SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Orpheus Media Research (d/b/a Clio™ Music), the developer of the first music analysis, search and discovery platform, today announced a partnership with Rumblefish, the leader in music soundtracks for social video, to bring more useful, objective metadata to its catalog of over one million copyright-cleared tracks. Using the Clio Genome Generator and Clio Sounds-Like Search products, Rumblefish API partners will now be able to offer their users a richer set of metadata.

Rumblefish worked with the Clio Genome Generator to analyze and produce a robust set of metadata for its entire catalog. The company also plans on using the Clio Sounds-Like Search, a search engine that enables the Rumblefish API partners’ clients to use music to find music, easing music search and discovery.

“Clio has automated the metadata generation process with a common, algorithmically-generated method. Users can now easily browse through our growing catalog and quickly find just the right soundtrack for their video,” said Paul Anthony, founder and CEO, Rumblefish. “In the future, Clio Sounds-Like Search will provide Rumblefish API partners music similarity search functionality, which is the killer app for soundtrack search and recommendation.”

The Clio Genome Generator provides Rumblefish with machine-generated metadata, such as melodic complexity, harmonic complexity and performance energy. The Genome Generator, which virtually eliminates the need for manual intervention, automatically generates metadata; enabling users to best find the soundtrack they are looking for.

“Metadata plays a major role in cataloging and searching music. Until now, this process has required expensive and manual intervention, yielding irregular results and decreased accuracy,” said Monte Zweben, Chairman of Clio Music. “Clio’s solutions bring speed, accuracy and efficiency to these processes and support an overall superior search and discovery experience.”
Rumblefish API partners will be able to access this Clio-enabled functionality in early Q4 of this year.

About Clio Music

Clio Music is the developer of Clio, the only pure music-to-music search and discovery platform that uses music to find music, producing higher quality matches and analyzing music up to 1000x faster than existing keyword search technology. Clio combines deep musical expertise with search technology to deliver highly accurate and relevant matches based on mood and texture. Created by musicians, Clio is the first platform to look at musical context and grammar to understand and interpret musical mood and texture. By referencing the music directly, matches are more accurate and large catalogs of music can be quickly analyzed with or without metatags. For more information, visit www.cliomusic.com.

About Rumblefish

Rumblefish is the largest provider of soundtracks for social video and has been a pioneer in the music licensing industry for over a decade. Through its API, SDK and Storefront offerings, the platform allows partners to offer soundtrack functionality for web and mobile applications, and provide access to the world’s largest copyright-cleared soundtrack catalog with more than 1 million tracks. The company makes soundtracks for online video easy and legal, and has issued more than 6 million licenses, paying millions in royalties to its artists. Rumblefish partners include YouTube, Animoto, Socialcam, Klip, Virtual Active, Amazon Studios and Google. The company can be found at www.rumblefish.com and is headquartered in Portland, OR.

“It’s similar to what Shazam does, but on steroids,” says Monte Zweben, the company’s executive chairman. “[Shazam] makes a fingerprinting algorithm to match music. What we do is make a musical model that understands music.”

Back in 2007, Shazam gave consumers (well, at least smartphone users) a way to identify live music in real time. With their app, users sitting in a coffee shop could hear a new song over the loudspeaker, hold up their phones, hit a button, and bam, know the name of the song they want to add to their iPods. Easy.

But five years later, Clio is offering something that goes a step farther—a music search engine good enough to help professional media producers.

Wilder wrote a piece of software that can break down a “musical sentence” into its grammatical parts–rhythm, harmony and melody. He analyzed those parts and constructed a set of numerical values for them, building a code. Then, he created a search engine that could find a musical match based on both attributes.

“There are a variety of tech people building apps to recommend music, but all of them are based on people trying to describe music and categories with words, tags and search engines for these tags,” Zweben says. “We see ourselves providing something much more specific and powerful from a tech standpoint.”

