💡 Inspiration

Music is so much more than the stand-alone audio tracks we interact with daily. I first learned this during countless hours of piano practice in elementary school. More recently, I got a glimpse into the intricacies behind my favorite songs courtesy of the “Tracklib” YouTube channel. Using intuitive, visually-appealing animations, these videos make it easy for anyone to appreciate music production.

Tracklib’s breakdown of Fred again.. and Baby Keem’s “leavemealone”

Soon after, I found myself watching similar breakdown-style videos from a wide range of artists, from Ludwig Göransson to Travis Scott.

Ludwig Göransson explains his process behind the Tenet soundtrack

Tom Elmhirst breaks down the mixing behind Travis Scott’s “Til Further Notice”

My takeaway: music is far more meaningful when we know its story and the process behind its creation. So, I sought to design a SoundCloud feature that could convey the dimensionality behind our favorite songs.

🕵🏼‍♂️ Validation

To start, I had to ensure this wasn’t just a feature compelling to audio enthusiasts, but also to musicians themselves. These musicians will ultimately be communicating their work through the features that I design–I figured it’d be important to get their input.

I talked with two USC student musicians, one studying at the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy and another at the Thornton School of Music. The big ideas are listed below:

Digital audio workstations (DAWs) are the foundation of modern music production. Building a miniature DAW—or even part of a DAW—would be highly effective in communicating the production process.

A digital audio workstation (DAW). Modern songs are often complex, consisting of numerous layers and a myriad alterations to each layer.

A miniature DAW would enable audiences to visualize a singular audio element evolving, the layering multiple audio tracks for a final beat, and different versions of the song.

“That’d be absolutely sick” - USC Iovine and Young Academy musician
Small details, like the specific equipment you use or the sound of a pedal press on a piano, are also valuable pieces of the music storytelling puzzle. Allow artists to share these details AND connect them to specific audio tracks.
Content can be a learning opportunity as well. Lots of producers make beats that aspiring artists use to study/practice specific techniques. Having an integrated explanatory feature in a streaming platform would be a much more effective learning method.

Problem Statement

<aside> 🗣 Existing music platforms are polished and hyper-optimized for mass consumption (Spotify & Apple Music), fail to capture the dimensionality and vibrancy of the music production process (Genius), or are disconnected from the downstream consumption of music (YouTube & Patreon).

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