thereport ISSUE 403 | 05 APRIL 2017

Hardware Be!er Faster Stronger

Our pick of 2017’s most exciting music devices and hardware startups

DAVIDS AND GOLIATHSTwo trends worth picking up on as background are the hardware efforts of technology giants, as well as the launch pad provided by crowdfunding platforms to hardware startups.

Apple has always made hardware, of course, but in 2017 even the traditionally software/service-focused technology

giants are punting their own devices. Google has its own-brand Pixel smartphones and tablets, its Daydream View VR headset and its Google Assistant smart speaker.

Amazon defined a category with its Kindle e-reader, then moved into tablets, a short-lived smartphone, and now the Echo, which has been a considerable

hit. Snapchat makes spectacles while Facebook liked the Oculus Rift headset so much it bought the company, while also exploring the potential for other hardware in its labs.

The investment of these mega-corporations is helping to create new hardware categories – see Echo’s ignition of the smart speaker + voice-powered

assistant space, which Google has since also entered – but they don’t have this field to themselves.

Hardware startups are using crowdfunding platforms to not just raise money, but amass their groups of early-adopter guinea pigs to test their products. It’s no coincidence that a number of the startups we feature in this report came

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Our pick of 2017’s most exciting music devices and hardware startupsHardware Be!er Faster Stronger

The history of popular music consumption is intertwined with hardware – from the first gramophones, through Sony’s Walkman, Apple’s iPod and today Amazon’s Echo. Plus, hardware’s role in modern music creation, from iconic turntables to genre-starting samplers and drum machines. In 2017, there’s a renewed excitement in the music industry around hardware of all kinds, from technology giants and nimble startups alike. Whether it’s creating music, listening to it or learning to play it, new gadgets and tech developments are creating new possibilities for musicians, rightsholders and fans. This issue, we offer our take on these trends, as well as highlighting some of the startups we think are worth following.

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to prominence first on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Crowdfunding is increasingly a proving ground for later institutional funding.

Sometimes, these startups risk being squashed when a big player enters their market. However, a common scenario may be for them to be acquired by one of the bigger fish and put their talents to work within that company. The R&D for the future of music consumption can be widely dispersed, even if it ends up in the hands of a smaller number of large players.

SPEAKERS GET SMART

Amazon’s Echo is a fascinating case study in new music hardware. For starters, it’s a rare example of a cutting-edge technology – voice control and smart assistants – being rolled out in a product that is being marketed to a massively mainstream audience in Amazon customers.

The Echo is also sparking thoughts about new ways to consume music, with Amazon having to teach its Alexa assistant how to understand what “Alexa, play Ed Sheeran’s new song” means in a world where all Ed Sheeran’s new songs are released on the same day to streaming services. Or the ability to whip up a playlist on the fly in response to a conversational request like “Alexa, play happy indie music from the 1990s”.

When music:)ally talked to Universal Music CTO Ty Roberts in December, he proved to be an example of how industry executives are mulling the potential of Alexa and similarly voice-driven interfaces.

“Today it’s a command-and-fetch robot: ‘Tell me what the number one song was in

1989’ or ‘Play me Lady Gaga’s last album’. But it has the opportunity to evolve into a conversation,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to get into a dialogue, to be a discovery experience driven by dialogue.”The Echo has also shown how devices intended for the living room, kitchen or bedroom could be the route into the home for music; but it has also disrupted some of the companies we’ve seen as music hardware disrupters themselves.

Witness the changes afoot within Sonos, which is retooling its business with more of a focus on voice – but also as a bridge between the different flavours offered by the technology giants.

HEADPHONES

Another key area to watch in 2017 is headphones. When Apple paid $3bn for

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Beats Electronics and Beats Music in 2014, much of the coverage focused on the latter service and what it meant for Apple’s then-nascent streaming ambitions.

Yet Beats Electronics was just as interesting in its way: albeit headphones as a brand and lifestyle choice, rather than any particular technological wizardry.

In 2017, this product category is getting interesting, as some of the companies we profile in this issue show. There are

headphones with built-in capacitive touch features, allowing you to control music by swiping and tapping rather than pressing buttons or digging your smartphone out of your pocket.

There are headphones that can record 360-degree audio out in the field; that use AI to learn their wearer’s musical preferences and adapt accordingly; that personalise their EQ settings to the ‘earprint’ of the individual listener; and so on.

If audio science appeals to headphone buyers even at a fraction of the rate that booming bass and clever branding did for Beats, there could be knock-on effects for the products coming out of Apple and others.

INSTRUMENTS GET CONNECTED

We can’t lie: there is an awful lot of nonsense around the ‘Internet Of Things’ category right now, with products that make headlines – smart forks, smart socks, smart condom rings, even – but have the air of technology solutions to problems that don’t exist.

The emergence of smart musical instruments, though, is more interesting, particularly when it relates to music education. Much of the action in that sector is around guitars, with devices geared towards teaching novices to play. From light-up frets to built-in catalogues

of songs to play along to, there’s frenetic and inventive activity going on here.

