Episode: 79: Inside Musiversal with Co-Founder Xavier Jameson

What if your next song could jump from idea to radio‑ready with world‑class musicians in the time it takes to finish a coffee? We sit down with Musiversal Co‑Founder and Chief Growth Officer, Xavier Jameson, to unpack a model that flips the remote studio on its head: live, unlimited sessions with a curated roster of elite players and engineers, all inside one membership.

Xavier walks us through the workflow that makes the difference. You browse a handpicked roster, book in a couple of clicks, join the live session, direct performances in real time, and get files minutes later. Because every session is designed for efficiency—pre‑session prep, clear references, and seasoned pros who nail takes—the 35‑minute format routinely delivers multiple full passes and overdubs without the usual back‑and‑forth. We dig into why kindness is a selection criterion, how low‑ego collaboration unlocks better takes, and the way this approach helps creators finish more music without blowing their budgets.

We also go big: real orchestras via a white‑glove, shared‑session model with partners like the Grammy Award Winning Czech National Symphony Orchestra; simple, creator‑first rights with 100% ownership; and a growing suite for release and growth that includes marketing advice, cover design, and video editing. Xavier shares a pragmatic view on AI—useful for speeding up tasks like mixing and prep—while keeping the human session as the heart of the creative process. And with the Musiverse community hosting workshops, masterclasses, and songwriting camps, creators gain not only access to talent but a place to learn, connect, and thrive.

If you care about finishing better songs faster, collaborating with the best, and keeping ownership clear, this episode is for you. Subscribe, share with a fellow creator who needs a boost, and leave a review.

https://musiversal.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Mission
• 0:50 Meet Musiversal And Xavier
• 4:10 How The Subscription Works
• 8:20 Quality, Efficiency, And Kindness
• 15:20 Beyond Production: Marketing And Growth
• 18:47 Recording Orchestras The Smart Way
• 24:25 Rights And Work‑For‑Hire Clarity
• 26:44 The Future Of Remote Creation And Community
• 33:05 AI As A Tool, Humans As The Heart
• 39:20 Why 35‑Minute Live Sessions Work

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:12

Hello everybody and a warm welcome to you. You're listening to the music business, buddy, with me, Johnny Ayman, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book, The Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback, and ebook format. I'm a music creator as a writer-producer with various different credits. I'm a consultant, an artist manager, and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, please consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. In this week's episode, I am joined by Xavier Jameson, co-founder and chief growth officer of Musiversal. Now, you guys, you may have heard me talk about Musiversal before. I'm a big champion of what they do. If anybody's not familiar with Musiversal and the Musiverse, which Xavier will talk about shortly, uh Musiverse is a subscription service for music creators that provides remote live collaboration with professional session musicians, mixing and mastering engineers, and other music professionals. I just want to point out, by the way, everybody, they are not paying me to talk about them, right? And I don't ask them to either. I talk about them because I think they're absolutely superb. Uh, they make things affordable and worthwhile and professional for everybody. They really make a great level in the playing field. Uh, subscribers can book unlimited live real-time sessions, direct musicians, and also receive high-quality files within minutes after the session ends. The service aims to make high-quality music production and collaboration affordable and accessible by connecting musicians and engineers to music creators from anywhere around the world through remote video sessions. Now, you know, when you look at the sort of the top of the company uh and you look at someone like Xavier, you know, who is an expert in his field and you know, studied at Cambridge, he's a composer, a pianist himself. Everybody, let me tell you something. He cares about what he does, right? And he's a brilliant at it. So I really wanted to speak to him today, right? And shine a light on the company and and and also for a chance for him to talk about you know where the idea came from, where he wants it to head in the future, and uh and what you know what what changes there are in the landscape of the remote uh marketplace uh and what their platform does and how unique it is to them. So I shall hand over to the interviewee, Xavier. Take note, everybody. I hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. Here we go. Xavier, welcome to the music business buddy. Uh it's good to have you here. How are you?

SPEAKER_00: 2:57

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. It's uh it's a real pleasure to be here. And and by the way, also props to you for the podcast and being such a helpful voice in the in the music industry. Um I've I've heard a few mentions of Musaversal in some of your previous episodes, and one of them was actually with one of our musicians, uh Rich Watson. So thanks for that. And I'm really excited to talk about what we've created and why it matters for uh all the musicians out there listening today. Oh, good for you. Oh, well, thanks for saying that.

