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The Web3 Music Mgmt Toolkit

The Web3 Music Mgmt Toolkit

PLUS: Soundcloud's new fan DM tool & Google releases music AI

Rob Abelow
May 12, 2023

Welcome, artists & builders. Thanks for an incredible first 2 months of WMG.

It’s growing faster than anticipated & I’d love that to continue organically. If you feel others would get value from the newsletter, please share it. As a big thank you for spreading the word, I’ve put together the Web3 Artist Mgmt Toolkit as a referral gift. Details below. 🤝

Today, we’ll preview the toolkit.

Inside Today’s Edition: #9

⚒️ The Web3 Music Toolkit
🦁 Soundcloud is letting artists DM their biggest fans
🗞️ Google’s Music AI, Spotify Now Playing & more

Subscribe | Past Editions

Tapping Into Web3 Music

It’s easy to forget just how early we are in web3 x music.

Everyone is experimenting. No one has it figured out. And there are few consumers who care right now.

This is what makes it so interesting.

The artists & builders working through this downturn are navigating how to bring web3’s promise to life. Along that journey, there is much to learn in the reach towards a more open music ecosystem that incentivizes artistic control, core audiences & sustainability.

Artists should be cautious in how they deploy new tools & technology. No one should do so without real intention. Make sure you know your “why”.

Maybe these tools make your biggest ideas possible
Maybe experimentation is core to your brand
Maybe you value community above all else
Maybe you see opportunity in a small pond
Maybe you see a better future & want to lead it

With that in mind, find a preview of my web3 music toolkit for artist mgmt below. This features tools from builders I believe in.

— Rob

I categorized the toolkit by workflow: Create, Admin, Fan Management, Marketing, Release, and Goods & Experiences.

I’ll share 1 featured tool from a sub-category of each workflow here.

CREATE | Generate → Async

Async delivers truly unique music experiences. Upload a song in individual “layers” (a.k.a. stems & art components) & generate many variations. Release them as unique versions or in whatever rarity you’d like.

FAN MGMT | Home Base → Medallion

Medallion creates member home-bases where web3 is invisible. Early artists include Illenium, Santigold, MMJ & Jungle. One accessible location for your biggest fans. Be your own app.

MARKET | Presave → Showtime

Give away free NFTs in exchange for saving or pre-saving your tracks on Apple Music & Spotify. It's free and gasless. Drop breadcrumbs back to web3. Bring collectors into streaming.

GOODS | Merch → Spatial Labs

All your goods should be a portal into your world: interconnected, with iterative, context-aware content drops. The Jay-Z backed SLM is in stealth, but the coming ecosystem will change how we interact with our “things”. Join the Waitlist.

ADMIN | Split royalties → Reveel

Reveel is a royalty management tool for creators to distribute Web3 earnings with collaborators. Route all of your on-chain earning splits to collaborators in real-time. Transparently.

RELEASE | Albums → Serenade

Serenade offers digital pressings as a release format next to vinyl & CDs. Pressings include downloads & bonus content. Plus, they are UK & AUS chart-eligible and play well with labels & publishers. Serenade works well in converting traditional, ‘real’ music fans.

GET THE FULL TOOL KIT

I get into more tools within each of these workflows. Includes merch, ticketing, streaming, royalties, social, CRM, analytics, storefronts, site-builders, rights mgmt, minting, world-building & more.

To get it, you must be a subscriber & refer 1 more person.

Soundcloud lets artists DM their biggest fans

Soundcloud just launched their new fan engagement tool: Fans. With Fans, artists can discover & connect directly with their most-engaged fans.

→ get visibility on engaged fans
→ sort by indicator types
→ DM fans on platform

𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐝'𝐬 𝐃𝐌 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞:

→ Promote shows
→ Drop new music
→ Invites to meet & greets
→ Share unreleased tracks
→ See which artists are your fans & collab

But, wait…artists have been able to DM their fans on Soundcloud for years. How is this different?

It’s mostly due to their expansion of Fan Powered Royalties (based on their share of a fan’s listening, rather than pro-rata of the entire pool of streams). Artists see their biggest contributors, interact with them, can increase earnings & expand the relationship off-platform.

To avoid spam & comply with data privacy, messaging is limited to 1:1, only with your most engaged fans, & fans can opt out altogether.

Why we like it: Most streamers are anonymous to artists and 1 streamer can rarely contribute much $$ under pro-rata streaming models. Soundcloud’s leaning into an artist-centered approach to economic models.

What You Missed 🗞️

Music x AI

Google releases AI tool MusicLM that generates music from text & humming.
Warpsound opens access to their flexible generative AI music API
Kits is developing a tool to license your own AI Voice model with control over derivative songs.
Cautionary tale for illegal AI sites? Mixtape site Spinrilla ordered to shut down & pay $50M to majors in copyright infringement case.
RAC releases NFT orb that dynamically changes bases on onchain activity, using AI to generate unique visuals.

Streaming & more

Spotify adds Now Playing view where artists can add merch, tickets, lyrics bio & canvas.
Roblox now has 66m daily users. Don’t say the metaverse is dead.

Fan Building — Highly Recommended

How artists can build their story - a thread from music publicist extraordinaire Jamie Coletta.

I’ll leave you with..

Listen on Twitter

That’s all for today!

Catch you on twitter, linkedin or lenster.
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