There are also opportunities for music rightsholders. As instruments get smart, so music publishers in particular will find new partners in

that hardware sector. Sheet music and guitar tabs have been finding

digital expressions for a long time now,

but instruments with that kind of content at their core represent a new revenue stream that could grow quickly.

Another aspect to this is the fact that modern music hardware doesn’t exist in a void. Pretty much all the music-making devices covered in this report are designed to work with smartphones and tablets via companion apps: a combination of hardware and software. ROLI’s Blocks are just one example of this where musicians – via downloadable ‘soundpacks’ – have a role to play too.

FEELING MIGHTY REAL

Virtual reality isn’t the focus for this report, although you can read our take on the VR market in our recent primer, which was published in March. But VR and the related world of augmented reality (AR) – represented by Magic Leap and others here – has its own hardware story to tell.

Even for the biggest technology firms, VR and AR are a challenging sell to consumers beyond the early adopters who’ll snap up headsets like the Gear VR,

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But each reflects an interesting trend or a creative approach that we think the music industry could be thinking about as it evolves its own strategy for working better – and, yes, faster and stronger too – with the hardware world.

MIGHTY AUDIOwww.bemighty.comThe premise of this is simple: take your music-streaming anywhere without the need for a smartphone. Mighty raised $300k on Kickstarter in early 2016 for its iPod Shuffle-like clip-on device. Users pair the player with their smartphone, log in to

Spotify, then sync playlists wirelessly for offline play when the phone is left at home.

The device can store up to 4GB of music and offers up to 48 hours of playback time, with its marketing materials focusing on joggers and hikers. Mighty claims that it believes a screen to be “unnecessary”, so the player’s controls consist of audio-regulator buttons plus a headphone socket. Users can also toggle between playlists, thanks to software that ‘reads’ out their names to get around the no-screen issue.

For now, Mighty only works with Spotify – the colour scheme of green ‘n’ black on its Kickstarter prototype gave that away, mirroring Spotify’s own brand identify – but the company says future software updates could add compatibility with other streaming services. The player costs $85.99, positioning it as a lightweight way to carry music

around, not to mention being much cheaper than having to replace a phone

if it gets smashed while out running or hiking.

COVER FEATURE Daydream View, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR on the VR side, and the HoloLens or whatever Magic Leap comes up with on the AR side.

We always twitch when someone on a conference stage trumpets that “content is king”, but the cliché does apply to VR and AR. These headsets need creative, immersive and inventive experiences if they’re to take off – and music could play an important part in providing those experiences.

A label (with its artists) and a VR/AR hardware firm (with its technology) has powerful partnership potential, and in a way that delivers value to both sides, in contrast to the music industry’s grumbles about the ultimate value exchange of the iPod all those years ago.

So, this is music:)ally’s hardware issue, with an emphasis on the startups rather than the big-tech players. We don’t think every company here is certain to be a winner. Indeed, we see flaws in a number of their technologies and/or business models.

The startup sees this as a huge market in waiting, with evidence of the popularity of running and workout playlists on Spotify possibly backing that up. Yet the competition here is smartphones, which for many people have already killed off the desire to buy a separate digital music player.

Smartphone armbands for active types only cost a few dollars, while persuading modern mobile users to leave their phones at home is a big ask – you can hike up a mountain with a Mighty, but you can’t use it to take a celebratory selfie at the top. Or call the emergency services if you get stuck.

ELECTRIC JUKEBOXwww.electricjukebox.comBritish startup Electric Jukebox has had several false starts. It was originally unveiled in October 2015 as a “plug and play” streaming subscription for the television, via an HDMI stick and a motion-sensing remote-control. Robbie Williams and Sheryl Crow were on board as playlist curators, and founder – ex-Omnifone man Rob Lewis – announced a pre-Christmas release date.

Christmas came and went, as did a revised Easter 2016 launch date. Electric Jukebox also abandoned plans for its US launch, citing the legal controversies around mechanical royalties payments there. Finally, the device and service launched in November 2016 in the UK, with the £169 hardware including a year’s worth of music, before users must choose whether to take up a £52 annual subscription.

Electric Jukebox’s motivations make sense: the company thinks that subscription streaming has been mainly

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marketed to early adopters, music obsessives and the affluent, rather than the kind of truly mainstream audience whose music habits revolve more around radio and CDs. Electric Jukebox hopes its device-oriented pricing model will appeal more than a £9.99-a-month Spotify or Apple Music subscription to this audience.

It is true that the music industry hasn’t always had the most positive attitude towards the mass-market audience – seeing supermarket CDs and celebrity-fronted compilations as a necessary evil that isn’t necessarily reflective of the ‘cool’ factor they see their business as trading in. Electric Jukebox, on the other hand, is unapologetically and refreshingly mainstream.