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

That's really nice. And um, you know, we have a mutual uh love of Rich Watson there. I hope he's I hope he's listening to this episode so he can hear that. Hi, Rich. Um, so first off, you know, I just want to start by saying this because it's very important that, you know, a big congratulations, right, on on building, you know, such an impressive and very pioneering platform that the world needed, right? Um, you know, and the company has a model that feels unique, you know, in the remote marketplace because of how instant it is. Um, just for the benefit of anybody that hasn't heard me talk about Musiversal before, and if there are music creators that are, you know, that are interested in the services, would you mind just kind of briefly explaining how the process works?

SPEAKER_00: 4:09

Absolutely. So at its heart, uh, what Musiversal enables for music creators is the power and magic of real-time collaboration with world-class musicians and making that accessible and affordable to the everyday music creator. So it's a bit like you can think of it like having a modern-day wrecking crew who are in the studio ready to record your music, but adapted for the modern day, uh, using the technology we have today to make those musicians available to you wherever you are and at any time you need them. So, as a member, the way that it works is you browse our roster of audition musicians, uh, choose who you'd like to work with, you book a session uh in a couple of clicks on their calendars, send your song materials, like a backing track, for example, and then join the session via live stream. And the session is a whole thing in itself. So maybe we can chat about that and how it goes in a bit more depth a bit later on. But yeah, after the session's done, you get your files a few minutes later. So simply put, you just browse, book, attend the session, get your files, and repeat. And uh yeah, one of the best parts is it's all included in a single membership. So there's no a la carte pricing or surprise costs. You just pay one monthly rate and have unlimited access to these live sessions with these musicians. And that means you can just stay creative uh without worrying about budget. Um, as for what you can actually get done with Musiversal, so like the actual instruments and services you have access to, you can really go from idea to mastered record. And that was our first goal, really. So imagine that you're someone who has a song idea in its very infancy, let's say it's a voice memo right now, and you want to take it to radio ready. So you could begin with a kickstart session uh to get guidance on where to start or which musicians you could book or which order you should do the instrument recordings in. You could even go back a step actually to meet and greet, which is where you can just uh get to know some of the musicians that you're eyeing up to get to know them better and decide if you really want to book with them. Um and then you might do a songwriting session. Um so this is with a talented songwriter. That's actually a co-writing session where they can craft uh lyrics, melodies, harmonies, song structure, etc. Um, and then you can move to pre-production. So that's where you can get all of your charts and things made up. So you know, core charts, uh, which our session musicians can use, and those will be industry standard. Um, so even if you're someone who already makes those, it might save you time, um, or it will just be done to a really high standard that R session musicians are really useful. So that will actually make the session much more efficient and go even better. Um, and then after that, that's the whole pre-production side, let's say. Um, and then there's the main core of Musiversal, which is the recording sessions. So that's where you can access over a hundred different instruments from drums to cello, vocals, uh, rap, trumpet, ooze, really anything that you can um think of, really. And then once the recording part's done, you can work with um our audio engineers on editing or tuning. Um, and finally mixing and mastering as well. So Musiversal really covers that entire creative journey from inspiration to finished release. Um and that's just for one song as well. You know, you're not actually just limited to one song at a time because it's an unlimited membership. So that's what we call it, unlimited. Um, so you don't just have to pick one idea to work on. Um, you know, that would be like choosing your favorite child, which um a lot of creators have to do because making a song with top-tier musicians or in studios is expensive and time consuming. Um, you get to explore your whole catalogue, you know, finish your old demos, start a new song, or even just be creative and um chase inspiration in the moment. So it's really a freeing experience. You're not limited anymore. You're free to create as much as you like, when you like, without limit. So, yeah, that's really how it works. And really, all of the juice, like I said, and what what we do uniquely is in that live session.

SPEAKER_02: 8:03

Wow, that's so inspiring. I mean, um, I think it, you know, in an age where music creators have so many different options, I think one of the things that's easily overlooked and forgotten is the power of having other humans perform on there with you in real time. And when if you kind of have that and then you've kind of got like all this pressures around kind of you know, carbon footprint and things like that, what you've created there is something that's uniquely powerful to be able to kind of offset those two things from each other. Also, your approach um you know is kind of different, right, from other platforms, in as much as that you have a very high standard uh as to what you expect from the professionals that can be hired on the platform. Um, so the kind of there's a sort of a level of solicitation and reliability um that that ensures this kind of consistently high standard, was that always kind of a part of the company's mission from the original idea?

