SC-101 · Founder
Creating Music with TUNEY
Guest: Antony Demekhin, CEO and Co-founder of Tuney
Summary
Antony Demekhin is CEO and co-founder of Tuney, a suite of AI music creation tools built for aspiring musicians rather than trained on scraped internet audio. Tuney commissions all of its training material and uses no third-party models or data, a choice Demekhin made from the start because he came from the music business and wanted a commercially viable, legally clean product rather than one that could later be blocked from licensing or dragged into a lawsuit over copyright.
Instead of training a neural network on a large body of existing music, Tuney assembles high quality, professionally produced building blocks using a system that understands music theory and arrangement, starting from rule based heuristics and gradually adding neural networks around matching and assembly. Demekhin says this avoids the sonic quality loss that comes from training on compressed MP3s, and produces output closer to what a human producer would create, aiming to give users the feeling of being in the studio without having to learn a full production tool like Ableton.
Demekhin argues that text-to-music tools like Suno and Udio are closer to music discovery than music creation, because the joy for most musicians is in the process of building something rather than the finished output, and neither tool lets a user actually produce or edit what it generates. He believes music creation software is a large, durable market because passive social media is draining and people are looking for hands-on hobbies, and says Tuney has grown mostly by using its core technology for niche paid work, like scoring for advertising and brand campaigns, to fund its consumer creator tool without giving away too much equity.
As of the episode's release on 25 March 2025.
Key takeaways
- 01Tuney does not train its models on scraped internet music. It commissions its own original recordings and uses no third-party models or data, which Demekhin says keeps the product legally clean and free of the sonic quality loss that scraped training causes.
- 02Tuney builds songs by assembling high quality pre-produced loops with a system that understands music theory and arrangement, rather than generating audio directly from a model trained on existing recordings.
- 03Demekhin argues most musicians make music for the process itself rather than the outcome, so a pure text-to-music generator like Suno or Udio functions more like music discovery than an actual creative tool.
- 04AI-generated audio has no copyright under current US Copyright Office guidance, so Demekhin says brands, ad agencies and film studios cannot legally buy or use fully AI-generated output, which shaped Tuney's decision to build a licensable, human-directed system instead.
- 05Tuney has funded its consumer product mostly by using its core technology for paid niche work, sonic branding and adding music to video for advertising and brand campaigns with partners like Bacardi and Sprite, rather than by giving away large amounts of equity.
- 06Demekhin says passive social media is draining, and people with more free time are turning to hands-on hobbies like making music, which he sees as a big business opportunity.
Guest
- Antony Demekhin, CEO and Co-founder at Tuney
Questions this episode answers
Why does Tuney call itself an ethical AI music company?
Demekhin says Tuney does not scrape the internet or license stock libraries to train its models. It commissions all of its own music and uses no third-party models or data, a choice he made from the start of the company in 2020 to keep the product both legally safe and commercially licensable.
How is Tuney's music generation different from tools like Suno or Udio?
Demekhin argues pure text-to-music tools generate a finished result but do not let a user actually produce or edit anything, which makes them closer to music discovery than music creation. Tuney instead assembles high quality pre-produced loops using a system that understands music theory, giving users something closer to a real production experience.
Why doesn't Tuney train its models on a large scraped dataset like other AI music tools?
Demekhin says training on scraped internet audio, usually compressed MP3s rather than real wave files, degrades the sonic quality of whatever a model then generates. Because he wanted a commercially viable, high quality product from the start, Tuney instead assembles pre-produced, high fidelity building blocks of music rather than generating audio from a model trained this way.
Can AI-generated music actually be sold or licensed to brands and agencies?
Demekhin says the US Copyright Office holds that fully AI-generated output has no owner, so a brand, ad agency or film studio cannot legally buy or license it even if a generator's marketing says otherwise. That gap is why Tuney built a human-directed, loop-based system instead, so its output can actually be sold to commercial customers.
we don't train on other people's music. We commission everything and we don't use any third party models
Episode notes
Experience the possibilities of ethical AI in music creation as Antony Demekhin, CEO and co-founder of TUNEY, explains how his platform helps aspiring musicians craft tracks without compromising sound quality or copyright. In this episode, he recounts a lifelong passion for percussion and hip hop, revealing how it shaped TUNEY’s focus on genuine creativity and accessible workflows.
It is a practical look at what happens when technology and artistry evolve hand in hand.
Explore here: https://tuney.io/
Sponsored by Allfeat: Decentralized Blockchain Solutions for the Music Industry - https://www.allfeat.com/
Produced by Amplitude Ventures Consulting: Partners in Early-Stage Music Tech - https://amplitude.ventures
Topics
Transcript
Transcribed from the recording by the production team. Names and terms may be misspelled.
Read the full transcript
Jakob
Hey guys, and welcome back to the Sound Conditions Podcast. Today I have Antony in the studio.
Antony
Thank you.
Jakob
Anthony, we're going to talk about something really exciting today and that is AI, it's music, it is ethical AI and your company, Trudy. Before we get into that conversation and your journey, which I'm sure is going to be really interesting, for the people who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?
Antony
I'm Anthony. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Toonie, which is a ethical suite of AI tools for aspiring musicians and creatives. I'm a drummer. I'm a music and culture marketing person. I don't like saying expert, but I'm an expert in it also. And there's very few of us in the world, so I feel comfortable saying that. Yeah, and I'm a husband-to-be.
Jakob
Amazing. Great. You start your presentation of the company with Ethical. Why?
