to where they are now.
So as for jumping into the musicindustry specifically were there
any aspects you had to beparticularly mindful or cautious
of?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (17:16):
It is a crazy process.
Everyone cautioned us music issuper difficult.
Don't get in there.
The licensing is crazy.
It wasn't, a decision that wetook spare of the moment we
looked into that very carefullyand we knew, straight ahead for
the problems would be, weinterviewed other co-founders
(17:38):
that dealt with the problems andthey failed.
Actually pretty much the roadmapof the core technology back in
the day was built having in mindthese problems.
Alisa Wang (17:50):
That is so interesting to hear about.
So, we were wondering, how havenew social media platforms or
technologies, such as Tik Tok,affected the way in which Weav
is being used?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (18:02):
So the mission is to to see recorded
music in a new way so there's ameans of the music to reach the
ears of the fans and thelisteners.
Uh, originally the music wasenjoyed when someone was likely
performing it for you or.
Yourself, you would sing or playan instrument, but at some point
(18:25):
it scaled up.
But when the artist is there andperforms their song, they can
make artistic decisions tobetter align the song with the
moment so.
We felt that is totally lost.
Your always comes to your earsthe same way.
So what about the possibility,all these different forms to
(18:48):
coexist in a song and then howto make it behave as if it was
lively performed.
And that is a tool initially forthe artist, the artist can give
more information, more language,more material into their songs.
And me as a consumer, I canexplore it.
(19:10):
I can do more.
I can get The unplugged version,probably when I'm chilling out
and meditating but when I go outand play games or dance with my
daughters or do this or theother, I get other versions, but
all the exploration.
Is a result of an artisticchoice that was pre decided.
Ayanna Minnihan (19:35):
Oh that's so interesting! So in the most
simplistic terms, for someonewho has no idea regarding this
technology, how does themovement responsive technology
work?
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (19:44):
I there, there are different parts of the
technology, the core technologydoes the following.
Let's say that you have a songand a few different variations
of the song.
And then our softwarecalculates, uh, all the
in-between versions.
Let's, assume that what I wantis to change the tempo.
(20:05):
And I would like.
The change, the energy, the, anorchestration, the arrangement
of a song, and then create allthe variations between those
different, uh, three differentversions for four different
versions I create.
And then the software decides todo that for you.
So creates all of the, between.
(20:27):
Steps so that when you'relistening to the song, it feels
natural.
The change comes in a moreliquid form in your ears and
it's not abrupt.
So the seamless part is becauseour software calculates all
these.
Then we have a way of playing itback.
Now augumented song open.
(20:49):
If we use this word and thenresponding with the right remix
on the fly, depending on whatyou do.
So now we created a bunch moreAlgorithms that read your body
movement, your speed, yourbreathing.
We can, make different triggersdepending on what's the
occasion.
And then we understand thechange and we aligned the beat
(21:13):
of the song with your feet.
That creates a very interestingeffect that creates the feeling
of synchronization.
Then what's the most clever wayof playing back the music to
better serve the occasion andthe work you're doing, and also
the time you're listening.
Here's another, example westarted now looking.
(21:38):
Inc to think called adaptivevoice as well.
So we launched about, um, sixmonths ago and new technology
that takes the voice of, uh, ofthe present.
And adopted as well.
Let me give you an example ofguided workouts in running a
quite popular.
So you have someone in your earand they're telling you what to
(22:03):
do, The problem is that normallythe music and the voice are
baked together, which means thatall the commands and all those
structure, the regime of theworkout is pretty much it
doesn't is not aligned with youractual performance is pretty
much at perceived a Fort likerun faster lumber.
(22:26):
So stuff like that, which is, itdestroys the feeling of doing
it.
So we created a new.
Part of our tech now takes thevoice of coach.
Riddhi Singh (22:40):
Yeah.
There's so many uses for thistechnology.
And actually this conversationreminds me of how platforms such
as Spotify or Apple music.
