Today’s music economy is driven by collaboration that powers creativity and fan engagement. In fact, Icon Collective College of Music in Los Angeles reports that music collaboration has produced some of the most notable music in history. As the democratization of music creation opens space for new types of audio collaboration such as on TikTok, companies are launching innovative technologies that optimize creation in a saturated music space and attention economy.
Myxt audio file management platform is one venture supporting music creators with streaming, storage, sharing and online collaboration featuring AI and insight discovery. The company, which exited beta during this year’s National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), recently raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by Accel Ventures and Quiet Capital to support the development of its centralized audio workplace and help expand its growing creator community.
With intuitive, AI-enhanced audio tools steering collaboration at Myxt, the streaming app is closing a gap that exists in audio file storage and sharing options. That leaves independent artists at all technological skill levels focused less on software, and more on the creative process.
Before founding Myxt, Chris Wetherell and Sheena Pakanati were both early engineers at tech companies including Google
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“I was trying to help other people produce independent music, and that became very frustrating, because I kept running into software problems,” says Myxt co-founder and CEO Chris Wetherell. “As a software developer, I felt that this should have already been solved, and I kept wishing for magic buttons to fix my challenges in audio production and collaboration. Then I realized that I’m supposed to make that magic, and I started doing the work.”
Wetherell and Pakanati refer to Myxt as a “collaborative music workplace” that offers tools commonly found in other workflows. Audio commenting, real-time collaboration, note taking and promotion are all options on the platform, which was tested by musicians, producers and managers for the past two years. Storage and organization built for audio feature WAV support and time-stamped commenting. Sharing features facilitate simple collaboration among artists working on projects together or engaging with fans on social media. There is also an embedded video export tool and AI tools including reference track mastering and auto generated lyrics.
Artist SquaddaB, who chose Myxt over other streaming options that carried long wait time for access, says, “Myxt made it super easy to choose my favorite beats, create a track list and give it right to the people. I’ll make the tape, put it out, and if I don’t like the way it flows after it’s out, I’m able to rearrange it super fast. With my last Myxt Tape, the morning after I uploaded it, I was already making changes based on how I was feeling and how it was being reviewed.”
Special features that creators like Squadda B are seeking include storage and organization built for audio. Myxt is available on web, desktop and mobile devices as a single location to stream tracks, organize files and backup a creator’s library. Users can create inboxes to receive and organize inbound tracks from collaborators, and all tracks can be transcribed automatically and annotated with notes or time-stamped comments.
Artists are also looking to alleviate industry-wide challenges like version tracking, transferring large files and visibility into who has viewed or downloaded a track. Sharing with collaborators and followers is also important, and Myxt tracks can be shared as secure links for others to react, add notes or provide time-stamped feedback on any file, with the option to download.
Shared spaces, or “Teams” on Myxt, are where creators and their collaborators work on projects. Anyone in such a group can manage, edit and provide feedback on files in the shared library. For promotion, creators can produce videos, visualizers, static images or lyric videos accompanied by the track.
Users can also quickly integrate creative feedback or inspiration by adding a live voice recording to their library or on top of a track, or with Myxt’s AI-supported mastering tool. Myxt will master a version of a referenced track to match the dynamics, stereo image, and frequency response.
Musician Carlos Calderon of the Mexico City band Mengers recalls early days of his music career spent recording music on a mobile phone and sharing tracks over email. Not only were the emails complicated to track, but the recordings could not exceed one minute in length. He says that Myxt eliminated the technical disadvantages he faced and saved him time to practice more with his bandmates, even while they were living in different locations.
Calderon says, “We appreciate that we could share something we’d made immediately, give feedback and work on building out an album without being in the same room together.”
According to Wetherell, file sharing for artists should be designed as a starting point versus an afterthought. Millions of artists require the capability to stream and work on files in millisecond increments. As Myxt evolves as a company, its platform tools remain similar to those used by industry professionals but available and accessible to all creators.
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