Antony
You know, we were kind of dragged into it because before it was just I thought that was like table stakes but I guess in the market we have you know people who don't believe that it's table stakes to be a value-driven business and so we have to use language to express that we don't break any laws or and respect copyright. I think ethical is just in the music industry has become a keyword for, I believe in the sanctity of copyright. I believe that it is not fair use to train on music to derive the products. And so that's why we use that language, honestly. And I think over the years, over the last two years, the music business has... sort of push that word into the mainstream where now I think the artist community is also galvanized around it. So yeah, I mean, we don't train on other people's music. We commission everything and we don't use any third party models. We don't use third party data. So yeah, that's why.
Jakob
Thanks.
Jakob
We'll definitely cover that more in the conversation, but before we go that deep, we do need to understand what Chunie does and of course, also your journey. But let's start there. So Chunie, what is it?
Antony
So what we're doing is, you know, we're building a product that makes it easier for aspiring musicians to get into the flow of creating music. And I believe that it's very important right now and kind of exciting to make the soul filling parts of music creation more accessible to more people. And I think it's partially important because we're all finding more free time on our hands. It's important because social media as like a passive digital experience is very draining and a little dicey for your mental health long term. And I also think that people are just hungry for more hobbies and AI tools automating kind of everything around us that used to be inaccessible. Right? Like Chad GBT is kind of making us all better writers in a way. If you ask a real writer, they'll say it's making everyone worse writers. But if you ask the common person who was really bad at writing, it's making you better. Right. And so I think.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
The reason why we're creating these tools is because we want to be sort of the training wheels or the step one in a journey of creating music. Something that I think is important to say in light of other companies in the market is that I don't believe that you get that feeling and you get that experience from a text to music product alone. I think text to music is more akin to music discovery.
Jakob
Yes.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
And so one thing that makes TUNY unique and why we're able to deliver tools that kind of replicate what happens in the studio for real with professional musicians is that we don't do the traditional training method where you train on a large body of work, usually stuff you scrape from the internet if you're unethical or maybe something you licensed from a stock music library. And then you have these neural networks that will generate new music, right? The same technological principle behind Chad GPT, right? It learns from a large corpus of media examples, and then it gives you like a jazz song or a funk song or whatever. And we started in 2020 and we were researching this problem even before that. And so back then it kind of wasn't. on the table to do that technically, like to train on a bunch of music, but I also come from the music business, so I didn't want to have a legally compromised product from the very beginning. I actually wanted a commercially viable product from the very beginning, and in the back of my mind when we first started developing this core tech, I was like, maybe we might have a licensing business and we might want to license this output. And so then the other thing is that the training material degrades the sonic quality. And if you're a purist, but honestly, like even if you're a casual music creator, you become a purist when it comes to sound quality really, really quickly, because you really start listening to stuff and the training methods, they degrade the sonic quality. First of all, it's a lot cheaper to train on a bunch of MP3s than a bunch of wave files. Second of all, it's really hard to get real wave files if you're scraping the internet. Right? Cause no one's going to give you the actual wave files. You can, you can up sample. I'm to get a little techie cause it's like kind of fun. You can up sample from an MP3 to a wave, but you don't get any new data in that process. Right? So, so then your system, the outputs of your system have this like degraded sound quality. Right? So when we first started tuning, we were like, I want it needs to be legal. It needs to have great sonic quality. And then my co-founder Philip, who's a Grammy and Emmy nominated composer and producer. He's like, you know,
Antony
even more bougie about sound and music and composition than I am, he was like, it has to be killer, you know, like this platform has to have a sound and it has to be great, right? Like what, however you define that, I mean, it's obviously very subjective, but we define it as sonic quality, composition quality, right? Like there's good composition, there's bad composition. And so with that in mind, we were like, how do you do that? And back in the day, it was like you either, make a bunch of stems and then create an automation system that mixes and matches stems together. But then you need a ton of like pre-production work. Or you train on MIDI data, which was readily available from, guess, the ringtones era probably, like the 90s. MIDI stuff sounds not great. Okay, like you can ask any digital producer and they'll tell you how they spent like a whole day trying to make a MIDI derived sound.
Jakob
Mm.
Antony
like sound decent and you need good virtual instruments and you need to know how to mix and there's all these like complexities to making a digitally derived sound good. And so doing it in the cloud is like really, really hard. And then, you know, the other thing is that like MIDI is also not very expressive. Like it's hard to get, that's why like in the studio here, when Philip is producing something, ideally you get a musician to play into a microphone because then you capture some expression and For non musical people there's just something that happens in between notes being played that Translates into a vibe and part of the reason why a lot of digitally derived music relies on sampling and not MIDI is because the samples are you know, usually live recordings of some what's a human expressing themselves through an instrument which is kind of like the language of music, you know you get to
Jakob
Hmm.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
Like really great musicians, they learn their instruments so well, they are as free to express themselves through it as we are through speech. know, jazz musicians are like, that's what soloing is basically. And so what we decided to do is split the difference a bit and create a loop based system where we were assembling really high quality produced, really high fidelity building blocks of music. with a model that understands music theory, understands how to pair different registers and instruments together musically, understands how to arrange horizontally. And when we first started it, the base was like a heuristics based system, which basically means like a bunch of if-then statements, bunch of rules based automation. And then little by little, as models have gotten more powerful, we've started integrating neural networks into the process, but all around the matching and assembly. And then we use signal processing, like we basically automate the same process that a professional producer would do. And what that gives us is an output that sounds like something that you would hear on the radio, because it wasn't sonically or compositionally compromised by a technical training process. And so
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
Like to go back to what I was saying in terms of like what the tool does, right? Like with a system like that under the hood and a very simple and easy to use interface, we can start giving a person all of the like creative expression opportunities without having to learn how to use a DAW. And that's like a big part of our mission is how do you create an experience that feels like you're using Ableton, but you didn't have to go and learn how to use Ableton.
