Dmitriy Perelstein, White Rabbit (DP): All right! Welcome @erikmendelson and @mimslife . Glad to have you hear. Let’s get this started! First of all, can you introduce yourself and your project? I am very excited to have you here. Watched a few of Erik's presentations and read your marketing materials - this stuff you are doing sounds very impressive!
Shawn Mims, Tune (Shawn): Welcome all. My name is Shawn Mims, I’m a professional musician and I represent a company called Tune. Also in the room is my cofounder @erikmendelson
DP: Hi Shawn. How did you get to know @erikmendelson and how did you guys decide on running this business together?
SM: @erikmendelson and I have been working in the music industry as business partners for the past 15 years. We’ve had many successful period in music and decided to take a serious pivot into technology 4 years ago. We have since developed and Launched an app called recordgram (www.recordgram.com). RecordGram is a mobile studio and a production market place in the palm of your hand. We allow users no matter where they are in the world, the ability to create and collaborate with award winning producers.
DP: What is the biggest problem in the music industry that Tune is trying to solve?
SM: One of The biggest problems in the music industry is lack of finance to be creative, most people can’t afford to be professional recording artist. They get stuck spending thousands of dollars just to see if they have what it takes to be in the business. That’s one of the problems RecordGram solves... the other major issue is transparency in payments... which is the issue that Tune will solve.
Josh: Do my tracks in RecordGram get ISRC numbers or collection from Performance Rights Organizations like ASCAP or BMI? Or are they indie/digital tracks only?
Erik Mendelson, Tune, (Erik): Yes we attach ISRC codes. The performance rights signups have to be done by the writer not by us as they own their material not us.
Chris: Shawn wow, great to have you here! I'm a fan of your music. In what way is Tune connected to RecordGram? Will the app somehow use tokens from the blockchain? How long has the app been out and how is the traction?
Erik: Tune is the tokenized ecosystem licensed to RecordGram. We incentivize all the stakeholders from producers, artists and even music fans to earn Tune. Our Token smart contract has been audited and passed by Hosho!
And our producer wallet and use case has already been developed.
Shawn: Thank you Chris, RecordGram is the first app that Tune will be partnering up with. A partnership that will consist of a few different token utilities
Elyse: what's Hosho?
Erik: Amazing third party smart contact code auditing company. They ensure smart contract security.
Kevin: @erikmendelson Can you go into detail about Vocal Monitoring? maybe more about the "one touch"
Shawn: The one touch really refers to the ease of use on our current interface. Most music DAW’s can be complex when learning how to record. We utilize as few steps as possible to make it easiest for our users.
Ben Sigman: @mimslife Is it true that you wrote the hit song “This Is Why I’m Hot”? What makes RecordGram hot?
Shawn: Lol yes it’s certain true, what makes RecordGram hot is the fact that it was created by a musician who encountered the many problems that this all solves. I was very frustrated in my earlier career when it came to how expensive being creative was. I also felt that most music producers get an unfair payout in relation to some of the music they produce. So I also wanted to figure out a way to get the producers paid properly.
DP: What differentiates you from the rest of the competing crowd @erikmendelson @mimslife ?
Erik: While I pray that many companies in tech and blockchain can help the music industry, I believe one of our advantages is that we come from the industry and have built many relationships with artist and producers that will help to gain their trust in working with the platform. It will also build their trust in working with us on the blockchain side. Many artist/celebrities have no clue about blockchain technology, and look at my crypto as a way to flip money. So sometimes hearing or watching a fellow peer get involved makes that conversation a lot easier.
DP: @erikmendelson mentioned 7 utilities in one of your presentations. Can you guys walk us through them?