In terms of organization, and the ability to find similar songs, Clio comes close to what Pandora‘s Internet radio does when it gives users a station based on a particular band, say The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. But Pandora relies on a team of musicologists to build those connections, which then get coded into the software “Most companies can’t afford to do that,” Zweben says, but Clio’s back end does it automatically. “It’s a very cost-efficient way to make your own searchable catalogue.”

Clio also has a different business model from music search engines that cater to consumers. Instead, Clio’s clients are professionals, from major labels to music aggregators to anyone who tries to license music and make it searchable.

“There’s a gazillion new videos being produced, a lot of films, and unbelievable amounts of visual imagery exploding because of the Web,” Zweben says. “Every mobile video, game, advertisements traditionally requires music.”

And it’s expensive. Directors often will stick a track onto a piece of video, Zweben says, and then music directors are expected to license it, or find something similar that fits into a budget. Finding anything through a traditional word-based search would be tough, but finding a similar piece of instrumental music can be particularly hard.

Though the company isn’t setting out to be a consumer-focused recommendation engine, like iTunes’s Ping, “that is an opportunity for Clio,” Zweben says. “We do have people knocking down our door for rec engines. We have customers building them with our technology.”

Zweben himself is new to the company; he took on the executive chairman role last month, coming most recently from SeeSaw Networks, a digital media company he co-founded. Before his entrepreneurial career, Zweben served as deputy branch chief of the NASA Ames Artificial Intelligence branch. But, as a four-time entrepreneur and a long-term guitar player, the position seemed like a good fit.

Wilder developed the analysis and search functions in 2007, but the 10-person company is “in the earliest stage you can be as a company generating revenue,” Zweben says. “We’re in that really exciting phase where we’ve released our product, customers are paying and we’re out there growing the company, seeking the financing.” Clio is starting its series A now; the company was initially funded by angel investors in its early seed round.

For now, Clio’s main product is licensing the technology as a service to other businesses. The company plans to release other products soon, but sees its search engine as its strongest point. There are a lot of other platforms that offer music search, but Zweben isn’t aware of any competitors that can offer the same kind of technology.

“I am very excited with our progress. Stay tuned for more product announcements,” he says.

Original Source: Xconomy

Monte Zweben

• Date added: March 23, 2012
• Submission Type: New Hire
• Current employer: Orpheus Media Research / Clio Music
• Current title/position: Executive Chairman
• Industry: Technology
• Position level: C-Level
• Position department: General Management

Original Source: San Francisco Business Times

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – March 20, 2012 – Orpheus Media Research (d/b/a Clio™ Music), the developer of the first music analysis, search and discovery platform that allows users to use music to find music, has named Monte Zweben as the Company’s executive chairman. In this role, Zweben will be responsible for the overall strategic direction, business development and leadership of the Company.

Founded by musicians, Clio Music has developed the first technology platform to create a musical context and grammar that “understands” and interprets musical mood. Currently, the Company offers two solutions: the Clio Genome Generator, an automated metadata generator, and the Clio Sounds-Like Search, a search engine that enables users to use music to find music.

“As we take Clio Music into the next phase of its evolution, it was vital to bring in an accomplished executive like Monte to grow the business,” said Vince Menichelli, OMR board member and Managing Director, Trestle Ventures. “We believe that combining Clio’s unique technological advantage with the creativity and expertise of Monte and his team will allow the technology to transform the music search and discovery paradigm.”

“OMR’s goal is to catalog the world’s music independent of genre, cultural context or other metadata,” says Dr. Greg Wilder, Chief Science Officer and Founder of OMR. “Words should help to narrow down music searches, not fundamentally limit or determine musical options. With Clio, both professional and casual music lovers are able to discover new music and artists that previously would have been outside the purview of current search technologies.”

“Clio Music has the capacity to completely revolutionize how we search for, and find, music, which is an exciting opportunity in such a dynamic and fast-moving market,” said Zweben. “Clio will power music search and discovery for production music catalogs, major label and indie label sync licensing catalogs, independent music aggregator and distributor catalogs, as well as online music streaming and purchasing applications.”