The price may be one challenge here: £169 may be seen as a lot of money, particularly when compared to, say, paying £119 for an Amazon Fire TV Stick (£40) plus a year’s Prime membership (£79) that

includes music AND films/TV shows. Electric Jukebox must also figure out whether its service needs to exist outside the living room: for example, in that other bastion of mainstream music-listening, the car.

PRIZMwww.meetprizm.com

Prizm first appeared on music:)ally’s radar in 2015 as a Midemlab finalist, although the French startup had already raised $161k on Kickstarter to build its device for turning speakers into a “learning music player”. In 2017, it has just raised its first round of institutional funding (€1m) from investors including Deezer founder Daniel Marhely.

What does the company do? Its pyramid-shaped device – “the music brain” – connects to a speaker, and then gets its owner to create a profile with some of their favourite music. They can then press a single button to start a stream of tracks. Although it can pull content from streaming services, YouTube and local MP3 files, Prizm is also licensing its own catalogue of music directly from labels.

The company says that, over time, Prizm will learn each user’s habits, and will even be able to understand when multiple people are in the room, using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals from smartphones and

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(in time) fitness trackers, adapting the music accordingly. The promise: “It is able to tell the difference between a gentle awakening, an afternoon reading, and an evening with friends.”

Prizm’s business model involves selling its device for €149, which includes a year’s worth of access to its music catalogue. After that point, it will charge users €39.90 a year, or offer them free access to internet radio stations. There’s a question around whether people looking for this kind of device will simply want to hook it up to an existing streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music.

Having said that, those companies haven’t shown much appetite yet to extend their machine-learning features to the idea of multiple people listening in a home. Prizm could offer some pointers for any future developments along those lines.

WHYDwww.whyd.comWhyd, another startup from France, wasn’t a hardware play when music:)ally first encountered it in 2012.

Then, it was a social music discovery website, designed for people to search for music on YouTube, SoundCloud and music blogs, collecting it in one place and following other users with interesting tastes. In early 2014, it raised $700k of seed funding, before launching an iPhone app that summer.

Two years on, and Whyd changed tack, having discovered – like many startups before it – that social music aggregation is a startup sector without an obvious business model. In August 2016, it open-sourced that existing service as

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startup, though: we will be interested to see whether or not it raises new funding to fuel its move into hardware – and a competitive pool of extremely big fish.

NURAwww.nuraphone.comHigh-end headphones predate the digital era in music by several decades. Ads for headphones by Philips, Koss and others would regularly run in consumer magazines in the 1970s, promising an audiophile utopia where the music would “come alive” with the sound “as the artist intended”.

Sony’s Walkman, and the early MP3 players era were more about convenience than audio quality, while pre-Apple Beats Electronics was arguably the first brand to turn headphones into a style-conscious, aspirational consumer market, with the products displayed in public akin to a branded T-shirt.

While other celebrity-backed headphone brands have tried (and often failed) to repeat Beats’ success,

others are turning to technology and audio science to stand out from the crowd. Nura, for example, makes the bold claim of being “the world’s first headphones to automatically learn how you hear and adapt the music to provide your perfect sound”.

This is another Kickstarter-fuelled product, having raised $1.8m on the crowdfunding site in 2016. The headphones work via a setup process the first time they are worn, recalibrating the settings based on the feedback from a series of tones played to the wearer. Each set of headphones can store multiple profiles, should the owner want to share them with someone else.

With its “Did you know that your hearing is as unique as your fingerprint, your face and your voice?” question, Nura is exploring similar territory to software startup Mimi. The company is talking the talk well, although the price of its headphones – £246 – means they are not yet a mass-market proposition. That said, the Nuraphones cost considerably less than top-end products like Fostex or Ultrasone, which run into thousands of pounds.

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OpenWhyd, shifting its efforts into building a connected speaker.

“We are about to launch our premium voiced controlled speaker that will surround you with its deep and powerful 360° sound,” the company told its users. The result is an Amazon Echo competitor which looks beautiful, but promises “crystal clear sound with deep and dramatic bass in all directions” – targeting one of the few perceived weaknesses of the Echo: it’s audio quality.

Whyd’s speaker includes Echo-style voice controls, as well as the ability to tap and swipe on its glass touch-panel to control music. The company is also taking a Switzerland-style approach to the sources of that music: it already connects with Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Google Play Music and SoundCloud.

Whyd sold out of its first batch of speakers in early 2017, and is operating a waiting list for its next run, while learning from the usage of those initial customers. Competing with the likes of Amazon, Google and Sonos is a big challenge for a

HURDLwww.hurdl.comMany of the early digital innovations around live music were about big data and more efficient ways to sell tickets. Then came smart wristbands to charge with cash and speed up bar and merchandise stand queues. Beacons helped serve a similar function and also evolved to be a way to give loyal customers at venues and festivals rewards. Then Coldplay toured with interactive wristbands that changed colour and became part of the show.