SPEAKER_00: 9:07

For sure, yeah. I mean, we decided this from the start for so many reasons. I mean, first, really simply, if you're someone who's making music, and let's say uh you need a drummer and you have two options. You have uh a decent drummer who you know is down the road, or the best drummer in the world, it's a no-brainer, right? You choose the best drummer in the world because you want your music to be the best that it can be. Uh, you just want the best. So that's the first thing. Um, I but it also goes deeper than that. You know, it's actually more efficient as well to have world-class uh musician recording for you because they can just nail it, um, often on the first take. Um why does efficiency matter? Well, you can get more done uh faster, and that's especially important if you're working to deadlines, but also the musician's time is being used more effectively, which makes the whole model more affordable. Um, there's a media study on what are the biggest challenges that music creators face. And the third and fourth biggest challenges are lack of time to create and lack of financial resources. So efficiency and affordability are really important problems to solve for music creators. And actually, that was one of the hardest things for us to get right. So, in the very beginning, uh, we launched more of a traditional marketplace, so something a bit more similar to the likes of Soundbetter and AirGigs. Um, and we hired really high-quality musicians. But what happened there is even if you bring in world-class musicians, they have to charge a lot for each session because every job is time consuming. So without the efficiency part of it, you can't change the marketplace economics. Um, and this level of talent just remains prohibitively expensive and out of reach for the everyday music creator. So we had to design a whole model around efficiency. Um, and with Musiversal, you can what you can do in a 35-minute session might easily take five hours on a typical marketplace simply because there's no structure, no model around driving efficiency. Um, and and those five hours of work will demand a much higher price point from the musician to make it worthwhile for them. So if you make sessions efficient and you pay musicians uh stable monthly incomes, which is something that we do as well, then that's what makes Musaversal a factor of five or or even a factor of 10 times more affordable than the alternatives. Um, also, I'd say that quality is important for other reasons as well. It's more enjoyable, right? You're in a virtual session who's a master at work, and that experience is inspiring in itself. You learn things, you grow as a musician just by being part of that process. And when we talk about quality, it's not just musicianship or technical ability. Another massive part is kindness. Uh, we're very intentional about finding musicians who are just a joy to work with, people who are humble, collaborative, completely in service of your music. So that's a huge part of our selection process. And I think what makes the experience so special. And finally, it just removes the guesswork. I mean, you said it yourself. Well, if you look at the likes of Fiverr, for example, it's great for access, but you have to spend hours scrolling through thousands of profiles. Everyone works differently, they have different rules, different prices, different numbers of revisions, varying levels of experience, and so on. So instead of wondering who's good and who's not, or who you can afford and who you can't, um, on Musiversal, you can just relax and know that every single musician is going to be incredible. So that whole risk, that whole uncertainty is gone. So, yeah, I mean, quality is completely integral to everything we do. And the roster we have, the quality of the musicians, both as players and people, are for sure the best thing uh about Musaversal. And I'm I'm super proud of the amazing work they do every day and you know the attitude and the heart that they bring to the company.

SPEAKER_02: 12:44

Good for you. Wow, that's a brilliant answer. Um, very, very inspiring. I love by the way, I love it what you said there about kindness as well. Um, it can be so easy to overlook that. Let's face it, this is this is a people-based business, you know. The technology's changed a lot of things, but it hasn't changed that, and I don't think it ever will. You know, this is a a people-based business where people work with other people, rely on other people, and bring the best out of other people. Um, and you, you know, you're making that happen.

SPEAKER_00: 13:16

Yeah, and and making music, writing songs is a deeply personal experience. Um, and it can often be where you're bringing your vulnerability. Um, and you know, for a lot of new members, we we actually learned that it took them a while to actually sign up to Musaversal because they were intimidated by the idea of recording with world-class musicians. Um, and it can be intimidating. Um and so that's just another reason why that kindness element, that lack of ego, uh is such an important trait to bring, and it's probably the thing that our members say the most is they they form genuine friendships. Uh, we have even members going around the world to meet some of our musicians, um, and vice versa. Um, there's a real sense of community, and it's because of that lack of ego, it's left at the door, if there even is one to begin with. The musician deeply cares about the person on the other end of the screen and what they're trying to do with the song and not trying to force their own uh their own, you know, force their own outcome uh for the song. It's not about them and it's not not about uh what they want to force into the song, it's about realizing the music creator's vision, and and you need a degree of empathy and kindness uh to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02: 14:27

Absolutely right. That's that's overlooked sometimes. Well, not certainly not by your good self and the whole team, um, but kindness allows thoughtfulness, and thoughtfulness enhances musicality if people are kind of tuning into do you know what part you want here? If you don't, I can get creative, but if you do, I'll nail it for you. You know, it's very difficult to get that on somewhere like Sound Better where there's less accountability to it, you know. Um, you you have a you know a very wide range of of music professionals that you know are available to contribute to that recording process. Um, but I also noticed that you also have like a kind of um in-house marketing expert. Um, is is kind of business and marketing advice, is that an area that you're looking to expand into for customers?