Prior to joining Clio Music, Zweben was the co-founder and chairman of SeeSaw Networks, a digital, place-based media company serving advertisers such as Disney, Ford, General Motors, Kraft and Microsoft. Before SeeSaw, Zweben was the founder and CEO of Blue Martini Software – the leader in e-commerce and multi-channel systems for retailers. Blue Martini went public on NASDAQ in one of the most successful IPOs of 2000, and is now part of Red Prairie. Zweben’s work on dialog marketing at Blue Martini was published in the 2005 Harvard Business Review article: The Perfect Message at the Perfect Moment. Zweben also founded and was the Chairman & CEO of Red Pepper Software, a leading supply chain optimization company, which merged with PeopleSoft in 2006.

Before his entrepreneurial career, Zweben managed the NASA Ames Artificial Intelligence Branch as Deputy Branch Chief. There he co-managed the research program, published his own research, and deployed operational systems. There his team won the Space Act Award for their work on the Space Shuttle Program. Monte has been playing guitar and loving music since he was 10, and is still hoping to gig after his software career. He has a Strat and a Telecaster, but has been checking out Les Pauls lately. He also takes piano lessons when he isn’t busy building companies.

About Clio Music

Clio Music is the developer of Clio, the only pure music-to-music search and discovery platform that uses music to find music, producing higher quality matches and analyzing music up to 1000x faster than existing keyword search technology. Clio combines deep musical expertise with search technology to deliver highly accurate and relevant matches based on mood and texture. Created by musicians, Clio is the first platform to look at musical context and grammar to understand and interpret musical mood and texture. By referencing the music directly, matches are more accurate and large catalogs of music can be quickly analyzed with or without metatags.

Sorry about the audio folks. It’s still a great interview in my opinion. I would love to hear your feedback on types of questions you want me to ask our next guest. Also, we’ll be podcasting tomorrow with a normal allGeek Every Week episode.

Original Source: AllGeek.TV

Since SXSW, they’ve been making strides. Their first partner, music production library APM, was announced today. Filmmakers will be able to find music for their scores much easier, thanks to Clio’s advanced matching system, which takes into account everything from tempo, instrumentation and melody to seemingly intangible elements like “the groove.”

Greg Wilder and Alison Conard (the idea people behind Clio) are meeting with bigwigs of the consumer-facing music discovery products soon, hopefully bringing their technology to the masses, albeit invisibly. If Clio works properly, no one really knows it’s there – listeners just somehow feel that the service they’re using today is a ton better than it was yesterday at figuring out what they actually want to listen to.

I was sent some exclusive demos of the product that have me pretty stoked. The first demo used APM’s music catalog; while it was really cool to hear rock seamlessly morph into bossa nova in just a few short steps, it was mainly a geek-out thing. I’m that guy who makes sure the beginning and endings of songs fade into each other on mixes, so matching internal rhythm to internal rhythm through genre is immensely appealing to me. The software recognizes so much information that you can make almost perfect-transition mixes, in addition to mixes that don’t change moods one single inch.

The second set of demos was even more revealing, as it was a set of clips made by Clio that showed various popular songs being discovered via other pop songs. The set that started with Green Day’s “When I Come Around” wasn’t eye-popping on the surface (how hard is it to match up Blink-182 and Green Day?), but have you ever noticed how closely the guitar tone of “Always” resembles “When I Come Around”? Or of “Short Brown Hair” by Everclear? Then it’s straight into “Favours for Favours” by The Futureheads, which I probably wouldn’t have included in this list, but fits in perfectly, sound-wise and rhythm-wise.

That’s the great thing about Clio: It doesn’t care about demographics. Sure, Blink and Green Day sound similar and are in the same scene. But Futureheads are in a completely different scene, but sound similar. A teenage pop-punker could get turned on to indie rock via this list and connections across time and “scene.”

Other playlists do the same for other genres, but here’s the skinny: Clio works. Once a major player or two representing true independents (Bandcamp? Please please please please?) is funneled into Clio, there’s literally nothing stopping U2 fans from hearing your music if your band sounds like U2. That is a major boon for independent bands and music lovers.

Stay tuned for more info from the Clio guys; it will be big stuff. Clio will change the way people discover music, and you may not even know that it’s doing so.