Scooping up a lot of what has been happening in isolated silos, Hurdl launched the Pixl in 2016 with a tag line of creating a “direct relationship with fans through immersive experiences”. What that means is an LED wristband for concertgoers. When activated via a mobile shortcode, the device can push discounts and promotions

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MAGIC LEAPwww.magicleap.comBuilding an augmented reality headset from scratch is an expensive business. Just ask Magic Leap, which has raised nearly $1.4bn so far – including a $793.5m round in February 2016 – to fuel its ambitions. The company is both a hardware and a software play: it’s making an AR headset as well as the games and experiences to showcase its ability to project digital content into the real world.

Stunning demos posted on YouTube and a Star Wars deal have raised anticipation to a fever pitch about what Magic Leap’s technology will be able to accomplish. “We are building a new kind of contextual computer. We’re doing something really, really different,” CEO Romy Abovitz told Forbes in November 2016, although he also warned that the first consumer version of the headset might still be 18 months away.

Recent months haven’t been kind to

those ambitions, though. In December 2016, tech site The Information alleged that one of those demos had been created by a visual-effects studio; and furthermore that Magic Leap was struggling to squeeze its hardware down from a bulky helmet to the promised pair of glasses.

Abovitz hit back, blogging his vision of “flying squirrels and sea monkeys and rainbow powered unicorns” while promising to “manufacture hundreds of thousands of systems, and then millions”.

The hype around Magic Leap has bred cynicism about those promises, though. This February, Business Insider suggested that its engineers were “scrambling” to produce a working prototype, while also predicting that the first consumer model could cost more than $1k.

The future of digital interaction, or an expensive white elephant? Magic Leap has much to prove, but whatever happens, its journey and technology are still likely to be fascinating to watch.

COVER FEATURE to the wearer at the event and also become part of the light show – with 16m colour options, each show can be vastly different.

By linking to a fan’s mobile number, Hurdl is trying to ensure that the relationship continues long after the event. It’s tackling one major challenge in the live business: the fact that people can be marketed to before and during a gig, but as soon as they leave, the relationship often goes cold.

Hurdl has plotted an interesting business model to underpin all this. It sells the hardware to venues and festivals, then takes a cut – typically 15% – of any merchandise sales that it drives. Hurdl also aggregates the data from each event, and sells subscriptions to access that information.

It’s still early days, but tying together isolated digital strands around live music is a tantalising proposition. Hurdl is also currently part of the first cohort of Techstars Music startups.

ROLIwww.roli.comReinventing the piano/keyboard may seem like a tough challenge, but since 2014, British startup ROLI has been wowing people with its demos at music and tech conferences. Its first product, the Seaboard Grand, let players bend notes using its rubber keys, much like a guitarist does. ROLI also grabbed our attention with its $12.8m funding round in 2014, thanks to investors including SoundCloud and Sonos-backer Index Ventures and Universal Music Group.

The original price of £1,599 for a 37-key model and £2,499 for a 61-key edition made the Seaboard Grand a pricey instrument, albeit one that attracted praise from the likes of Hans Zimmer and AR Rahman. But by September 2015 ROLI was targeting

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and its soundpacks. Blocks is a fascinating product, but the proof of its usefulness will be in the music made using it. Still, as a combination of music-making hardware, touchscreen software and sonic input from artists, there is a lot of potential here.

MIND MUSIC LABSwww.mindmusiclabs.comThere is much more to Swedish tech than Spotify. Mind Music Labs is also based in Stockholm and has spent the last year being acclaimed at various European music and technology conferences for its Sensus ‘smart guitar’ prototype. The company also ended 2016 by raising SEK 2m (around $220k) in seed funding to take the product forward.

The Sensus looks like (and can be played like) a normal guitar, but all manner of technical tricks are built into it. The device has a workstation built into it that lets the player manipulate the sounds – theoretically doing away with all manner of effects pedals, amp settings and crafty post-production tricks.

The instrument is also connected to the

internet, enabling its owner to share their performances and stream tracks to play along with. This could make the Sensus appealing for experienced guitarists keen to try some new digital tricks, but also to novices looking for an inventive way to learn to play.

“Today there are many incredible evolutions happening in music and technology; from VR and AR to interactive performances – but everything is still happening off stage. While on stage, musicians are still using technologies from the 1950s,” said CEO Michele Benincaso as the seed funding was announced.

“We strongly believe that evolving musical instruments and allowing musicians to seamlessly interact with each other and with their audiences is the key to the next real revolution in the industry.”

The initial audience for the Sensus may be limited, but once the instrument goes on sale, there is potential for partnerships with prominent guitarists to show what it can do, and put it high on the Christmas lists of digital fretboard warriors of all ages.

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a wider audience with its £599 Seaboard Rise: a more portable, affordable model for musicians.

Since then, ROLI has made some interesting moves. It bought social music collaboration startup Blend in October 2015, then launched a pair of music-making apps called Noise and Seaboard 5D – the former including ‘soundpacks’ from artists like Grimes, RZA and Steve Aoki. A $27m funding round in May 2016 – with UMG involved again – was followed that November by the debut of ROLI’s most interesting product yet: Blocks.