SPEAKER_00: 15:20

Yeah, so our main focus really until this year was to build the best place to record and produce your music. But naturally, once you've got your music done, the next question is how can I actually get this out into the world? How do I connect to my audience? How do I stand out from the crowd? How do I build a brand? How do I become a successful artist ultimately? Um, actually, in that same media study I mentioned earlier, um, this is reported as the biggest challenge music creators face today. And I think it's increasingly so as there's more and more competition. So, yeah, we've started building out support beyond production. Uh, recently we've added marketing advice sessions, like you mentioned. So those are held with AR and industry experts, people who've worked inside labels and you know how to position, uh, they know how to position and pitch your music, uh, but also advice on how to navigate social media, how to build a brand and grow your audience. Um, and there's another couple of really cool services we've launched recently. One is cover design. So, this is the ability to uh basically create album cover artwork with really qualified designers who've worked in the music industry. Um, and going a step beyond that, we also have video editing, um, which is where we help music creators produce the kind of short form video content that actually performs well on social media. Um, and all of that fits inside the same membership. So, again, no surprise fees, no add-ons uh or project-based pricing. So the idea here is just to have a full suite of services for recording, production, and now promotion. So you can just move from creation to release to you know growing your brand as an artist without having to go anywhere else and without paying more than just our monthly membership fee.

SPEAKER_02: 17:00

Wow, I didn't realise all that. That's really interesting. Okay. Um, by the way, I love it as well that you kind of take such a well-informed viewpoint by looking at research like media. I mean, they're just they're the kings of research, aren't they? They're just amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:18

They are. I think it's important. Um any company, uh, especially startups like ours, like we're quite an early stage company. Uh, one of the main reasons why startups fail is because they're not actually solving a real problem. Um, they might have just had an idea that sounded cool, uh, and then when they bring it to an audience or a market, no one uses it and they wonder why. And it's because it's not actually a real need, a real pain point that they have. So yeah, it's always worth, I think, and something we we you know often do is just oh, are we actually on the nose here? Are we actually doing something that uh musicians and music creators are really struggling with and really need help with? Because then that's a measure of are we actually bringing value into the industry and actually helping people overcome their challenges and and achieve their goals? And yeah, like you said, it's it's the most uh rigorous uh research company uh in the space. And so yeah, we take it quite seriously.

SPEAKER_02: 18:14

Oh, good for you. Wow. Um, you know, on top of the things that you've that you've mentioned there, um there's also I noticed that you also offer orchestras that can be you know hired and booked as well. This is such an interesting offer for music creators and one that you know a lot of people uh I hear talk about, like, oh, I'd love to get a real orchestra on there or whatever. You know, um is the arrangement and the performance of the orchestra also included in the offer?