Clio’s unique “use music to find music” approach can function independently of metadata. Starting with a seed song, Clio analyzes the musical grammar and finds matches that are similar in mood, emotion and sound, creating objective and high quality results.  Metadata can be used to refine or categorize search results as desired. Additionally, the technology can detect duplicates and eliminate any bias that might have been introduced during the metatagging process.

NEW YORK, July 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Orpheus Media Research (OMR), an advanced music research and development company that automates the search, analysis, and discovery of music, announced today that APM Music, North America’s leading production music library and music services company, has chosen Clio™ to enhance the Company’s search engine. Clio is the only pure music-to-music search and discovery platform that uses music to find music, producing higher quality matches, and analyzing and indexing music 5,000-10,000 times faster than existing keyword search technology.

APM Music plays a critical role in finding and selecting the right music for entertainment and media producers, providing its clients throughout North America with access to exclusive tracks of music produced specifically for use in film, television, radio, and new media productions. By using Clio, APM hopes to create additional song metadata that will enhance the ability of its clients to find the most relevant tracks for their projects.  Clio’s automated analysis promises to deliver types of metadata in a matter of hours that would otherwise take months or years to create.

“Clio is a fast and objective music search and discovery tool that we believe can provide great value to our clients,” said Adam Taylor, President, APM Music. “Using a seed song, we expect to be able to offer our clients the opportunity to find results that they might not find by using a metadata-only search. In addition to our metadata searches, with Clio, we’ll use music to find music, and then use our metadata to refine the results.”

Clio’s unique “use music to find music” approach can function independently of metadata. Starting with a seed song, Clio analyzes the musical grammar and finds matches that are similar in mood, emotion and sound, creating objective and high quality results.  Metadata can be used to refine or categorize search results as desired. Additionally, the technology can detect duplicates and eliminate any bias that might have been introduced during the metatagging process.

“Working with an industry leader like APM Music is a testament to the fact that there is a real need in the industry for a next-generation music search and discovery tool,” said Bruce Margetich, Chief Executive Officer, Orpheus Media Research. “With Clio, large production libraries, music services, and online music streaming services benefit from an objective search and discovery platform that dramatically accelerates the indexing of music and provides high quality results at a fraction of the cost.”

Clio’s current pilots include some of the top names in the music industry. Visit www.cliomusic.com to learn more and schedule a demo.

About Orpheus Media Research

Orpheus Media Research is an advanced music research and development company that automates the search, analysis, and discovery of commercial-use music. Clio™ is the only pure music-to-music search and discovery platform that uses music to find music, producing higher quality matches and analyzing music up to 1000x faster than existing keyword search technology. Clio combines deep musical expertise with adaptive technology to deliver highly accurate and relevant matches based on mood and emotion. Created by musicians, Clio is the first platform to look at musical context and grammar to understand/interpret musical mood. By referencing the music directly, matches are more accurate and large catalogs of music can be quickly analyzed with or without metatags. For more information, visit www.cliomusic.com.

About APM Music

APM Music (a joint venture of EMI Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing), the largest and most diverse collection of original music available to entertainment and media producers, provides North American-based production clients with exclusive access to over 330,000 tracks of music produced specifically for use in film, television, radio, and new media productions.  Some of APM’s key clients include CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, ESPN, MLB, PGA, Universal, Discovery, Current TV, MTV, BBDO, Electronic Arts, Oprah Winfrey and thousands of others. Recent APM Music credits include: “Priest”, “Larry Crowne”, “The Hangover Part II”, “Bad Teacher”; “True Blood”, “Glee”, “Gossip Girl”, “Mad Men”, “30 Rock”, “Big Bang Theory”; and “Call of Duty: Call of the Dead”, “Assassin’s Creed 2″ and “Just Dance 3″ video games.