It’s a modular music-making system designed to work with iOS devices, built around a $179 ‘Lightpad’ pressure-sensitive pad for creating beats and melodies. Add-on blocks will supplement other audio features, tied in to the Noise app

MAGIC INSTRUMENTSwww.magicinstruments.comMagic Instruments’ MI Guitar might look like a cross between a Guitar Hero paddle and those cardboard guitars that fans take to AC/DC concerts to “play along” on when Angus Young does a solo, but looks – as we should all know – aren’t everything.

The company has a marketing line of “strum a song in the time it takes to listen to it”, which may be a conscious (or subconscious) nod back to seminal 1957 guitar tuition book Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day, which gave some of the most famous British guitarists of the 1960s their start on the instrument.

The MI Guitar is aimed at both novices to give them a sense of musical progression and satisfaction straight out of the gates, as well as helping those who are a little more advanced to learn new tricks and techniques.

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SMART HEADPHONESFrom 3D sound and capacitive touchscreens to AI: the next generation of technology for the ears of music fans

AGLAIAwww.aglaia.no

Like an aural Transformer, these headphones adapt depending on the use context. A variety of earbud designs and shapes snap on and off magnetically and can be customised depending on what you want to use them for – “everyday use” (i.e. walking about), exercise etc. Great in theory, but the practicalities and fiddly size of the earbuds could make this the audio equivalent of the sock drawer with the odd stray sock and no match to be found.

HUMANwww.humaninc.comWith visual marketing that puts you in mind of Ex Machina, Human is pushing hard on the “minimalistic”, “ergonomic” and “futuristic” buttons. The sell here is that its product is the next evolutionary step in wireless headphones with not one but three USPs (it hopes). The first is capacitive touch, with the ability to swipe to adjust the volume etc. The second is a social mode, enabling multiple users

to listen to the same music without the need for a headphone splitter. Finally, an amplify mode turns the headphones into a loudspeaker.

OSSIC Xwww.ossic.com

Positioned as companion headphones for VR headsets, gaming and home cinema, the big sell for this former Abbey Road Red startup is about hearing in “accurate 3D sound”. It uses “head-tracking” technology to adapt the sounds you are likely to hear depending on how you move. It’s about immersing the listener in sonic fields so they experience the sound in whole new ways. Like VR headsets, however, some users might experience the symptoms of motion sickness until they normalise what they are hearing.

COVER FEATURE Users, depending on their ability and confidence, can toggle between two modes. Magic Mode promises the ability to play chords “with a single button press and a strum of the strings”, while Traditional Mode offers the traditional chord fingerings. The idea is that learners can switch from one to the other as their skill increases. The guitar also comes with a companion mobile app with songs to learn and play along with.

As with other smart instruments with an educational focus, that shows an opportunity here for music publishers: a new way to get their sheet music and guitar tabs into budding musicians’ hands. Magic Instruments is also enlisting musicians to sing the MI Guitar’s praises.

“For people who don’t have the time to learn the guitar, Magic Instruments is the ultimate shortcut,” says Muse’s Matt Bellamy in an endorsement placed prominently on the company’s homepage. “For singers and non-guitar playing musicians, it’s also great tool for songwriting.”

HOOKE AUDIOwww.hookeaudio.com

Another player in the 3D audio space, but positioned more as being for general use rather than VR/home cinema. It also works in conjunction with smartphones to allow users to record audio and video in 3D so has both a speaker and microphone built into it. The developers argue that the fact smartphones record audio in mono means the resulting sound is flat and lacks nuance or depth, so this will elevate home recording and playback into brighter spaces.

MUZIKwww.muzikconnect.com

Every new technology has to have a “X of Y” hard sell and Muzik One claims to be “the smartphone of headphones”. A snappy phrase, but what does it actually mean? It

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MUSIC-MAKING TOOLSPop-up studios, connected guitars and the first Apple-certified smart piano jostle for attention STUDIO STICKwww.studiostick.net

There are already some pretty decent ‘mobile recording studio’ apps for smartphones and tablets. Studio Stick isn’t just an app, though: it’s a pop-up device including a microphone, pop filter, reaction filter, phone/tablet holder and a stand that adjusts up to six feet in height. The device has yet to go on sale, but sounds ideal for artists who like to record on the go – and are prepared to turn any hotel bathroom into an impromptu vocal booth.

FRETXwww.fretx.rocks

French startup FretX is in the same space as Mind Music Labs and Magic Instruments, but rather than a smart guitar, its product is a device that attaches to the

fretboard of any guitar. The device – also called FretX – drummed up $123k of pre-orders on crowdfunding site Indiegogo in late 2016. The $89 device works by using lights to show learners where to place their fingers for certain chords, controlled by a companion app.