Jakob
I think one of the things that really, the question comes to mind for me is like what is changing in the future and what is going to happen in creation of music, the perception of music when you have easy access to generation of music. And that's something I'm constantly struggling with myself because when I make music right now with my kid, I also generate music. And for him, that's how music is made. Which means we're gonna have a generation soon of people who associate creation with generation. And I don't necessarily add any positive or negative value to that. But I'm very perplexed to how creation might look in the future. So when you have a company that does this, and very similar to some companies that are not ethical. What is it that you see in the future? Why is that important? Other than an opportunity and creative expression, why is it important that you guys are also in the market doing that?
Antony
Well, think why it's important is I think right now, if you look at the numbers, there's like a million people that produce music very well at a very professional level globally. That means like they use Pro Tools Logic or whatever, and they do it well. And then there's about 10 million or so that are in that install base. So they might have Logic install. I'm one of those 10 million, by the way. Like I have Logic, I can kind of sort of use it, but I'm by no means an expert. I don't put music out regularly. And so that universe relative to like eight some billion people in the world is really, really small. But I think the amount of people that want to try to make music is a way bigger number. And there's this technical barrier in terms of production, like you need to know software tools to produce. And then there's this music theory barrier, this education barrier, right? And so there've been a handful of tools over the years, over the last 30 years, there've been a handful of technologies, hardware and software that try to lower that barrier so that more people can get in the mix and start making stuff. Right. And I think there has been a leap forward, obviously, in this ability to type whatever you want and get some media back. And that might be a business. It might not. Have no idea. I honestly don't know. I'm very cynical about that experience because.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
As someone who's played music and been in a lot of production sessions and my co-founder is a producer and I've just been around a lot of like musicians and the creative process of making music. The text to music thing doesn't simulate that. So you don't get the feel, feel goods of you. You're like the whole point of making music is like, it's really fun to do it over a long period of time. And I think people who start as fans and go, wow, like I listened to a song and it makes me feel amazing. It's like magic. What is that? I want to know how the magic works. You know, that's the first spark that any of us had around. I might want to get into the making of music or playing of music. You were a fan. I was like five years old and I heard music and like my eyes perked up and my mom said, I think he likes sound. Let's try to put him in a music program and see what happens. And then I was banging on stuff and she was like, maybe a percussion program. Like that's how it happened for me. But a lot of people who don't have parents who are trying to get you into music education immediately are kind of pulled in first as a music fan and then you're just like, wow, this makes me feel so good. I want to know how it works. And I think this should make you feel better about the future, hopefully. It's not so dystopian. And then... Like when you start learning about what it takes to make music, there is this kind of like block. You know, I was just talking to somebody about this morning. Like, you're like, man, in order for me to get into this in any capacity, there's just like so much stuff to learn. And it's so complicated. It's so overwhelming. And that's not what I want. And that I think is a really important thing. What is a person's intention around any of this? And from that moment where someone has an intention, they break off into different paths. So if your intention is to be Calvin Harris, because you want to stroke your ego and be on a massive stage in front of 50,000 people, that is a different intention than if you're like, I want to feel good from like expressing myself creatively by making music. Right. And there is, I know a lot of people in the music business and I know people's career and you know, there's definitely like a lot of lore and behind the scenes stuff.
Jakob
Mm.
Antony
And there are plenty of famous producers who outsource a good amount of their music production to someone else. And those people do, you know, they do other things really well. They have a great image, maybe they're a great performer. A lot of them are savvy business people. Maybe they're like creative directors. But that's a different intention. For the people whose intention is, I wanna like...
Jakob
in
Antony
make music, because I think it's fun to make music, I wanna make something and call it my own, that starts them on a little path. And then this whole world opens up to them. And for a lot of them, they go, you know what, I have the discipline and the wherewithal and the desire for this, that I'm about to sit here and watch a hundred hours of tutorials, and then, you know, get into Ableton or get into Logic and get in there. And people at Ableton are doing an amazing job of lowering the barrier in their ecosystem too. Like they've got all these hardware products that make it easier, but it's still complicated. Right. And so why Toonie exists is I think there's a bigger group of people that want something just like 10, 20%, 30 % less technical, but it will simulate the experience of making music where you actually get joy out of the process, not the result. And that I think a lot of people miss. Like the joy is in the process. Most musicians don't make money by the way, because they feel like they've already won. And I don't know if that's controversial or not, but I talked to so many musicians who you could tell, I'm like, Tyler the Creator actually has a great rant about this, where he's like, you're gonna tell me you worked on an album for two years and you're gonna spend a week promoting it, two weeks, a month, right? And so like, there's just some people that just love that process. And once they make the thing, they have won. And everything else on top of that is kind of like a chore. You have plenty of people on TikTok that talk about this. They're like, I make music all day. Now you want me to get up here and make TikTok videos? You know? And so it's like, I want to give more people the opportunity to feel what it's like to like make music because there's joy in that process. It's not for everyone.
Jakob
Mm.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
Not everyone's gonna want to do that, no matter how easy we make it. But I don't think that the ability to type in text and come up with a finished song using a generative tool is gonna prevent people from going down a journey where they wanna figure out how to express themselves and make something new and something that reflects kind of their creative point of view.
Jakob
I'm curious to hear where your sort of passion comes from. You're very well articulated and obviously a very good maceteer. But still, I'm curious to see like why this is important for you. You mentioned that you started young with music. As far as I know, you were born and raised in Russia for a few years. Could you maybe briefly touch upon like your journey into music and sort of how that looked for you?