They create and curate playliststhat are a specific, for heart
rate based workouts.
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (22:54):
Listen, the technology is there and tech
solutions are fantastic what isthe most difficult thing is the
licensing of the music, which ofcourse,It's a hurdle or a very
real one because artists need toget paid.
So publishing is there and allof that royalties should be
(23:16):
given back, but to get throughit is a very difficult thing.
So this is what holds back mostof the innovation rather than
anything else, but I think we'rein a good space.
We did try the first year and ahalf, maybe two, we said, okay,
(23:37):
let's commission songs.
Let's not at all have to dealwith labels.
Publishing rights and all thesecomplicated systems.
So we said that actually andthen people they would like,
that's very cool.
I like the fact that the musicchanges, but I don't want to
(23:58):
listen to this, the music I likeit's like that was a very
difficult moment actually.
,because I had to persuade teamthat we need to go into real
music as I called it.
And they said, but that's realtoo.
And I said, listen, people lovetheir songs.
You can't just ignore this factbecause you've created the
(24:19):
technology that makes musicplayback.
Yes, it's fine.
If it's the background of thevideo, but it's not the same.
And the problem with music todayis that it's so much.
So the real fans, if they wantto have an, a live experience of
what is going on, they have togo into a concert.
This is where they see theirartists.
(24:41):
This is where they connect withthem.
Riddhi Singh (24:44):
I completely agree.
And I feel as though every timeyou listen to a song, Yes you
are listening to the lyrics butthe artists themselves singing
the song is what adds to thatfeeling
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (24:54):
You know, this is all about music.
This communal feeling of, theconcert is one thing.
But the relationship with theartist, the artist has a tone.
It has a style, it has somethingto say.
They have so much to give and wereceive them and you need that.
(25:17):
You need that to get through.
You need that.
So actually we started withfitness for this exact reason.
Riddhi Singh (25:25):
Wow yeah that's a great way of articulating what
music is able to create and onthat note thank you for this
opportunity this conversationwas very enlightening and i'm
sure all listeners willappreciate all the wisdom you
have provided
Elomida Visviki (Weav) (25:39):
you're such a great person to talk to.
I wish you the best.
I wish you a beautiful time.
Ayanna Minnihan (25:47):
Hey, Matt.
Thanks again for coming to talkwith us.
So how about we start off withsome background on who you are?
Matt Block (Splice, La Rese (25:52):
So, yeah, my name is Matt Block.
I'm from Philadelphiaoriginally.
I'm actually down inPennsylvania right now.
I've been living down here withmy girlfriend.
Um, we're, we're usually basedin New York, but I'm just living
down here with family and, um, Igrew up playing trumpet.
And, uh, my grandfather MortBlock is a musician, a trumpet
(26:12):
player, and that's kind of whogot me into music.
So I grew up playing jazz,playing black American music,
from age like 10.
Like I was kind of like a bebopkid and like really was into
Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk,Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie.
And like, I really wanted toplay bebop for like my entire
life, move to New York and dothat whole thing.
And I moved to New York, likeright after graduation to pursue
(26:34):
that.
And where it kind of led me hasbeen kind of as a whole
different path.
Cause I worked, um, for aboutlike four or five months as an
assistant at a studio calledAntfood.
That's run by Wilson Brown.
Really amazing music house.
And, um, I did really incrediblecreative work, but I just, I,
when it came to have aconversation around coming on
full time and doing that wholething, it just, the economics
(26:56):
didn't make a ton of sense tome.
And, um, I also realized in thattime, I just maybe didn't want
to be producing with the timepressure every day and creating
with a time pressure, which issomething I just don't think I
enjoyed that much.
And so I started to really likeactually do research and read
about the music industry andlearn what was out there.
And, um, in that, in, talkingwith tons of different friends
(27:18):
and friends of friends and likerandom people.