THE ONEwww.smartpiano.com

The One rejoices in the title of being “the first ever Apple Certified smart piano”, although the company is actually selling two devices: the $1,499 One Smart Piano; and the more affordable $299 One Light Keyboard. Both devices connect to an iPad, then teach the owner to play using a mixture of video lessons, light-up sheet music and piano-focused games. The app currently has a catalogue of more than 2,000 songs – again, showing the opportunity here for music publishers.

DODEKAwww.dodeka.info

Dodeka is another smart piano, but this one doesn’t look like your average Joanna. “Our new system introduces an alternative

COVER FEATURE has “programmable hot keys” on the side of the cans, a linked app that allows instant access to Spotify playlists, the ability to share those playlists to social media and speed dial for phone calls. Users can also swipe the side of the ‘phones to adjust the volume, change songs, pause playback or access Siri.

VINCIwww.vinci.im

Yet more 3D headphones, but this is no ordinary 3D – this is “intelligent 3D”. That means a dash of artificial intelligence, with Vinci’s headphones having voice control and a voice assistant baked in. On top of this, the headphones promise to learn your musical preferences the more you use them, while also “measuring your vitals” to understand your biorhythms. Show-offs will also appreciate the customisable visualiser on the side of the headphones, giving passers-by a reason to stare.

music notation together with innovative keyboard and xylophone designs,” explains the company. That notation system swaps notes for what look like black censorship bars, while its keyboard sets all its white and black keys on the same level. The company is also working on a mobile app to showcase all this, while suggesting that its combination of notation and hardware changes will be perfect for musicians who want to improvise.

ARTIPHONwww.artiphon.com

The Artiphone Instrument 1 might look like a massively elongated Nintendo Switch, but it’s an attempt at creating a jack-of-all-trades musical tool. The idea: a versatile fingerboard that can be tapped to trigger beats and loops; pressed like piano keys; strummed like a guitar; or bowed like a violin. “One instrument that lets you be the whole band,” as the company puts it. The company originally raised $1.3m on Kickstarter in 2015, but its device is now going on sale for $399.

3DVARIUSwww.3d-varius.comWe hear a lot about personalisation in the music-streaming world, thanks to algorithm-driven playlists like Spotify’s Discover Weekly – but personalisation is also a trend in the musical instruments

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REVIVEwww.yesitis.fr/revive.php

Another curveball from the Internet Of Things. Revive involves attaching an RFID chip to any object – vinyl records are the most relevant example for music:)ally readers – which enables it to be scanned by any NFC-compatible smartphone. “Thanks to Revive, the user is redirected to a platform on which he will have access to exclusive and original content around the artist’s universe,” explains the company’s pitch. The wider trend here is trying to bring digital connectivity to physical music products.

BASSLETwww.lofelt.com

Like Meghan Trainor, the Basslet is all about that bass. Its developers describe it as a “silent subwoofer” that is worn on the wrist to deliver bass “straight to your body” – like Bootsy Collins taking up a career in

acupuncture. The Basslet is intended to be an embellishment for headphones, enabling people to feel music as well as hear it. A bit like those SubPac vests or seat covers that drove bass right through your body, but portable so you look like you’re wearing a FitBit rather than a flak jacket.

SOUNDBRENNERwww.soundbrenner.com

The app-store era brought a glut of metronome apps aimed at musicians. Soundbrenner is trying to take the next step with a wearable metronome. Designed to look like a wristwatch, it enables musicians to “feel” the rhythm on their wrist or ankle, so that they can play along without hearing it. The device is controlled from a smartphone app, complete with the ability to store favourite rhythms. Taps on its face adjust the tempo or pause it.

MERCH ROADIEwww.merchroadie.comThis is basically a vending machine in a flight case. Artists can take a small pop-up retail store with them on the road. There is a touch-screen interface and users pick what they want, pay by card and then the items are dropped into a gulley at the bottom. This, of course, means only a limited range of merchandise can be fitted in and smaller items (T-shirts, badges etc.)

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world. 3Dvarius, for example, is an ‘electric violin’ that uses 3D printing to ensure it is customised to the buyer’s tastes. “Engrave a personal message, give it the name it deserves, select your bridge and tuning pegs…” That comes at an eye-watering price, though: $7,048 and upwards.

OTHER MUSIC HARDWARE

QLEEKwww.qleek.me

Qleek describes itself as “the record player of the streaming era”. It’s an attempt to give streaming playlists a physical form. How? On a biscuit-sized hexagon, you load up playlists and give them a cover design. Then you slot them into the Qleek player, which looks like a wooden bowl with a hexagon-shaped depression on the top. You can then store all your “playlists” on a wall-mounted hive (yes, really) – making this as much about room decor as music.

will work best. But, like an ATM, it can be topped up and means that there is an extra retail point at venues or festivals that doesn’t require anyone to continually staff it.