SPEAKER_00: 18:46

Yeah, good question. So the orchestra sessions actually came before our membership. That's actually how we started. So we've been doing that since 2018. Um, so different to the unlimited membership, which is very standardized, uh, Musiversal Orchestras is really a white glove experience. So when you book an orchestra session, you get connected to our um production team who support you from wherever you are right now through to the orchestra recording session. So wherever your music's at, whatever your experience, uh you're completely supported. Uh to answer your question directly, the performance is absolutely included. So that covers everything from the studio time to the staff, the musicians, the conductor, the engineers, and the full session management on the day. Um, and like with our membership, you can join that session, that orchestra recording session via live stream. So you actually get to talk to the conductor via the session producer. So if you have any feedback after the first take, uh you can get that message directly to the conductor who'll conduct that feedback for your next take. So you can also orient the recording session to your liking in that live session. Um, or if you've got the chops, you can actually go down to Prague or to Budapest, wherever we have our orchestra sessions, and you can conduct the orchestra yourself. Um that's also possible, and a few of our clients uh have done. Even if you can't conduct, you can also go down and just watch the session unfolding from behind the studio glass, which is a pretty phenomenal experience. Um, so that's kind of how the session goes with the arrangement. So if you already have a composition and arrangement, um, then what we do, which is included in the orchestra booking, is we do a score revision. So uh our team basically checks your score, makes sure everything's perfectly prepared, it's fit for the site reading session, because these are site reading orchestra sessions. Uh, they print the scores and they get everything ready for the session. So that revision is part of the cost. But if you need a full, you know, professional orchestral arrangement composed and scored from scratch, we can for sure do that for you, but it is an extra cost. Uh, that's a different skill set outside of that service. But you can also add other things to the service as well. You can get things like 4K video recording. So during the session, we have a couple of videographers going around and getting close-ups and you know, uh B-roll and things that you can use for like an orchestra, you know, music video. Um, and you can also rely on our staff engineers as well to do the mixing and mastering. So those are all extra things you can get. But at its core, you know, our job is just to make it can be again a quite an intimidating experience. You know, the idea of having 50 players and a staff and engineers and a conductor recording your music, and maybe you've never written for orchestra before, um, and probably certainly never had an orchestra record your music. So it can be quite intimidating. And so we've built the experience around that. Um, our production team, Rita and Nicole, super down to earth, just really helpful and really smart musical, uh, musical people who will just support you every step of the way. So it's designed to be seamless, it's designed to be stress-free, uh, and still a world-class experience. And maybe one other thing that's worth mentioning about orchestras, which is quite cool because all of this sounds very expensive, right? And this is how it used to be. If you wanted to record with an orchestra back in the day, let's say 20 years ago, you would have to rent out a studio, uh, rent out the entire staff, rent basically piecemeal everyone who's required together, um, or get a very expensive established orchestra and studio, um, and you'd have to book a minimum amount of time. So you'd have to book, say, a three or four-hour session, even if you're, let's say you're working on a three-minute song and a minute and a half of that is an orchestrated piece, you'd still need to book the whole day for the orchestra. And that would cost you 20, 30, 40k plus. And that's very expensive, right? If you're just an everyday music creator, songwriter. So, what Museversal did is we came along and we pioneered something called the shared sessions model. So, what we do is we already have a partner with some of the best orchestras from around the world. Uh, one of them, for example, is the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, they're a Grammy-winning orchestra. Uh, so we have a long-term partnership with them. What we'll do is we'll book out the studio uh and get everyone prepared for a day. It might be a four-hour session. And if you're someone who just needs the orchestra for 10 minutes because you have a one-minute queue, you'll just pay for that 10 minutes. And we'll stack clients up throughout that recording day so that you just pay for exactly the time that you need. Um, so that makes it uh really affordable. It's actually the most affordable way to work with an orchestra. And you know also that you're not wasting any costs on that. So, again, this is kind of the secret source of Musaversal. It's making world-class musicians uh really affordable for the everyday music creator.

SPEAKER_02: 23:29

Oh, God, absolutely. That's very, very insightful. Thanks for explaining that because there's probably quite a lot of people wondering how that works, you know. Um, you know, and and also, um, I mean, you mentioned there about the the costs of what it would do if you were to put that on yourself, but there's also the project management of it, you know, all of the pulling people together. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So that's that's a that's a a thing of the past, crikey me. Um may I ask you about the intellectual property side of the platform, just in case there are any music creators that think, oh, how is this going to work in regards to you know what that looks like on the recording side or on the compositional side? So for instance, do the music creators who perform and contribute on people's recordings, do they also get kind of neighboring rights royalties and is clearance for licensing covered under the agreement?

SPEAKER_00: 24:25

Yeah, really simple. This one. The member, the music creator owns 100% of the rights to whatever's recorded, including the master in the publishing. So this is something we've been intentional about from day one because we wanted a model that's completely transparent and fair for everyone. So yeah, every session on Muserversal is a work for hire, uh, so it's a hundred percent buyout. Um, and you mentioned our musicians, the ones doing the recording. So our musicians and engineers, they're paid uh not free royalties or back-end deals. So that keeps everything clean and simple. Um, so yeah, for musicians, you know, predictable income and financial stability, and then for members, it means full ownership and no ambiguity down the line.

SPEAKER_02: 25:03

Absolute win-win from both angles. Um that's I think so. Yeah, that's been so well thought through. Um, that really, really has. Um, okay, so if you think about all of the things that you've kind of that you've built so far, and I suppose in some ways it's still relatively early days in the landscape and in the company's um, you know, lifespan. Um, but there's already so many offers and so much to what you do for members. Um, how would you like the sort of remute remote music creation landscape? How would you like it to evolve moving forward?