I met a company called Flavorlabthat's an audio post facility in
New York and they were lookingto grow a catalog.
They were founded by twoincredible composers, Eric
Blicker and Glenn Schloss, andthey had another partner, Brian
Quill, who was running theiraudio posts, and they wanted to
have, um, someone help them outand just building out a
(27:39):
production music catalog.
And so they took a big, big riskon me and chance on me and give
me my first shot.
I convinced them to hire me andnot hire me as an intern.
They wanted to have me be anintern.
I was like, nah, I can't do thatfor you.
So I made a very, very, verylittle amount of money to start
out.
And then in three months, afterthis trial period was done and I
had gotten a lot of the worktogether for the catalog, the
(28:00):
rest was history.
And, um, you know, they werereally amazing, like early
mentors because they let me justbe me and do my thing and, fail
and succeed.
And we're like there and taughtme a lot.
But I was able to learn thepublishing world, the sync
world, the world of adminpublishing and working with
ASCAP and BMI and C-SATcollecting royalties
(28:20):
internationally.
I was able to, to learn a lot,because it was just kind of like
me and two people who are reallyhands off and let me do my
thing.
And so, you know, throughoutthat time, I, grew the catalog.
I signed probably over 200different writers and producers
to make music for sync mainlylike shows on Viacom and CBS
and, um, some differentproduction companies.
(28:40):
And you know, I think I startedto learn, grow, and have other
interests.
And a lot of my friends fromPhilly started to kick off
careers in New York as jazzmusicians and start to pop off.
And so that's kinda how the, therecord label started because at
that same time, my brother movedto the city, he's younger than I
am.
And, um, my other friend, Greg,is older than me, was having
(29:02):
success as like anR&B artist onhis projects called Yellow
Shoots.
And so we were kind of hangingout one day and we're like,
yeah, we should make a recordlabel and just protect our
friends, like help grow ourfriends.
You know, flash forward totoday, like I, I head up the
production there and we can talkmore about that later on, but
that's kind of what I'm doing.
I work at splice during the dayand hustle really hard.
And then at night and weekends,I'm working on La Reserve and
(29:23):
growing the label.
So yeah,
Jeff Zhang (29:26):
awesome.
Thank you so much, Matt.
That's a, it's so interesting.
Thanks for sharing your arc.
I was wondering if you couldshare a little bit more about
specifically, you know, whatthat role entails, what you do,
um, who you interact with, etcetera.
Matt Block (Splice, La Re (29:38):
Yeah.
So, splice is a lot of thingsand splice sounds, which is
probably what a lot of peopleare familiar with is the largest
royalty free samplesubscription-based service in
the world.
And, it was started bylicensing, incredible sample
packs and unpacking the samplepack and, um, really
revolutionizing it, thatindustry, um, for, for the
(29:59):
masses and democratizing musicproduction.
And, uh, so when I came on boardin 2018, that was when splice
started to want to develop itsown sample labels.
Like in a sample label isbasically it's a company that
makes sample packs.
So, I don't know how, like, Howfamiliar you are with a splice
in an ecosystem, but there'ssome amazing sample labels out
(30:21):
there, like sample magic andCapson pro audio, soul surplus
origin sound.
Um, and those labels are allowned by splice now.
And so I started at Splice whenthat process of acquiring a
bunch of amazing teams andcatalog store began.
And so with those teams, westarted to also develop our own
processes to empower like atscale, a lot of creators, people
(30:42):
who maybe haven't consideredmaking samples as a career
option.
And, you know, for example,like.
My, friend who is a great pianoplayer and organist down in
Miami and working like thetouring scene and, you know,
working as an artist down therewho also knows how to record
himself, like teaching him, whatit means to make a sample pack,
um, end to end and helping toempower him to make money on
like that little part of thesupply chain in music
(31:05):
production.