Arguably the smartest of them all, however, is one you probably haven’t heard of before. Clio, which is based out of Philadelphia, is a music startup that uses technology to search tracks and provide music recommendations. Since relaunching earlier this year, it’s been making leaps and bounds — to the point where today it’s announcing a significant deal with one of America’s biggest music libraries, APM. The agreement means that Clio will be powering the search system for APM, a joint venture between EMI and Universal that provides music services for film and television shows like Bridesmaids, 30 Rock and True Blood.

The reason they’re using Clio is simple: it’s an incredibly powerful system. APM president Adam Taylor characterizes it as “a fast and objective music search and discovery tool” — but that doesn’t really do the service justice. Let me explain what I find really interesting about it.

Clio is different because it doesn’t categorize music in the same way as other services. While most music systems categorize tracks by adding metadata and keywords that describe it — somebody tagging it “rock”, or information that says it’s 120 beats per minute — Clio, instead, takes the track itself and pulls it apart. It understands what founder Greg Wilder calls “the grammar of music”; the groove of the drum beat, the level of aggression, the playing style, the riffs and hooks and melodies, and much more. The technology actually listens.

After dissecting a track, it can then compare on a number of different criteria and recommend music that actually sounds like what you want. Linked into APM’s catalog, for example, means that somebody scoring a TV show who wants a track that’s dark and moody but with a driving, throbbing beat, can plug in those requirements and it will recommend a string of tracks that have those elements in common.

In this respect it’s a little like the Music Genome Project, the technology that underpins Pandora — but whereas Pandora relies largely on human interpretation to listen to tracks and rank up to 400 attributes, Clio does it all programmatically and in milliseconds.

“Humans break things into little chunks,” says Wilder, a composer and academic who founded Clio’s parent company Orpheus Media Research, four years ago. “We can hear the whole thing.”

Here’s their promotional video.

And here’s a Soundcloud wave that shows you a sequence of songs that Clio’s matched starting with a single seed track — it really shows how the system picks up elements of the music that aren’t easily definable by keywords or simple metadata.

Clio-Generated Playlist: Adrenaline Chase by OrpheusMedia

So why haven’t you heard of Clio?

The reason is simple: it’s not a consumer product. The company is largely aiming at the professional market, striking behind-the-scenes deals that will help it become the engine for services — rather than the service itself. This is a deliberate and careful strategy: the business is trying to scale up in a way that gives it the best chance of long-term success, by creating an enterprise-level system that outstrips anything else on the market. Given the constant financial trouble that music streaming services seem to be in, that may be a smart move: only last year Om spoke to Pandora’s Tim Westergren about how close they’d been to failing over the years.

But Clio says that being the engine doesn’t mean that it wants to remain in the background forever. They’ve got serious targets — and today’s deal is, they hope, just the beginning.

“We want to provide the backbone to streaming services and recommendation all around the world,” COO Alison Conard told me. “Google has a lofty ambition to organize all the world’s information: we want to index all of the world’s music.”

But what exactly is it that makes certain musical ideas worth repeating over others? Why are some musical hooks and patterns ultimately more successful than others? Are there core musical shapes that attach our to reptilian brain and don’t let go?

Denis Dutton presented a number of interesting related observations during a TED talk in 2010 entitled, “A Darwinian Theory of Beauty.”

The “Book of the Dead” (or “Book of Emerging Into Light”) is a set of ancient Egyptian funerary texts — books of spells designed to guide the recently deceased into the afterlife. In a recent address, noted evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins suggested that DNA essentially serves as a genetic “Book of the Dead” — a tried-and-true manual for survival against parasites and other environmental hazards responsible for shaping us into the adaptive creatures we are today. And I suspect musical ideas (especially the most successful patterns that stand the test of time) share this property.

A page from an Egyptian guide to the afterlife. Lucky for me, illustrations are included...

Given the unprecedented depth of Clio’s musical awareness and the millions of tracks Clio’s now listening to, it’s likely that this treasure-trove of data will help illuminate and uncover the most interesting and essential musical DNA preserved in our musical culture — Clio’s personal guide to music’s potential afterlife.

While not its primary function or purpose, it seems that tracking the evolution of musical ideas (as filtered through culture) may be one of the most powerful and far-reaching applications of this new approach to music analysis.