Since the advent of DigiDesign Inc.'s ProTools and similar home recording software in the 1990s, more people than ever have grown accustomed to the idea of sampling and remixing a song, whether one's own creation or someone else's. Artists have even begun to let unmixed tracks leak out of the studio so that listeners can remix and mash up their own versions.
In that spirit of giving the listener control of recorded elements rather than a single finished product, French startup
Musinaut SA is preparing to launch a new music format intended to allow artists to build flexibility into their tracks. The file format, dubbed MXP4, will give listeners the power to choose from many versions of a song in order to suit a mood or fit into a playlist.
"The artist determines the amount of changeability built into a track," explains CEO Trish Thomson of Musinaut's format.
To be sure, the product doesn't allow a listener to remix a song completely from the ground up, but rather to toggle among several existing remixes or even cover versions, midstream. A listener might choose a more rocking or more ambient version of a song, then add it to a playlist to create a crescendo of mood for a given setting.
Getting both artists and listeners interested could be a slow process. The company plans to sell its editing tool to artists, producers and studios, while licensing a version of its player to consumer electronics companies. A desktop version for PCs and Macs will remain free, according to Thomson. As for the files themselves, she says music labels might charge for them as "premium products," but it's also easy to imagine an artist including selected MXP4 tracks as bonuses for customers who buy entire albums rather than selling them as more expensive "enhanced singles."
To date, Paris-based venture firms Sofinnova Partners and Ventech have supplied Musinaut with €5 million in a 2007 round of funding, which Thomson says was the largest seed round for a French software company last year. Thomson says the company expects to raise a larger round soon, although it hasn't yet begun fundraising in earnest. Musinaut will seek investors inside the U.S. and elsewhere beyond France this time, she says.
-- Paul Bonanos
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