PHONOTONICwww.phonotonic.net

Ever thought that the Theremin wasn’t small enough or multi-sided enough? Phonotonic looks like a space age stress ball, but one that lets you create music kinetically by swinging it around in your hand. The interior sensors communicate via Bluetooth to your phone for playback. It is presented more as a form of relaxation or a game (you can add a second sensor and “battle” friends) than as an instrument per se, but it can’t be long before a tech-friendly star (Björk? will.i.am?) spots it and uses it for their music.

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watching HD video. More interesting is its new Avegant Light Field technology, unveiled in March. It puts virtual objects “right at your fingertips” – an intriguing exploration of mixed reality.

ULTRAHAPTICSwww.ultrahaptics.com

More virtual stuff in the real world here, but this time it’s technology to feel things that aren’t really there. Ultrahaptics is “using ultrasound to project sensations onto a hand… from invisible buttons and dials that you feel when you need them, through to tangible interfaces that track your hand”.

UNMADEwww.unmade.com

Unmade’s technology is partly about installing hardware in knitwear factories, helping them “add unique orders alongside existing bulk production”. People can then use its ‘personalisation editors’ to

customise clothes before buying them – there’s potential here for bespoke music merchandise.

AIRDOGwww.airdog.com

Some music video makers have already experimented with drone filming, but action sport is this technology’s big heartland at the moment. AirDog’s drone is well worth a look – automatically following and filming its subjects. Safety concerns accepted, imagine giving this to a band headlining a festival.

SONICAMwww.sonicam.co

Samsung and Nokia have launched well-received 360-degree cameras. Startup Sonicam has ambitions to take them on. Its spherical camera films at up to 4K resolution and uses 64 microphones to record sound, with the ability to stream video live too, stitching footage together on the fly.

COVER FEATURE BEYOND MUSIC

From smart glasses and haptic wizardry to personal drones and smart robots: how can music mesh with this hardware?

VUE SMART GLASSESwww.enjoyvue.com

It’s fair to suggest that if AR smartglasses are going to be big, the likes of Apple, Snapchat and Facebook will probably dominate the category. Vue is worth watching, though: its smartglasses connect wirelessly to a smartphone, and include bone-conduction tech for music, calls and notifications without earphones.

AVEGANTwww.avegant.comAvegant’s Glyph headset looks like a Star Trek visor, but is pitched as a “personal theater” for

ROKID Swww.rokid.comYes, there’s Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana, but if you want a virtual assistant for your home, why not make it a smart Chinese robot? Armed with $50m of funding, the company hopes its AI-toting product will find an audience of smart-home owners.

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JOLOMO Swww.jolomo.ioMirror, mirror on the wall, who’s got the quirkiest smart-home gadget of them all? JoLoMo sounds like an acronym for a new category of app or the “ft. artist” on an EDM single, but it’s actually a startup working on a ‘smart mirror’ prototype capable of functioning as a touchscreen computer, controlling music and other home features.

BLITAB Twww.blitab.comAccessibility is an often-overlooked aspect to modern mobile devices, even with the efforts of Apple and Google. Blitab is an interesting attempt to solve problems for blind and visually impaired people: a Braille device that displays “small physical bubbles” to read text and navigate around other content. :)

COVER FEATURE

PORTL MEDIA Twww.portlmedia.comAmid much talk about the declining earnings of Uber drivers, perhaps Portl can help them drum up some more cash. The company’s hardware is a touchscreen to install in the back of car headrests, providing content – music partnerships could be one way forward – plus advertising.

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2015, revenue from subscription services was $10.05m, up from $5.78m in 2014. Revenue from ad-supported streaming fell slightly, from $5.37m in 2014 to $4.88m in 2015, while total digital revenue was $17.7m. Overall recorded music revenue rose 16.4% in 2015, the country’s fourth straight year of double-digit growth.

Castellano says that streaming services in Colombia have benefited from recent improvements to music licensing “making it much more accessible for streaming platforms to deliver a broader selection of music to fans”. “We believe our market focus and the laws around licensing and copyright changed to make it easier for streaming

companies to access music from labels and artists and thus easier for fans to get the music that they want from those platforms,” he adds.

Juan Sebastian Ortiz de Zaldumbide, co-founder of Colombian management company M3 Music, says that the music industry in Colombia “has been through a process of professionalisation that is making musical projects (bands, companies, producers, etc.) more stable and profitable”.

“Colombia’s music industry is a very young one, mostly led by entrepreneurs who have been contributing to the specialisation in the different areas of the business,” he adds. “Now, for the first time in Colombia, we have booking agencies, management companies, concert and festival promoters and indie labels signing new artists. This, in addition to the major labels starting to sign indie or alternative acts, instead of just the mainstream acts as we know them. All of this is just starting, so I predict several more years of expansion.”

