Tag Archives: Opinion

Dan Dabner (Songstall) – Interview (Part 1)

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Dan Dabner from Songstall (the startup I introduced you to last week) was kind enough to be interviewed on MusicKO. This is the first part of the interview I conducted with him– proceed here for part 2.

Songstall

Full Name: Dan Dabner
Age: 24
Startup: Songstall
Position: Director

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are the features that (in your opinion) give it an edge over the competition?

The idea for Songstall came from a discussion between my brother and me while we were jamming one evening.  As musicians ourselves we know what it’s like to be an unsigned artist and all the options out there are based around the ideal of getting signed by a big record label.  All the services that offer to help in that long-term goal (promotion, recording, etc) always seem to charge high up-front fees that we know most artists simply can’t afford and prices them out of the market.  That’s where Songstall comes in – you don’t need a record label to sell your music online, and we don’t charge anything to sign up.  We just take a cut on any sale artists make to cover costs so we only make money if they do, which means our interests are aligned with theirs.  In addition, artists get their own customizable shop page so they can set their own prices, choose their own colours and get their own URL they can promote at their gigs.  We’ve not seen another service that offers all of this.

What was the original launch date?

We launched the website on Halloween 2009.  How rock ‘n’ roll is that?

What has been the response so far? In which countries has it been more successful?

We’ve had some very positive feedback about the website and the sign-ups are really picking up.  We’ve been most popular in the UK, USA and Canada, though we do offer our service world-wide. Continue reading →

Andy Bull (We Love Festivals) – Interview (Part 1)

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This is an interview I conducted with Andy Bull from “We Love Festivals” . As you probably recall, I reviewed the site a couple of weeks ago. Here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth!

We Love Festivals

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

From that feeling you get when you arrive back from a great festival and you want to share your memories with everyone who went

What was the original launch date?

May 26th 2008. Continue reading →

Jake Chen (Musefy) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the second and final part of the interview I conducted with Jake Chen from Musefy. You can read Part 1 by clicking here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

Oh man, I can’t remember that far back… I have to say at least before elementary school, since I was really excited during those days when you got the opportunity to try out all of the instruments. Then again, I was already set on the saxophone by then because of jazz music, and I suppose the saxophone really represented that style of music to me. As for that first album, I really can’t remember unfortunately, sorry 🙁 Continue reading →

Kristian Dupont (Minimum Noise) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 of the interview with Kristian Dupont from Minimum Noise. You can read Part 1 right here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I have been a music lover for as long as I can remember. My first purchase was “Into the Dragon” by Bomb the Bass. Vinyl. Great album all over, and, it featured Megablast – the sound track to the video game Xenon 2 by Bitmap Brothers which I absolutely loved as well.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a file on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

I played the drums for 7 years and was in a band at one point but it didn’t amount to much. Later, I got into electronic music production when “soundtrackers” started to appear on the PC platform. These days, I toy around with Ableton Live. Continue reading →

Kristian Dupont (Minimum Noise) – Interview (Part 1)

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As you probably recall, last week I reviewed (and was very impressed) by a startup named Minimum Noise. I was lucky enough to interview co-founder Kristian Dupont, and I am extremely grateful for his insight and advice. I have split the interview in two parts, the first is found below and it deals with the company, whereas the second one is the “Music & You” section that you are probably familiar with already if you are a MusicKO regular. It is found here.

Enjoy!

Kristian Dupont

Mr. Kristian Dupont

Full Name: Kristian Dupont

Age: 31

Startup: Minimum Noise

Position: Co-founder

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

Sammy (my co-founder) and I have worked with tv-production and video games for many years. We love all things media. Having seen the crowdsourcing model work well for design sites, we wanted to apply this to media production in general. Minimum Noise does this for music. The concept is simple: if you need music production, you post a “project” on Minimum Noise. This project describes your requirements and how much you want to pay. Musicians can then upload mp3’s with sketches of how they would make it. You pick a winner, pay the musician and get the audio material. Continue reading →

Henry Bueno (myMusicCircle) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the final part of the interview I conducted with Henry from myMusicCircle. Here we discuss the role music has played (and plays) in his life, along with his likes and dislikes. And don’t forget to check Part 1 (about his company) here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I loved music all of my life. The first album I purchased with my own allowance money was Thriller by Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace). My father has video of when I was 7 years old doing the moon walk. hehehe Continue reading →

Marco (Filtersage) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 of the interview with Marco from Filtersage. If you haven’t already done so, read Part 1 here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I became more interested in music when I discovered stuff that was more intense than what was in the charts. I think that the first experience in that sense was listening to Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’. Continue reading →

Marco (Filtersage) – Interview (Part 1)

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I have the pleasure to share with you the insight of Marco from Filtersage, the startup I reviewed recently. As you probably remember, Filtersage is a system that lets you explore the connections between movies and music releases from all through history.

This is part 1 of the interview, about the startup itself.

And click here for Part 2 (“Music & You”).

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

The basic idea comes from a very simple observation. When we listen to a new album or watch a movie, we usually connect it to something that we have listened to or watched before. A new album reminds us of an old favorite because of the tune or the sound; or we connect a dvd to something we watched last year because of the story, a particular scene or even the atmosphere. This is what Filtersage is about: connecting new stuff to something we have loved in the past. And it is also about exploring the connections that other users are making, so it’s possible to discover more stuff that might interest us. Filtersage is about memory and knowledge, and this is why we think that the connections you can find here are very strong and highly interesting: because these connections are memory based and knowledge based. We like to say that this happens because there is no is algorithm working, Filtersage is totally ‘human based’. Continue reading →

Nadav Poraz (WhoSampled) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the second part of the interview with Nadav Poraz from WhoSampled.com. If you haven’t done so already, check out Part 1 here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I’ve been a music fan since about the age of 8. I guess the first band I really got into was The Police – I bought all their back-catalogue when I was 10! My taste in music has changed quite dramatically since then though. Continue reading →

Nadav Poraz (WhoSampled) – Interview (Part 1)

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Today I have the pleasure to interview Mr. Nadav Poraz from WhoSampled.com, the community site that revolves around sampling and cover songs which I reviewed last week. Nadav kindly answered the following questions about his site, the response it has had so far and what the future holds in store. Continue reading →