MUSIC NFT & WEB3 NEWS: Volodkin joins Zora • omgkirby music DAO • Audius hits 7.5M MAUs • Music Techtonic startup finalists

Amongst the Music NFT news most notably, Audius reaches a huge milestone with it’s strong user base, dominated mostly by Electronic Dance Music and Hip Hop.  Founder Roneil Rumberg puts this down to both genres being very grassroots based and tech-forward.

Zora, a platform that enables anyone to create and build with NFTs, has hired Anthony Volodkin, founder of Hype Machine and Future Tape.

Volodkin joins to build out Future Tape, the first mobile music NFT app and website that allows people to search, listen and explore the latest music tracks across Web3 platforms.

Zora provides easy-to-use tools that allow anyone – creators, artists, developers, brands – to not just buy and sell NFTs, but to launch NFT collections, independent marketplaces, and branded experiences. Artists like RAC, Disclosure, Toro y Moi, and Pussy Riot have used Zora, and many web3 music start-ups are built on Zora, including Catalog, Mint Songs, Spores, Glass.xyz, Poolsuite.

omgkirby: A First-of-its-Kind Music DAO

omgkirby DAO is a decentralized music artist that harnesses the power of Web3. Partnered with Web3 studio Notables and run collectively by the project’s DAO, omgkirby shifts how music creation and distribution are approached.

Fans collaborate directly with the artist on tracks, vote, and select which new artists they will support. Fans can also create music using stems from the omgkirby tracks that they own.

See the sold-out omgkirby DAO Genesis Collection on OpenSea.

Web3 Music Platform Audius Hits 7.5 Million Monthly Users

“Less than 10% of Audius users have MetaMask installed… Audius has over 250,000 artists and one million songs on its platform. It’s fair to question why there’s a crypto component at all if the company doesn’t advertise that fact, but Rumberg says he believes the tech behind the scenes provides a more direct artist-fan connection.”

“They’re getting the benefits of decentralization without having to be super aware of having to use a wallet.”

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Music Tectonics Names 4 Startup Finalists

Four music tech startups worth tracking were named finalists in the Music Tectonics Conference’s Swimming with Narwhals competition last week. Each will pitch at the Music Tectonics Conference in Santa Monica, California, October 25-27.

The four are:

• AudioShake (Jessica Powell) uses AI to open up songs to new monetization and creative possibilities by separating songs into their stems and instrumentals.
• Opnr (Dre Wallace) is a cloud-based, double-sided marketplace platform that uses data to connect musicians with concert organizers offering opener performance opportunities.
• Tuney (Antony Demekhin) is an adaptive music engine and creator tool, making it easy for creators to soundtrack their videos.
• Viktrs (Mark Bamford) takes video content to the next level by capturing audience engagement within music videos.