So the first Year and a half orso of being in splice was like
really working with the expertsfrom the labels that had joined
splice as full-time employeesand creating a system for that
and creating an operations and aprocess to really just spin a
ton of labels around differentgenres and styles to just
empower all different types ofcreators.
(31:25):
And we're still doing that.
We're still looking to developnew pockets of places where we
can tap into musicians whohaven't maybe made samples yet.
And then also putting to work,like lots of people who are
making sample packs and areveterans of the industry and
have been doing that as well andjust providing them more revenue
opportunities.
So, I think that's one part.
And as splice has developed,we're working on some other
(31:47):
things as well that are in theproduction realm.
So in a nutshell, we're makingthe highest quality, products
and paying artists and creatorsreally well to do that.
Alisa Wang (31:57):
That's amazing.
Thanks for sharing.
It's great to hear how splicethe streamlining of the music
creation process for manyartists.
What inspires you the most aboutSplice's mission?
Matt Block (Splice, La R (32:09):
Splice like our mission is to really
put, to enable as many people aspossible to make music.
And we really believe that athird of the world tries to make
music.
And so we want to help providethose resources and those tools
to make that journey easily and,um to help creators along that
journey.
So, yeah, it is kind of like atwo-sided marketplace in a
sense.
So it's musicians making musicfor musicians.
(32:29):
I think like some of the cooleststories I hear on splice are the
stories of the connections thatget made outside of splice.
Like for example, like there's aproducer who made a guitar pack
on, on splice and, you know, itdid really well.
And once that guitar pack gotreleased there were other
artists around the world whofound his sounds.
(32:52):
And I think that the beautifulthing about splice is every time
that a creator makes a pack andit gets released on splice, it's
like I'm in the room with youand you have those sounds.
And I think that those types ofconnections, have led to major
publishing deals for artists andhave led to artists to blow up
and other areas because of justlike how.
Intimate it is to get thosesounds and to really feel like,
Oh cool.
Like I have Matt blocks, liketrumpet in the studio with me,
(33:14):
even though you don't, I'm notthere.
But I think that therelationships that get formed
and the business relationshipsthey get built, because splices
and existence is one of the mostbeautiful things.
We have a lot of bedroomproducers We also have a ton of
top 40 producers and a ton ofpeople who are making music for
all the independent labels andthey, it's kind of a wide range
of who is using splice.
And so I'm at all differentlevels of their other musical
(33:35):
journey.
So I think that's the coolestthing to me.
Ayanna Minnihan (33:38):
Wow.
That is so cool.
I'd like to move on to LaReserve next.
My question is what's it beenlike starting a label and what
do you think your sort of uniqueperspective is slash you know
what are you doing differentlyversus other labels that might
be out there?
Matt Block (Splice, La Re (33:54):
Yeah.
that's a great, it's a greatquestion.
And like, you know, It's beendefinitely a very bumpy journey,
like owning a label.
For us, we started out.
Um, I worked in sync licensingand my brother works at the
orchard in sync.
And so, we were like, Oh cool.
We've got a lot of publishingknowledge, a lot of sync
knowledge.
And we got all these likefriends in Philly who produced
for all the biggest, like pop Rand B hip hop artists.
(34:17):
Let's make a sync catalog andlet's start that and we'll
distribute it through theorchard, but we'll really focus
on, sink and doing that.
And we started doing that withour other partner, Greg and
signing up on a bunch of artistsfor like sync deals.
And we're like, wait, hold on asecond.
how are we going to actuallycreate value for these artists,
if we're not knowing how todistribute well on Spotify or
Apple.
I think we need to understandwhat it means to actually put
(34:37):
music out and get traction andhelp build an artist and other
profile.
And, you know, you're not gonnamake a ton of money off of the
streaming platforms and youshouldn't be begging on that as
like your revenue source, butit's such an important tool and
it's such an important piecethat whole pie and even in a
pandemic even more so right now.