Antony
Yeah, I like I said, I had a weird relationship with sound from a very early age. My dad tells the story where when I was really short, we had a piano in the house and I would walk from one end of the piano and then reach up and like play the high keys and then have a facial expression. And then I would go down to the bottom and I play the low keys and I would have a facial expression. And so my dad was like, you're always fascinated by sound. And then they put me in a music education program. And then I did the traditional, you know, classical music journey and was a classically trained percussionist and played in a bunch of orchestras and, you know, was a performer, right? And there's a lot of joy in performance. This is a totally different type of joy than creating music. Actually. I was a performer. It's super fun to play timpani with a full symphony orchestra. Super fun. You feel like a gladiator in a chariot. And then in high school, I kind of got into hip hop quite a bit. And this was like, you know, early 2000s. We were all, everybody was a rapper, especially in the Midwest. So people were rapping, people were making beats. We're really into hip hop culture. And, you know, I always wanted to make my own music, but I hated technical production. I mean, I've tried like... I remember I, and I did this thing which so many people do and it's embarrassing to admit, but even professionals do this. You buy all this gear, you hook it up, you know, have all these big hopes and dreams and then you buy more gear and you try to make it easier for yourself. And the only thing you're not willing to do is sit there for 10 hours a day noodling with this thing, which is what it requires. And so I never got, I never really got to express myself.
Jakob
Yeah.
Antony
Through those tools because I was never able to like get over that hump. It took me out of the creative flow. Now we have an audio engineer here who his creative flow is being like an engineer and I watch him play the same two seconds for three hours and he's in it and he loves it and I'm like that sounds terrible you know it's not for me so there's just different people. So for me personally to answer your question like my mission is to create a tool that I would want to use
Jakob
Thanks
Jakob
It's good.
Antony
So that someone who wants to be a little more intuitive with the process can actually get the feeling of creating something. And that's a really tough technical challenge, right? I mean, there's plenty of tech teams right now that are building like AI music tools, but none of them really do that. If you look at the entire marketplace, which if you're an investor or even like an AI enthusiast and you've researched the space, there's a million AI music tools of sorts.
Jakob
Thanks.
Antony
But they all break up into two categories. You're either a source of music, your source of audio content, or you're a signal processor. And so if you wanted to be a producer, if you wanted to make music, you need to know how to take both of those things and put them together yourself, usually with a DAW. Like there is no standalone experience where you can produce a song without taking audio content from somewhere, whether you recorded it through a microphone or got it from Splice or got it from Loop Masters. Or generated it on Udio and then you have to put it in a DAW. Like even Udio and Suno don't really let you like produce. And if you go into their Discord channels, it's hilarious because it's a bunch of producers complaining about like the sonic quality and I can't get the stems out and I can't like change this thing and that thing. But if you look on their homepage, they're positioned as like everyone's gonna be a musician. Everyone's gonna wanna make music. But that's not making music. Making music is like the pain a little bit, you know, where you're kind of mixing and matching things together. It's like putting together a puzzle, right? It's a 10,000 piece puzzle. Now someone's like, hey, don't worry. You don't have to put that puzzle together. I have the whole puzzle as like a picture and you can just hang it on the wall. Everyone can be a puzzle maker. And you're like, didn't put that puzzle together, you know? So I don't feel like I did that, right? And people love putting puzzles together. Have you met a puzzle person? They love putting puzzles together. So I like, I think it's really tricky, but it's possible with the tools we have now to just like strike a balance between a technical tool that gives you the feeling that you're in the driver's seat, but is way easier than everything on the market now. Even BandLab, like shout out to BandLab, epic, epic business. And the fact that they have lowered the barrier on like a dog experience so much.
Jakob
Mm-hmm.
Antony
But still, most of what people use BandLab for is recording vocals. So they get a beat from somewhere else, and then they record vocals over it, right? So what I want to do is basically make like a BandLab type experience for people who want to produce, who want to feel like they're producing. And in my opinion, that is a very intentional, but kind of simplified version of loop based production, which is how we got here in the first place.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
And I'm excited about it because I think if you can like if you can be the audio source and the signal processor and give people a paint by numbers experience and maybe even have like a chat bot co-pilot, which is something that we're exploring doing where you can do production functions, but you don't have to learn how to actually do them. You will feel the feeling you get in a recording studio, which like I, for example, don't produce. But when I'm in a studio with someone, I get to creative direct and it's super fun. I just like sit there and I listen to stuff and I say, like maybe we should try this. And then an engineer does it. I mean, that's a lot of recording sessions are like that. If you don't believe me, watch YouTube videos of recording sessions. That's how it goes. Even Pharrell and Timbaland, right? They're not playing everything. They're certainly not engineering. They're in the back seat. And then there's a guy in the front seat. What's that guy doing? You know, that's the experience. Like for a lot of producers, that's the experience. Certainly for Rick Rubin, that dude doesn't play or produce or make anything, you know? That's the experience we want to simulate through the software.
Jakob
No, think that makes a lot of sense for me. think there's always been people like that, like Rick Rubin, that sort of facilitates the creation of music. And I believe that the generation of creators to come, that's gonna be much more prevalent. And I also believe that's gonna be the ones who will see the most realistic chance of success. Because at the end of the day, telling great stories is a very holistic thing. It is a very catered, facilitated thing. And very rarely do you see in one person the capability of doing everything. And I don't want to take anything away from that, but oftentimes the specialists in storytelling are the generalists, if that makes sense, which is oftentimes the most captivating thing. So I agree to that, and I think your value proposition is very clear. One of the things that sort of, I don't know if it confuses me, but intrigues me is you, as you speak about your company and your own journey and sort of where you believe music is going and what you want to create, you speak very much from a value perspective for people and their creation. I would like to understand more, let's say the more of the capitalistic intentions you have with this company. Like, why do you believe this is potential? Like, why is it? worth for investors to invest in you and you to spend your time. And I know your fiance is also an entrepreneur that probably works in more attractive spaces than you like on paper. So why are you even interested in pursuing this beyond the satisfaction of helping people create?