MARKET PROFILE Colombia

There is plenty of optimism about the digital music industry in Colombia as its revenues crossed the 50% threshold before the likes of Brazil, Germany and the UK

STATS f Population 46.7md GDP per capita $14,200h Internet users 24.3mc Broadband connections 5.5mi Mobile subscriptions 57.3m Active smartphones 16.8m Active tablets 1.1m Sources: IFPI/CIA World Factbook

COLOMBIA

Every year a number of countries pass an important stage in the transition to a digital music economy, when revenues from digital music cross the

50% threshold. In 2015, Colombia was one of the four global markets to take this step, with digital jumping to 52% of its recorded music revenues according to the IFPI.

The fact that Colombia has made this transition ahead of places like Germany, Brazil, France and the UK is significant for a country that has, of late, put considerable effort into developing its digital economy. Vive Digital Colombia was a plan put in place by the Colombian government in 2010. It managed to quadruple the country’s internet connections over just four years and is now focused on boosting mobile connectivity. As a result, Colombia has become one of the most advanced mobile phone markets in Latin

America, with 70% of consumers expected to have become mobile users in 2016.

“According to the 2017 Affordability Report, Colombia is doing better than any other developing nation in providing affordable internet access to its population,” says Oscar Castellano, CEO Americas for Deezer. “This is largely down to the Vive Digital plan which, through technology, is enabling more online connections to rural communities. As a result of this, more people are now able to access content both through computers and phones, which is creating opportunities for streaming platforms to engage with new users.”

Colombia’s increased digital maturity can be seen in the boom in subscription streaming, which contributed more than 50% of the country’s total digital music revenue in 2015, after almost doubling year-on-year. In

Colombia is doing be!er than any other developing nation in providing affordable internet

access to its population...” – Oscar Castellano,

Deezer

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ISSUE 40305.04.17 MARKET PROFILE Colombia continued...

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RECORDED MUSIC SALES(Volume, million units)(Source: IFPI)

DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUE BY FORMAT,IFPI FIGURES(In US$ millions / Source: IFPI)

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

CD

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Other physical

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10

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30

40

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DIGITAL MUSIC REVENUE BY FORMAT; MUSIC ALLY DATAMAP FIGURES(In US$ millions / Source: IFPI, Music Ally)

Ad-supportedDownloads

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Full album downloads Paid/freemiumsubscriptions

Single downloads Mobile personalisation

Ad-supported streams

Subscriptions

Castellano also expects the growth of digital music in Colombia to continue into 2017 and “for the foreseeable future”. “With +50m mobile subscribers in market and more than 16m smartphones, the penetration of streaming is still in its infancy,” he says. “As a reference, revenues are increasing in Latin America by four times more than the global average, so we can see that there is a huge appetite for music and streaming in particular across the region.”

Little wonder, then, that Deezer has made Colombia – already one of its top three markets in Latin America – into a strategic priority in the region, after opening

a Bogota office in November 2013. Spotify, said to be second in Colombia streaming after Deezer, is also reported to be focusing on the country. According to a report in Colombian newspaper Portafolio (right) from August 2016, the Swedish company is looking to tie up more telco deals in Colombia, like the one it currently has with ETB, which gives ETB’s subscribers free access to Spotify Premium for a year; and also wants to create more local

content in Colombia. (Deezer, incidentally, has a similar bundle deal with telco Tigo.)

Against this, a couple of potential difficulties hang over the Colombian music market. At the tail end of 2016, the Colombian government announced an increase in VAT, which has resulted in a 7% increase in mobile internet costs. More importantly, perhaps, digital subscription services like Deezer and Spotify are now subject to VAT at 19%, with this price increase being passed onto consumers. Spotify, for example, has increased the cost of its Premium service from COP 11,499 ($3.95) to COP 14,900 ($5.11), while the Family plan has gone from COP 17,249 ($5.92) to COP 22,900 ($7.86).

The other potential headache comes from wider problems in the Colombian economy, which was affected by the collapse in oil prices in 2016. The Colombian peso has also fallen greatly over the last two years. It lost a third of its value against the dollar in 2015, according to the Economic Commission For Latin America & The Caribbean. Recently, however, the Colombian government has acted to boost these economic problems: in February 2017, President Juan Manuel Santos launched Colombia Repunta, a plan to increase government spending to improve the country’s infrastructure, which it expects to add 1.3 percentage points to GDP growth and to create 800,000 jobs.

“I feel very optimistic about the future of digital music industry in Colombia,” Ortiz de Zaldumbide concludes. “But I think the biggest challenge is that we all have to be prepared to reinvent ourselves, our businesses and the way we consume music. And I would like to quote my colleague Scott Cohen on this one: ‘So you think you understand the digital music business? It just changed again.’” :)

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Music Ally is a music business information and strategy company. We focus on the change taking place in the industry and provide information and insight into every aspect of the business, consumer research analysing the changing behaviour and trends in the industry, consultancy services to companies ranging from blue chip retailers and telecoms companies to start-ups; and training around methods to digitally market your artists and maximise the effectiveness of digital campaigns. We also work with a number of high profile music events around the world, from Bogota to Berlin and Brighton, bringing the industry together to have a good commonsense debate and get some consensus on how to move forward.

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