Erik:
- Producers use Tune to upload beats
- Artists unlock the beats using Tune to record
- Artist tipping- fans can tip Tune to artists and producers they like
- Brand partnerships- brands will buy Tune and give that to us for contests etc
- Synch catalog licensing- if anyone wants to license a song on our blockchain created on RecordGram- they’ll use Tune to do so
- Royalty payouts via Tune
- Possible advertisers will use Tune
Elyse Lam: How are royalty splits determined if you help with a track?
Erik: Songwriter determines splits after creation of song. Splits will be locked in a smart contract between all participants which they each agree too.
DP: Tell us about the ICO? What round are you in now? What are your goals: soft- hard-cap, who can participate etc. Thx
Shawn: www.tunetoken.io explains a lot more about the Token generation event. But in a short version we are currently in private, soft cap is 15,000 eth and hard cap is 45,000. We are currently not allowing US participants. But the good news is that we just developed our first use case and will shortly be allowing US participants.
DP: This is good news. Do you guys see a lot of interest coming from outside of the US already? Are you available in the International markets at all?
Shawn: Yes we are available internationally. Our best markets so far have been in most of the Asian countries. We believe that our app RecordGram is perfect for individuals in countries that have limited access to recording studios and producers. We also believe that the RecordGram app will be the catalyst to cultivating many of the careers of future musicians. I’m currently working with a talent that I discovered off of the RecordGram app. Her name is Elle Renee and she’s has already peaked the interest of many major record labels.
DP: One of the biggest problems in the music industry in the past has been piracy. Does RecordGram/tune help solve that problem in any way?
Erik: No. But we can track where the piracy is happening and still reward that engagement with Tune. At least I think this is possible but have to follow up with our developers
Shawn: Piracy has certainly been an issue in the past, but because of the fact that record labels under pay most artist, piracy has been in some cases helpful for artist to still maintain an audience to go out and perform in front of. But as @erikmendelson mentioned tracking where the music is that leaves out platform is important to us.
DP: In your WP, you mention some interesting collaborations with Filecoin and Hyperledger. Can you talk about those?
Erik: We’re looking into using Filecoin or Storj but right now we’re on AWS. We really like Hyperledger
DP: Love your tshirts btw! Who came up with this idea? Saw it on Shawn in one of the videos first and now on you @erikmendelson
Shawn: Actually this credit belongs to our other cofounder and Grammy award winning producer DJ Blackout.
Erik: https://creatorswag.com/
Erik: So we can make one announcement - were looking at utilizing Copyright Bank on the NEM blockchain. It’s a platform to register songwriter rights on the NEM blockchain which shows proof of ownership with a time stamp.
DP: I know Recordgram is an existing product. Does integration between that and TuneToken already done? Can it be used right away?
Erik: First use case between Tune and RecordGram for producers has been developed. So yes once TGE is finished and tokens are distributed that at least 1 use case will be ready unlike 95% of other ICO’s.
DP: Cool. Your team and advisory board look very impressive. (@hackapreneur (Justin Wu) has done an AMA with us in the past). You certainly have a ton of connections and the fact that your team and your project won so many awards certainly helps. What would you say has been the biggest achievement for your project to-date?
Erik: Actually having a developed platform. Lol. Getting investment from Lightspeed on the RecordGram side and winning TechCrunch was pretty big.
DP: And what is your number one goal in the future?
Erik: Discover the next superstar artist
DP: Perhaps i should take my singing skills out of the shower cabin and onto RecordGram lol
Erik: Yeah we built this for shower singers. Lol
DP: Is there anything else that you wanted to share with us today that we haven't covered?
Erik: Anyone who participates in our private sale gets a shirt 🙋♂️ you get a shirt- you get a shirt and you get a shirt. Lol We’re having partnership conversations with some of the biggest artists in the world. (Can’t say who just yet). Having conversations with some of the biggest brands in the world. And have interest in our Tune Token from all over the world especially Asia. Our private sale is still on-going and anyone can PM me privately if interested.
DP: Awesome. Thanks a lot @Erik and @mimslife for stopping by. I really love your project. Good luck to you!