Antony
Well, first of all, selfishly, purely selfishly, but not financially, just kind of like for me. I've been trying to, I actually haven't, I haven't been trying to work on anything non-music related. I've been trying to build something in the music space that's a sustainable business that can grow. And that is a Rubik's cube and a half. Ask any other music tech entrepreneur out there, you know, just in the music space. And there's a lot of people like me, you know, that have a relationship with music, whether you're a fan or a musician or somewhere in between, and you want to work on stuff you care about. So like for me personally, I just love talking about this stuff. I mean, you could hear it in my voice. I love talking about it. And I've been talking about it my whole life. And I don't see anything wrong with that. What's difficult is to build a sustainable business in music. Right? And What's interesting about the music industry is it breaks up into these large chunks if you're inside it. But if you're on the outside of it, it all kind of blends together. Right. Like most people think music and they think, you know, Taylor Swift and Drake and whatever happens in between. Right. But if you know about the music business, there's like different verticals where you can make money. Right. You can have concerts. You can make records and, you know, song right. And get streaming royalties. You can be an artist and then you can also sell merch and products. And then you can build software and hardware around the music creation process. And so I'm in that last bucket, right? And I've been in all those other buckets too. I'm in this last bucket partially because I think if you're my age and you're not trying to build software, around your passion area, then you're missing an opportunity because I think like all the biggest leaps in innovation right now are all kind of like, you know, either software related or another technology, right? Like biotech or like sustainable energy or something like that. there's every generation has these gold rushes and certainly software is, is our gold rush in a way. So in my very simplistic calculation for me personally on what I want to work on.
Antony
It's like software plus passion point, which is music for me because, you know, my mom saw me mess around with like banging on stuff and playing on our piano and was like, you're going to music school. And then I didn't even think about that until I was like 17 and was like, do I go to conservatory now? And then decided not to, but you know, I was like set on that path. not, everybody has that. but, you know, financially, like if we're talking about the financial opportunity here, and this is where it gets like a little dark, but with a silver lining, I think right now we're entering a weird time. And I think a lot of us feel this way, where loneliness is on the rise, isolation's on the rise, people's anxiety from passive social media consumption is a problem. Then you have robotics and automation, like, AI in not writing and project management, software development as a whole, like these large chunks of labor that might be partially or wholly automated. That's gonna mean a lot of people have a lot of free time on their hands, more free time on their hands, voluntary or involuntary. And so I think productive hobbies are gonna be really important for the world.
Jakob
Mm.
Antony
And I think we're entering an age where most people who are Gen Z and I think when Gen Alpha becomes like teenagers or later will also realize this, this isn't healthy for me. And I have to disengage from TikTok and Instagram for a hot second and like see if I can maybe get into something else. And that is creating a ton of pent up demand for productive, soul soothing things to fill up your time. And do know how I know that's true for music production? Our organic search traffic. We get a ton of it. You know, there's, think, I think chat GPT has really like blown people's imagination open where everyone's expectation of what software can do is like sky high now. It didn't used to be like that. Know, Steve Jobs used to say, don't ask people what they want. They can't possibly imagine what's possible. Give them what they need, you know?
Jakob
Thanks.
Antony
Now it's the opposite. It's like people think, well, because chat GPT is real and like AGI is around the corner, which like it is not depending on how you define AGI, but like they think that the sci-fi future is right around the corner. Then like flying cars are running around the corner and software can automate anything that a human could do digitally. Right. But we, on this side, trying to build some of that software are like, yeah, there are certain things that are, that have gotten way easier to automate and certain things that haven't. You know, and there's real technical barriers to this stuff that most average people wouldn't appreciate. You know, AI models are only as good as their training data. So if you can build a functional AI model from scraping the internet, cool. You're going to have like a good output, but if there is no publicly available data for whatever function or feature you want to build, it ain't happening for a while because if I tell you, I need, a million. High quality wave stems that are hand labeled, where are you gonna get, that's by the way what I want. Yeah, if anybody has that data set, yeah, we'll pay top dollar for that. But it doesn't exist, which is why we started making one, right? And it's like, it takes us a while to make that. We're talking about producing original music for the sake of creating this AI powered music production experience. So.
Jakob
Thanks. In.
Antony
Like I think it's a huge opportunity. Think there's a ton of people who want to create music. I do agree with the premise that Suno and Udiio fly under this banner of like, there's a lot of people who want to be musicians. I do agree with that. I don't think it's everyone, but I think for some people they want to actually have the experience of creating music. And those people still don't have a tool that makes it more accessible, right? Like what they really want is they want CHAP GPT to take over Ableton or Logic.
Jakob
Mm-hmm.
Antony
And they want to just, and also like, you know, pull in a splice automation and those things are just like difficult to build and technically, legally, there's a bunch of like reasons. So I think it's fun. First of all, I think it's complicated, which I like, my brain likes to try to work on a complicated thing. I think it needs to exist and I think somebody will build it and I want to be the guy to build it with my team.
Jakob
Mm.
Antony
And I think it's a big opportunity and the you financially speaking like there's plenty of technologies that seem super cool and aren't real businesses and investors spend a lot of time trying to figure out Which is which right because there's a lot of really cool tech that doesn't turn into a good business I think the reason why what we're building is a good business is because once you catch that bug for creating and We become an indispensable part of your creative workflow you're gonna keep using it. Mean, like, Philip's been using Pro Tools for 20 years. He ain't going nowhere. It's just that people don't like Avid and Pro Tools as a business model because it's like, that's a really niche product for a really small audience. Well, what if it was a slightly less niche product for a slightly bigger audience? That's the place we're at right now with music creation. But I don't think the text to music stuff is gonna nail it, and I think the reason why it's gotten so much attention is because people forget that music producers and creators are doing it for the process. They're not doing it for the outcome. But you might think, as a music fan, that everyone's just trying to be famous like Calvin Harris or Taylor Swift. You know, because that's what you see. But Calvin Harrison really likes producing music, and Taylor Swift really likes songwriting. And that's mostly what they're doing. And the reason why they...