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

Yeah, I think we're at a really interesting moment in how music gets made in general. Um, specifically on remote marketplaces, you know, in the beginning it was all about access, um, so connecting freelancers and clients, and that was an important first step. Uh, but it was still very transactional. So you'd hire someone, uh, get your files and move on. So it's great for access, but not necessarily for, let's say, quality or affordability or enjoyment. Um, uh, and now obviously the elephant in the room, AI, uh, it's it's evolving again and even more rapidly than ever. So AI can do some incredible things. Um, it can help with arrangements, it can spark ideas, it can even get you 90% of the way through a mix. Uh, but when people talk about their most meaningful creative experiences, it's always about the people, the connection, the shared energy, the feeling of collaboration in real time. Um, that unexpected slice of magic that was just born in the moment in a session, you know. So that's what we're building the future around. We're not trying to replace musicians with tech. We're using technology to increase the amount of human collaboration happening and making it more easy, more immediate, and more joyful. Um, and the funny thing is we're not even doing anything new. The music has always been made together in bedrooms, in studios, in garages. So we're just bringing that same spirit into today's world and using modern tools to remove the friction. So, yeah, the foundation's still the same. For us, it's it's a predictable, affordable model that connects creators with the best musicians in real time. Um, one thing we're also seeing a huge need for, especially this year, especially recently, is community. And I don't think really anyone uh in the space has gotten this right in the past, and there's still such a strong need for it. So recently we've been building something called the Musiverse, which is an online community. Uh, it's free to join, but it's also curated in true Musiversal style to keep the quality and engagements high. Um, so every week there we host workshops, masterclasses, uh, songwriting camps, things like that. And we bring together everyone from the space. So, you know, members, producers, composers, our musicians, uh, our team, uh, some well-known names in the industry. And that's already becoming a place of genuine connection where, you know, making music doesn't have to be lonely anymore. You know, you're surrounded by peers learning, creating, and growing together. So that's the future we're building, not just a more efficient way to make music, but a more connected, human, and creatively fulfilling one. And um, I'm curious to know what you think as well, Johnny, but I think we're seeing that same kind of energy across the industry. You know, like vinyl, physical vinyl sales are up, and people want to go to a unique experience and meetups again. So, yeah, for me, that's where I hope to see the remote music space evolve into more and more. Yes, there'll be more tools available, and that will reduce the time you have to spend doing things that you don't enjoy or aren't or that or that aren't core to the experience of making music. Um, and the end result should be more connected, more personal, and more human.

SPEAKER_02: 28:51

Yeah, absolutely right. Do you know um good answer? I I uh I when you were just saying that, I was just thinking about um the idea of kind of creating this kind of artist-centered ecosystem, right? Which I hear a lot of people talk about, but then what I try and do is to look for examples where it's in existence, um, and you've got many of them built into your platform, but fundamentally, uh one of the primal things that leaps to mind is the idea that where a service like what you are offering to music creators used to really be only available if you'd got some kind of investor backing through a through a label. So, you know, when you've got the same access point of tools and people, uh, but you are artists without a label or without funding, you can still access the exact same people. That never used to be a thing, and you very, very much made that a thing. Um, and that that is really really commendable. Um another thing that that springs to mind there as well is that you mentioned about the the Dreaded elephant in the room of AI. I can't help but wonder, uh, because I mean I'll I'll level with you, right? With with with all of the AI and create tech companies that have come on the podcast, you know, and I I'm big champions for what they're trying to do because it's so ethically sourced. But the reality is I come away from the podcast, I talk to people, and I'll say, Hey, have you heard about this company and doing what they do? And I get so much resistance from um people in the music industry, especially music creators, that are still anti-AI. Um, and and and for their own reasons that I'm not going to argue with. But I'm I'm thinking uh, you know, of what you do um serves it in a very unique way, in as much as that you could get somebody that's using, let's say, something like Suno Studio and says, hey, this little part that I've come up with here, that's great. How great could that be if I actually get a human to play it? And then they come to you and go, right, this thing that I started, can I get that replicated or can it be advanced by having an actual musician in real time play it with me from the other side of the world? I can't think of anywhere else that offers that other than what you do.