And so Yeah, we kind of took astep back and we're like, all
(34:58):
right, we got to figure out howto release music in the digital
modern landscape and do itbetter than anybody and leaner
than anybody else.
And so we started working on Rand D projects with yellow
shoots and had some really earlysuccesses and kind of put us on
the map a little bit.
Like, you know, we, got on acouple of big playlists on
(35:18):
Spotify and a couple of thingswe were able to get an advance
from the orchard and a couple ofthings that just kind of
happened, but I don't think wereally knew what we were doing.
And like a couple of years ago,we're still learning.
Alisa Wang (35:29):
Great.
Thank you.
Could you tell us about somememorable moments of working
with artists at la reserve?
Matt Block (Splice, La Reser (35:38):
My friend Benny, v-neck the third,
he's a fabulous trumpet player.
Amazing vocalist.
Um, we met at Allstate jazz inPennsylvania.
He's from Pittsburgh.
I'm from Philly.
We met when we were like 14 andhe's like, yo, I want to take
you out to lunch.
Like I want to put my record outwith, with La Reserve.
And, um, I was like, all right,bro.
Like whenever we're not doingjazz, but like we'll talk.
And so, He linked up and I waslike, yo cool.
(36:00):
We'll do a distribution deal foryou.
Like we'll help hook you up andmake sure it gets put out the
correct way.
But you can't use our name.
You can't do anything.
Like we're not at where we're inthe R and B label and we're not
putting out jazz records.
And then we put out his record.
And it did really well and itgot on playlist and it was the
first success we had tasted outoutside of indie, R and B space
that we were trying to like onlybe in.
(36:20):
And so I'm like, all right,cool.
And then we kind of went back todoing the same things we were
doing.
And you know, fast forward to2019, we put out his next record
and then just started to commit.
Riddhi Singh (36:33):
Wow that's amazing to hear! So what differentiates
La Reserve from other recordlabels?
Matt Block (Splice, La Reserv (36:38):
I think what we've learned how to
do is, figure out what.
What makes an artist who theyare, and we amplify that.
We don't want to control or tellour artists like what to do.
It's more of like, cool, whatare you doing?
And how can we support?
And like, I think that there's alot of labels out there that try
to control and to own and do allthis stuff.
It's me and my brother justworking on this stuff.
And we just, we cause we enjoythe music and we want to just be
(37:01):
part of the artists team.
That's really what it is.
Like I don't even think we're alabel.
Like we're more of a team andwe're both invested in it.
Like we do our, everything on arev share deal.
So if an artist doesn't makemoney, then we don't make money.
And so we're always hungry andwe sign hungry artists.
And we just released, the firstsingle from Katie, George who's,
I think one of the best upcominglocalists in the world.
(37:22):
And you know, she's the face ofa few of the biggest Spotify
jazz playlist.
The thing that separates us, Ithink from other labels is our
process.
We have a lot of things that weneed from our artists and we
really figure out ways tocreate.
Like a moment, like a six toeight month moment out of any
project.
Like whether it's an AP or anLP.
Making music is really hard andmaking good music that you
(37:42):
really care about is reallyhard.
And like when we get a project,we want to take that and stretch
that out as long as we can.
And that's, I think why we'vebeen able to.
Build a label around thatbecause we try to we let our
artists do and be who they wantto be.
And then we figure out how toamplify that and like really
build a whole story and visionthat lasts a long time over
that.
Jeff Zhang (38:08):
That's about all the time we have today.
This has been theentrepreneurship in music
episode of Drop the Mic (38:13):
Music Industry Conversations.
Thank you so much for listeningto our podcast today.
We wanted to give special thanksto Roneil, Elomida and Matt for
taking the time to chat with us,as well as Jay LeBoeuf and the
MUSIC150P team at Stanford formaking this project a reality.
If you like what you heard,please feel free to subscribe to
(38:35):
Drop the Mic wherever you findyour podcasts.
Thanks again and have awonderful rest of your day.
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