Jakob
Mm.
Jakob
Hmm.
Antony
Have had the careers they've had as they continue to deliver that, right? So I don't think most of our users are probably not gonna be like the people who wanna be Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift. They might, some of them might start with us and then quickly graduate and go towards that journey, but the people who are gonna stay and keep using it are people who are there for the process and the fun of it and the hobby of it. And I do think that's gonna be a really big business opportunity.
Jakob
Thanks.
Jakob
Hmm.
Jakob
You had an extremely interesting point that I haven't heard formulated that way before and that is the reaction to social media and how people will be looking for hobbies or things to fill their time with that is stimulating them in a better way. One of the things that I found really interesting in me and my wife and my friends around me is like I have almost not been on social media for a year. And I've been actually thinking about like a lot these last few days. And that is like, why is it me and my friends, my family is no longer there? And I think it's, know, subconsciously, subconsciously a counter reaction to many, many years of exposure, fatigue, also you have kids and your time becomes more precious. But what I do find myself using more time on is more stimulating activities. Like I try to look for sports much more than I did before. I try to work out much more before. I try to get this high in life more than before because my time is more precious, but also I'm just fed up with what was. And I think especially as AI is becoming more and prevalent and... Media is going to be harder to trust and already now it's pretty insane actually how much of my feed is just AI generated. I think people are going to look for other alternatives to get this rush or find hobbies and interests. And I totally agree and I like your formulation of that because that's something I haven't been able to get from a lot of my conversations like where's that unique thing? And I do think you hit it right on the spot is it's going to be a want, a need to spend their time better, to feel better about the time they spend outside of work and where they need to feel like they have rest or fun or stimuli. So I think that's really interesting. And I think that's actually, I would say, the best argument I've heard so far of why this might be a growing market.
Jakob
There's been many arguments and I've heard most of them, but I believe that to be the best. So thank you for delivering that exactly. But back to sort of the financials of your company, can you tell me a bit about your financing journey and sort of how you've made this grow and what do you believe it's going? Like what are the investors or owners that are part of this process? Like what do you believe they will get out of it?
Antony
Yeah, so we, you know, we've all three of us, so we have our CTO, Maciej, all three of us used to work for other companies, right? This was our first venture-backed software business. And Philip, our chief music officer, was a professional and still is, professional film composer and producer. So he's never worked for a company, right? And, you know, we've learned a lot along the way in terms of business. So I spent 10 years in basically music partnerships. Like I helped brands navigate the music industry. Everything from licensing music and doing music supervision for commercials to sponsoring festivals or doing a deal with an artist. You know that's what I used to do and I'd work for these big brands, know, Coca Cola, American Express, Nintendo, Procter & Gamble, like huge brands. And so when I first set out on my entrepreneurial journey, again, I was like, my passion area plus some way that I could make money, you know, and we started a music production company and Philip was my partner in that business. And that was a small service business, right? Like people would hire us to make music for television, film, advertising. Because of my background, also did music strategy, music consulting, mostly with brands to help brands do culture marketing around music. And we just realized that was gonna be a bit of a slog in terms of a business. It can't grow, I mean, it can't even grow linearly, right? Because things are changing so quickly. So it's not even, you know. It's not even growing like this. It's like this, right? Because the media landscape is different every other year. So we were looking for an opportunity to build something that we thought was scalable. And because we're not very creative, the first idea we had was an AI-generated epidemic sounds. That was like our first idea. Because we were just knee-deep in licensing.
Antony
Right. And we knew a bunch of brands and agencies and a lot of them were complaining about how it's hard to adapt library music to video. So me and Philip were like, that's the idea. And, you know, we created this methodology and this core tech largely to do like automated scoring, which is also why we did a loop based approach because we needed to license that music to those customers. So we couldn't use generated media because, you know, ad agencies and film studios and all that, they can't buy that stuff. Because by the way, folks, if you're listening, no matter what an AI generator tells you, you don't own that output. No one owns that output. They have marketing language that says, you own it, it's yours. But the US Copyright Office says, you don't own it. And so you can't sell it to other people. You technically can't even monetize it. But Spotify doesn't care about you yet. But they might, you know? So anyway, that's an aside. We can talk about that later. Quick copyright lesson. But...
Jakob
you
Antony
Anyway, long story short, that's how we started, right? And then, you know, I didn't know anything about like, venture scale businesses versus non venture scale businesses. And then as we've gone along this journey, and as any founder will tell you, and as any investor will tell you, this topic comes up over and over again. And one thing that's really eye opening to me that I tell all of my corporate friends who want to quit their corporate job and start a business, is I'm like, you have to know that there are different types of businesses out there. Your first inclination is gonna be like, I did blank for 10 years, so I will start a small business doing that very same thing. And you don't think about the market dynamics at all, because you never had to think about market dynamics, because you're not in the C-suite. So all you do is you do your job, right? Market dynamics are very important, both in terms of how competitive your market is and where it's headed. And we didn't think that much about it at the beginning, right? Because we're flirting. Well. You know, some years later through trial and error, we learned that, you know, investors like going into big markets, right? And then we didn't, we didn't take that decision lightly. I wanna be really clear about that because I think so many founders take that decision lightly and they go, you know what? I'm gonna shoot for the moon so I can get the VC dollars, right? And I have. I have, I was fortunate enough, like I'm a little older, you know, that I'm not, didn't start like my first startup in my twenties. Like I worked in corporate for 15 years. So I have a lot of friends who have already built businesses who have taken venture money, who haven't taken venture money. And I talked to them before this, right. And I got a large swath of different experiences, both positive and negative about what it means to take money from an investor who expects you to scale. At a breakneck rate. And I think, you know, we have really great investors, we actually do have some venture firms on the cap table, but we've been really honest with them about what we're building and what we think the opportunity is. And they've been really helpful at telling us like, how we can maximize and orient our effort into a bigger market without imploding. Because I think a lot of times what happens is like companies implode.
