Stuart Epps is a British record producer and audio engineer. Since 1967, he has worked with Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Oasis, Twisted Sister, Nine Lies, Bill Wyman, Kiki Dee, George Harrison, Robbie Williams, Mark Owen, Paul Weller, Cliff Richard, Bad Company, Barry White and Chris Rea.
He has contributed to or has been associated with hard rock records by such bands as Twisted Sister, Wishbone Ash, Bad Company, Vandenberg, The Firm, Jagged Edge UK and Shooting Star.
Richard Rogers (Music2Deal UK representative and former A&R at Warner) will talk with Stuart about his great career in the music business and about his latest updates. Stuart is an Ambassador of Music2Deal.
Trends Brasil Conference is a community of music business entrepreneurs and professionals. Every year, they gather at Trends Brasil Conference, since 2016, to discuss traditional and most recent themes of the music world; to meet new, and old, friends and business partners; to renew ideas and connections; to recycle knowledge and promote the exchange of experiences; to amplify our business vision.
Their audience grows every year, and with the new format that they will introduce you to, you now have the unique opportunity and chance to be part of this universe. You can dig in deep into the Brazilian Music Biz from the comfort of your home.
Their conference gathers all the main players in music. Labels, major record companies, publishers, distributers, PROs, DSPs, marketing agencies, rights management offices, artist managers, authors, students, audiovisual producers, artists, musicians, social media. All without exception make part of this massive movement that oxygens our music market.
At Trends Brasil Conference you will access a New World. Meet new people. Learn a lot. Get connected to the top music professionals in the market.
TRENDS BRASIL CONFERENCE this year is going online!
So now you have the unique opportunity and chance to be part of this universe. You can dig in deep into the Brazilian Music Biz from the comfort of your home.
The virtual environment of the conference is a cutting edge platform, already tested and approved for its efficiency and technological quality, with the most varied resources that guarantee great interactivity and integration among all participants. There will be panels, workshops, debate rooms, meeting rooms with the most varied themes, for 5 consecutive days. Sectoral meetings, Q&A with speakers and sponsors, raffles, games and more!
They are not bringing people together to promote ‘lives’. Each room will have a mediator, who will open and close the meeting, where you can participate and interact through the incredible diversity of applications that the Trends environment provides. And you can access the Conference from your notebook, PC, mobile phone or tablet! So, during the week of the Conference, you have Trends in your pocket, if you want.
Many rooms will open simultaneously, and you will be able to choose where you will interact live. Ah, there’s something cool … The app will be open to participants for 6 months. This means that you will be able to access all Trends Brasil 2020 content until April 2021, with your access key. All content will be recorded, available to you, according to your best organization.
They work hard to deliver the greatest opportunity you ever had to effectively understand everything about the music business.
Trends Brasil Conference are giving you the chance to participate in Trends Brasil Conference 2020, alongside the top names in the music market.
October 19 – 23, online!
Trends Brasil Conference, the cheapest and most effective way to reach out to the Brazilian music market!
Sign up now!
$100 you pay only $80 as a Music2Deal member vis this link
Within the next few weeks HITLAB will launch an international Digital Emerging Artist Competition (DEAC) in partnership with some of the leading companies of the music industry including streamers, telcos, labels. Multi-platforms and our major multi-talented shareholder AKON.
In spite of large investments in the industry, artificial Intelligence in music is still underdeveloped, but it does absolutely have the potential to transform A&R. At least, that’s what HITLAB – a company quietly making in-roads in this field – is suggesting.
The Montreal-headquartered digital media and artificial intelligence company claims to be ‘revolutionizing the way entertainment content is discovered, produced and consumed’.
The company’s Music Digital Nuance Analysis (DNA) tool is a patented technology that the company claims is able to predict the potential success of new and unknown songs and recommend playlists to music fans.
“WE are A MAJOR TOOL FOR AI-DRIVEN A&R AND EMERGING TALENT DISCOVERY.”
MICHEL ZGARKA, HITLAB
“Our patented AI powered tech uses “musical pattern extraction and state of the art signal processing to isolate music attributes and transform them into quantifiable mathematical equations”.
What this means is that the software is enabled to create unique signatures for each song (which consists of 83 parameters, according to studies HITLAB had done by universities) and then, by mining the data, DNA can find songs that hold similar signatures.
Hitlab’s recommendation’s system’s conclusions are based on actual sound attributes – as opposed to other systems, which use metadata.
How this works in practice, explains HITAB President Michel Zgarka is that the company’s algorithms can identify what a Top 100 song is in any given country, or “whatever type [of song] we feed the machine”.
“It will compare any song that is presented by a songwriter or a producer, and they’ll be able to get a rating quickly of that song against whatever information we have, or data available, to compare it with,” he explains.
“It will rate that song and the producer will be able to fine tune their song to get better ratings, and they’ll know where they stand as an opportunity.
“So this could be done very quickly and it provides an opportunity for producers, or publishers or so on, to quickly identify a series of songs that could be successful in one list or another.”
HITLAB has also developed a mobile application called Can-U-Sing (CUS), a vocal scoring app that allows users to sing well-known songs and see how well their version stacks up against the original.
The app uses patent pending vocal analysis technology, and according to the promo video (see below), evaluates musical elements like the ability to hold rhythm, melodic precision and vocal technique.
The promo video also states that “recordings can be submitted to contests where singers can win cool prizes and,” – now this is where it gets really interesting – “get noticed by major record labels“.
“The innovative technology used in Can-U-Sing makes it a fantastic audition tool for singing competitions, eliminating the need for costly physical auditions,” writes HITLAB on its website.
In terms of real life implementation of its tech, one case study HITLAB lists on its website is a partnership with the Boston Red Sox, which resulted in the ‘CanUSing Your Way to Fenway Park’ contest, which offered the winner the chance to sing the national anthem at the stadium.
Finalists and the winner were chosen by collecting recordings and filtering performances using HITLAB’s app.
In April last year, HITLAB Media, a subsidiary of HITLAB Inc., signed a long-term co-development and co-production deal with Paris-based production company, WeMake, which is a division of France’s Federation Entertainment.
The partnership will see WeMake and Hitlab jointly produce an ‘original format’ project with the working title ‘Man vs The machine’ – The ‘machine’ being HITLAB’s patented and Patent Pending technology CanUSing and DNA tech.
“We are extremely excited to be able to provide proprietary technologies that can revolutionize the way labels and artists interact with their fan base, as well as the discovery process of new talent.
“Furthermore, our technologies have the possibility to be integrated in different segments of the entertainment industry and we are looking forward to explore the TV market as well, as HITLAB develops international properties for both the theatrical and broadcast media.”
Looking to the future, Zgarka states that HITLAB wants “to be a major tool for AI driven A&R,” and suggests that its software can help A&R professionals, rather than render them obsolete.
“We are a service provider, We don’t want to replace the human,” insists Zgarka.
“With our AI, instead of having to listen to 1,000 songs or more a year, we can [analyse] 100,000 in 1 hour, which will be [cut] down to maybe 100 – making sure I get the cream of the crop.”
Many rooms will open simultaneously, and you will be able to choose where you will interact live. Ah, there’s something cool … The app will be open to participants for 6 months. This means that you will be able to access all Trends Brasil 2020 content until April 2021, with your access key. All content will be recorded, available to you, according to your best organization.
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