SPEAKER_00: 31:08

Yeah, um I think you're bang on. Uh, we're starting to see that more and more is uh, you know, more and more new members that are coming in uh have actually either been in the space for a very very little time and they're just getting into making music because of AI. So it's you know torn down the barrier to entry, and so they're able to write their first song, um, and then they want to really bring it to life and take it to the next level with great musicians. So we're seeing that more and more. And if you just think a bit bigger picture, what that's doing is just opening up the market of music creators. So there are there are more and more music creators every day because of AI. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Um, but you know, the same thing happened when we introduced um, you know, uh samples, uh, a MIDI, the same thing with doors, the same thing with you know, good internet connection, like all of these things are tearing down barriers, which is um opening up the space for more music creators to be able to make music. Um, and you know, musical is a very fundamental uh human experience. And I'm sure in the past we've been denied many talented songwriters and artists because they didn't have those resources. Um, and so yeah, uh AI has its place, uh, and some of the things that you can do now with AI is incredible. At least in the Musiversal um ecosystem, our whole secret source and the magic about Musiversal is the time that you have in that live session between uh the music creator and a world-class session musician. And so if AI can help us do more of that uh and make even a greater percentage of our experience uh that, uh, then that's a great thing. Uh, another thing that I'm seeing AI being used for is you know, from the engineers or the producers' side, for example, this is actually one of the things we struggled with. So I mentioned one of our first goals was to make uh Musaversal Unlimited an end-to-end experience for recording and production. Um, in the beginning, we really struggled to fit mixing into the included membership because um most of our sessions are like 35 minutes long. Uh, mixing takes a whole day. Uh, and there's really not much, there's not many ways around that. Um, and so we were really struggling to fit it in because if we wanted to make that included in the membership, we would have to hire so many mixing engineers to allow for there to be enough mixing sessions to be available to our members. It was just skewing the economics, basically, we'd just make a huge loss because all of our budget would be going towards mixing engineers. So we tried to figure out a way to include it. And the only way to do it was to shorten uh the mixing session and get a really good quality result. Um, we ended up getting it to 45 minutes. Uh, and the way we did that was uh by the engineers using presets and using AI as well in some cases to be able to do a mix really efficiently and also to take the pressure off, because in the unlimited membership, you can book as many sessions as you want. So if you didn't finish your mix in the first session, you could just book more. But as it happens, uh now about 80, 90% almost of the mixing sessions uh deliver exactly what the client needs in that mixing session because of these tools. So it's actually making the musician and engineer's time more efficient. Uh, and in turn, that's making services like Musal potentially even more affordable. Um, so AI can also have a massive impact on you know the marketplace economics that I was talking about earlier, and just making access to talent even more accessible and affordable, which I think is a great thing for the industry.

SPEAKER_02: 34:44

Oh, absolutely. That wins for that's a win-win again for everybody there, isn't it? You know, I'm just I'm just thinking for anybody that is kind of thinking, Crikey, 35 minutes for a musician, that's not very long. The reality is you're dealing with like the upper echelon of like elite musicians, and it really doesn't take them long to kind of nail apart. And if people haven't worked with musicians of that standard before, they might not be aware of that.

SPEAKER_00: 35:13

Yeah, so so the live sessions are really at the heart of what makes Musiversal unique and special. Um, and yes, it sounds really short, and they're definitely short relative to what the industry is used to. So, um, as I said, it's 35 minutes for the live session itself. And you know, this also depends on the service uh as well. So vocals, production, mastering, advice sessions, things like that. These are a bit longer, they're 50 minutes, but most sessions are 35 minutes. But that length isn't arbitrary. Uh, there's actually a lot of thinking and experience behind that number. So a typical Musiversal session uh actually equals about one hour of the musician's time. So they get 15 minutes uh beforehand to prep, rehearsal, and set up. And then there's that 35-minute live session with the creator, and then there's another 10 minutes afterwards offline uh to comp export and send the files. So end-to-end, from booking to receiving files, it's technically possible to turn around in one hour. Um, and what you as a creator actually get from that 35-minute session usually surprises everyone for the first time. It's usually three or four full takes on an average length song, uh, plus any overdubs or extras, and still have time for a quick chat and alignment at the start and the end. So it's remarkably productive. And the reason why you can get so much done in that 35-minute session is because, as I mentioned earlier, the entire model has been designed around and optimized for this thing called efficiency. Um, so there are four kind of kind of main elements to it. So the first thing is exactly what you said, Johnny, which is our musicians are exceptional. So we have a very high bar for quality. About 1% of applicants make it through our audition process. Um, and when you're working with world-class players who have thousands of sessions under their belt, they just get it. You know, they understand the brief, they can site read, they can improvise, they can adapt quickly, and they'll probably just nail it in the first take. So obviously it's much more efficient when you're working with the best talent available. Um, the second thing is that the sessions are live. And we don't just do that because it's a great human connected experience, although that's also true, but that's also more efficient. You know, you're not sending files back and forth, you're not trying to explain your uh musical vision over written text, which is quite hard to do. You're not waiting days or weeks for endless revisions. No, you hear the first take, you give feedback, the musician adapts, and by the end of that session, you've got exactly what you had in mind, or even better. Um, so that's the second thing. Now, the third way we've designed for efficiency is that we've built the technology around that process. So the platform actually guides creators to send the right materials ahead of time, to share references. There's a two-way chat in case there's any extra alignment that's needed before the session. So everyone goes in fully prepared and expectations are aligned. And then during the live session, we also use uh the best real-time recording technology available to make sure the experience is seamless. Um, and then the fourth and final thing is that we've really refined uh and optimized this process in practice through hundreds of thousands of sessions. So we've learned kind of through trial and error uh really exactly what works for each instrument and service. So that 15-minute prep time was tried and tested, the length of the session, the time it takes to export files, etc. Um, there's also some credit to be given to the fact that this is now just the musiversal way. So when new musicians come into the fold, they might not be 100% confident because it seems much quicker and more intense than what they're used to. But they also know it's possible because there are all of these musicians already making it happen hundreds of times a day. So there's a belief component to it as well, which I think helps. So, yeah, every part of the model, you know, the quality of the musician, the structured prep time, the clarity of the workflow, the technology, the fact that it's live, all of that contributes to that efficiency. Um and the result is that about 99% of sessions deliver incredible results. And it's, you know, because it's unlimited, also the pressure's off. So if you do happen to be in that 1%, you know, maybe it's a complex piece, or um you want to spend longer just hashing out an initial idea and exploring new ideas, then you can just book another session and there's no pressure, you know, it won't increase your cost. So so yeah, the live session is a special part of the experience, but it's also everything else around it that makes it work so well. Um, and maybe it's worth mentioning, I don't know, that we do actually give members the choice when they book a session. They can choose to attend the live session or not. Um, and about 90% of the time they choose to join because they love it so much. And now they tell us that they would never go back to the old ways of making music remotely, which is quite cool.