Antony
Trying to capture some massive market or like rush into something without true product market fit and then get buried by like a zillion other companies, right? And you're seeing that all over in the AI space. This is like looking a lot like web three did where, know, there's a lot of money thrown at Chad GPT wrappers. Then Sam Altman came out and said, sorry, Chad GPT wrapper startups. I'm gonna keep changing these models.
Jakob
Thanks
Antony
And you're gonna be going out of business. And so then investors are like, you don't wanna invest in that anymore. And so then people invested in foundational models. Then they were like, wait, you don't wanna invest in financial models because they're easy to replicate. Yeah, no duh. If it's public training data, all you need is cheap compute and an internet scraper. And guess what? Compute gets cheaper all the time. Anyway, so we've been very careful about like, how we plan this course and we didn't take it lightly, but we did decide that we wanted to go after this music creation opportunity. It's something that I was actually apprehensive about at first because I'm a B2B guy. That's like the place I come from and I know how to make money there, right? And actually like to your point about how we've grown it, lot of the reason why we haven't had to take so much investment in and sell so much of our business away. Is because we've been using the core tech to solve small niche challenges in creative content production and monetize that and then reinvest it in this creator tool, which is like a harder thing to get up and running. So we do service a few niche use cases around sonic branding, particularly, and also adding music to video at scale for advertising. And we've also done a handful of brand partnerships where we build creative music tools as part of a campaign. We did one with Boy Wanda and Bacardi, which was really fun. We did one with Sprite and Take a Day Trip, which is a production duo that did most of Lil Nas X's early hits. So those are the kind of things that we've been doing and reinvesting those dollars into the creator tool. While also, and also like, you we have raised money, we have outside investors as well. And I think like they all agree that this is a big opportunity. No one disagrees on that. No investor I've ever talked to disagrees on that. I think most investors that we've talked to break up into two categories. You either know something about music and media, and then you're asking these questions about like,
Antony
What is a signal that you're pulling out ahead that you have some traction that your users validate that you have built something that hasn't existed before that you're pulling out ahead of all these other tools out there. And like I said, most of the tools are generating audio or signal processing. And what I'm trying to do is have both so I can simulate a paint by numbers experience, but it'll look like a DAW and give you the like creative experience of a DAW. And no one's really cracked that yet. And we're later this year, we're going to be rolling out some really cool stuff in that direction. And any of our competitors watching, you're not going have the time to develop this because we've been at it for like a couple of years. But I think everybody agrees that it's a big opportunity. And I think the investors who understand music and media, creative media and creative tooling, right, because those guys were investing in the creator economy five, six years ago. So they understand creative tools. They understand Descript, they understand CapCut, and we're trying to build like the Canva or CapCut of music and Suno and Urio aren't that. Okay. And like all of these production features that they cobble onto that model will fall short because the sonic quality is not there and the composition quality is not there. And they're also getting sued. So that also kind of a problem. Then there's the other investors, which like we have a harder time working with and we haven't really taken any money from that side. Who don't know enough about media, entertainment and music. And so they're really flying blind. They're like, the music business is $20 billion. How does this disrupt that? And you're like, no, dude, it doesn't. The music creation ecosystem, there's a trickle into the major music business, but the major music business is largely a marketing and distribution business. They build brands there. They're like a, they're like a venture studio. They're like, you know, they basically incubate brands. They happen to have music as like one of the product attributes. So those guys, I think we're looking for a chat GPT for music. And I think made a couple bets here and there. And I don't know how they feel about those now, but like, I think some people think that like,
Antony
These lawsuits are gonna go the technology way. And I'm just here to say on record that it's not gonna go that way. And music anyway, it might go that it'll, it probably will go that way in writing, right? Because like book publishers are just not organized enough or powerful enough. It might go that way. I don't know what's gonna happen with like video, but certainly movie IP is very well protected. I mean, the like movie rights are protected, okay? Like try uploading a chunk of a popular movie on YouTube and see what happens. And so for all the tech community to be like, big tech is coming for everything. YouTube plays very nicely with the music industry and the movie industry. They don't mess around. They're not training on any of that stuff. Like they built a model, actually. They trained on a bunch of scraped music. Then they showed it to the music industry in private. And we're like, what do you think about this? And then now they're like incubating little ideas with permission. You know, so the idea that some company that's independently funded with no relationship with the music industry is going to come in and disrupt anything is hilarious because the music industry is just three companies and two of them are run by, you know, like a father and son. So I guess it's not Warner's not run, but you know, Atlantic under Warner. There's like, there's basically just
Jakob
Yeah.
Antony
A small group that moves in sequence and often in silence. And the RIA is just like a group of lawyers that is like doing their bidding. And the whole thing is just not big enough for the government to care. So if you wanted to go and change legislation around it, it's just like not worth it for the government to do. So I think whatever happens with this like fair use conversation is probably gonna go the way of the music industry for music. So roundabout way of saying, I think it's a big opportunity in terms of like hobbyists and tooling. If we can create a product that gives them the positive dopamine hit. And most investors I talked to agree with the opportunity. It's just that some understand what that means in terms of like a product, and what makes a good product capture that opportunity, which is creative tools. People are gonna be working, like using these for hours and hours. And then there's other people who are like, everyone wants to be Taylor Swift. And that's just like a fundamental misunderstanding of the music business.