SPEAKER_02: 39:49

I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, because it it this must be a new way of doing things for a lot of people, and then of course it's natural to then draw a comparison between like how they did it before and then now this. There must be no going back after trying this out.

SPEAKER_00: 40:04

Yeah, probably a a big chunk of that 10% who don't want to attend uh is largely because that they can't make it for whatever reason, maybe the time zone didn't work or they're busy in a meeting or something came up. Um, but yeah, it's it's also a crazy finding for us that nine times out of ten they they want to be there because because they know it's efficient and they're going to get exactly what they want, but they also just really enjoy that experience. You know, it's it's a great thing to be be a part of. And you know, so many sessions I've had that I have such fond memories of, where you know, I'm sitting with a Royal Academy cellist in London or you know, an insane bassist in New York, and I'm just sitting there and he's playing some let's crappy song that I wrote the other day, but it sounds amazing now, and he's like actually spending his time making this, and it's just this master at work, and it's such a cool thing to be a part of. And I'm actually directing him, you know. I'm the producer of that, I'm the the creator. Um, yet yet they're you know taking their time to bring their craft, their years and years of experience and and soul to my music. It's a really cool experience, and yeah, I think once once you start, it's uh pretty hard to go back.

SPEAKER_02: 41:14

Yeah, I dare say. Goodness me. That's amazing. Thank you so much, Xavier. That's um and uh it's a brilliant explanation of everything, um, and really insightful and very inspiring as well. Um, a huge congratulations for everything that you've done on this and and it's just you know, good luck going forward with everything to do with this. It feels very, very exciting to be talking to you uh about this. And I, you know, I can't help but think where this is gonna go next, because um, you know, it's um there's so many possibilities, you know, um, with all of this. You know, especially when you talked earlier about the the musiverse, which I love by the way, the musiverse. That's better. Have you got that trademark? That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_00: 42:00

Not yet, but we should. Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, no, thanks so much, Johnny. And uh yeah, uh once again, congrats on the podcast. Uh, we're fans over here. Uh, when this comes out, we'll be sure to share the episode in the musiverse and get everyone listening. And uh yeah, stay tuned. And thanks once again for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_02: 42:18

Brilliant. Thanks, Samuel Xavier. Fantastic. Oh, what a dude. What an absolute gent, by the way, as well, Xavier is really, really, really nice guy. Um, you know, and he sits right at the top of the tree there. Of a fantastic company, amongst other people. There's a fantastic team of people that are all a part of what they offer. And what they do is they elevate music creators, right, to be able to create the best possible music that they can without it breaking the bank in order to make that happen, right? They are they have got a very multifaceted, very watertight approach to how they do what they do, and I think they're absolutely brilliant at it. So I hope that you enjoyed that. Do go and check out what they do. Um, it you know, they will make a big difference to uh the the br to bring out the best of your music, right? That's the whole point of it. Uh okay, that's enough from me today. Have a great day, everybody, and may the force be with you.