Jakob
I think the sort of the takeaway I take from this episode is actually quite different than usual. Am a, when it comes to music industry potential and music businesses, I'm a pessimist. But what I take from this conversation that is actually quite unique for this conversation is you're a very convincing founder. And I do want to comment that beyond like the compliment itself, which is not worth much, but it's more of reflection. A person like me that understands the industry, I would say pretty well and knows the nuances of businesses and potential. When I look on the surface level on your business model, I'm skeptical just because it is very hot in some degree. Like it's very sexy. And for me, I per default, straight away from that. But then when I hear you talk about your journey, your product, your conviction, I'm also reminded by, even when things are crowded, even when things I believe is oversaturated in conversation, there's still validity if you have the right matching between conviction, capability, founder, and business model. And you might be something here that actually surprised me, which is I care to listen to you. Which is, think, a really good learning for me going out of this episode is that's such a thing I just can't miss when I look at objectively at things. Even when you have things that you should protect with the or objectively perceive to be over-saturated, there are still things that will win in that space. I'm not saying necessarily that's going to be Truny, but I'm saying that spending an hour with a very critical person like myself to your model and actually see it at the end of the day like, no, I agree. I believe when you say it's a big opportunity, I believe when you say that this is something that's worth pursuing, not just from passion and impact, but also from consumer change, how people are gonna act differently, how people are gonna want to spend money on something. And I think that's what I leave this conversation with, that I cannot and I should not forget that the combination of model and founders,
Jakob
Is essential for success even in what seems to be an oversaturated conversation. Does it make sense? So it's a sort of a weird compliment, but.
Antony
Yeah, appreciate you saying that. No, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I think what it makes me think of is even though I'll take the compliment and value it, you know, I think that startups and funding and the whole like there's just like a allure to building software businesses, especially if you can convince someone to give you a few million dollars or more to do it. And I think when we first got into that space, I'll be honest with you, like, no one is immune to that. And so when you when you are not from that world, and you go, my God, like I have some friends who are building tech and they're like raising millions of dollars. You know, it sounds alluring and sexy and you want to do it. And then you get in there and you see some bad actors who don't really build good product, don't really have a vision for building a sustainable business, but are really epic at fundraising and pitching and saying whatever needs to be said. And then they get that money. And then like, sometimes it actually works out for them and they get lucky. And you go, that must be the process. And so when I first started down that journey, like this was kind of the first six, six to 12 months. And then I very quickly realized like, those are anomalies inside anomalies inside anomalies. Like that is very, very rare that actually works for anyone. More likely if you can align what you believe, with what you're working on, you have a way better shot, as long as you continue to collect new information and change your thesis. And, you know, there were times when like an investor who is less informed than me about our space would give me an in a would give me a suggestion. And I'd be like, maybe they're right. And I would actually act on it. And that burned me. And I was like, I need to have a lot of conviction about what I'm you know, what I know, especially as
Antony
You know, we've been at it for like four years now and I've learned an insane amount. What's crazy now is the reason why I can convey what I'm telling you with so much conviction is because I actually believe it, which I know is a novel thing. I'm not that good of a bullshitter. You can ask my friends, like I only get this excited if I actually believe it. I'm definitely also cynical like you and very much a truth seeker. But I think if cynical people can get behind something, you know how that feels. That feels very powerful. You're like, I never get excited about anything. So this is really, really important. And that's how I feel now. And it's definitely taken some twists and turns to get there. But I have very clear belief in the fact that this needs to exist. We have a path to get there. Like we kind of have learned along the way. I know that We've changed our mind on a lot of things and what's crazy about that process and other founders will be able to relate to this. You see other people who are like a few steps behind you making these predictions that you made and then you learned that those were wrong and then you kind of evolved your thesis but they still haven't right and so I'm like you know don't want to say I'm two steps ahead of everyone but I see I'm two steps ahead of a couple people in our space and you know, and I think like, as you learn more and more about people, what people want, which, you know, it's not surprising that like, Jeff Bezos, with his just like maniacal obsession with the customer need, has one of the biggest businesses in the world. You, you know, you develop conviction when you hear people ask for a very particular thing, and then you build it and they go, Yeah, this is great. And then you see your metrics go up, you know, like, well, you could actually do that. You're like, well, I don't have to, like, I have to feel anxious about trying to like beef up my numbers because it's actually working. You know, so now I'm just like addicted to that. I'm like, if it's not working, then I don't care. Like I don't want to dress it up. I'd much rather just figure out a different thing that will be working because when it does, it's a drastically different feeling, you know? And so that's kind of how I've developed my conviction around all this stuff over time. And I'm not saying we're out of the woods yet. I think we're still very much on the path, but what's
Antony
Making me very excited is that no one's cracked it and it's pretty wide open. Even and the irony is that if you're if you're the uninitiated and you don't know the space very well, you might think it's like super crowded. Tell me one company that's like that you think is an either an epic business or an epic product. You know, I do think like Suno and Udio are epic products. So like, let's give them their due. But I but that's just like not the use case I'm interested in personally. That's like
Jakob
Mm.
Antony
I don't get super stoked about that. If you could make that legal for licensing, that would be a nice medium sized business. Like if you could make like a fully generative shutter stock, okay. But again, not something I'm super stoked at. So yeah, I appreciate you saying it, but I wasn't always like this, you know, and I'm like.
Jakob
No, and that's a journey and that's sort of a journey I think all founders will be on. As they perfect communication, a conviction is a big part of it. Anthony, it's been a pleasure listening to you and your conviction and where you see this is going. And I'm definitely looking at a few things a bit differently after this conversation, so I do appreciate that. And I do hope that Chunie is going to do well. I reached out in the first place because you guys did a partnership with SoundCloud, I thought was incredibly interesting. So I see that you guys are finding your foothold in the wider industry and data adaptation. So I applaud you for that and applaud you for the mission you have. Anthony, thank you so much for being on.
Antony
Thank you for having me, really enjoyed it.
