Introducing SoundMint: A New Medium for Music Art
To this day, record labels and playlists are the gatekeepers and arbiters of talent discovery for new musicians, along with the economics of how music is valued, sold, and distributed. Unfortunately, most creators see minimal returns on their work outside of the top artists.
Artist’s lack of freedom and ownership over their work is a broadly known problem that many developers within the NFT industry are already looking to resolve. However, we believe that the current intersection of blockchain and music production has a creative ceiling.
Let’s expand on this creative ceiling.
One could argue that the core purpose of technology is to expand the limits of what we can conceptualize and create. Blockchain-based technologies should improve artistic freedom and offer new mediums for creating art, musical form, and composition.
By leveraging the capabilities of web3 technology, we can expand on the current limitations of generative music production. For example, blockchain-based algorithmic art can allow musicians to combine sets of varying music stems into unique generative music pieces. These stems, in turn, can be linked to the different properties of visual asset, combining the two and creating immersive music art.
This entirely new medium for the creation of music art unbinds the current limits of a musician’s creative process, offering the possibility of an innovative art form at the intersection of music and technology.
What is SoundMint offering?
SoundMint is creating a new art medium for musical compositions via generative content stored immutably on the Ethereum blockchain.
Typically, when you create a song or a musical piece, you’re bound to what you’re releasing because you must stick with one final version. But when you’re creating stems for a generative project, you’re creating variation after variation with a more extensive consideration of the idea of limitless combinations.
— Paris Blohm, SoundMint Founder.
The latter statement realizes itself by offering musicians the ability to render the final combination of stems into an NFT collection that combines music properties into uniquely independent music art pieces. Simultaneously, these music art pieces are mapped to visual art pieces that represent the general theme and emotion of the overall collection.
SoundMint’s NFT drops are a collection of individually unique music pieces derived from stems with varying acoustic properties. These properties are algorithmically combined into music loops and subsequently mapped to unique visual art pieces, each equally derived from visual assets with varying visual components. The result is a new form of generative art that allows SoundMint platform to reimagine the way music is created.
In the future, NFT collectors will have the creative freedom to purchase their favorite music art pieces, deconstruct & burn the stems within each piece, and recombine them into a rarer art piece. This collaboration between musicians, visual artists, and collectors effectively redefines the experience of music art into an immersive metaverse experience with limitless possibilities.
How does it work?
Not unlike projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club, SoundMint will create characters or imagery with interchangeable traits (ex. different eyes, body shape, color background). However, each of the visual characteristics will also map to specific musical components such as:
- Drums
- Basslines
- Chords
- Vocals
- Percussions
- Effects
Once the music artist hands over their stems, their work enters a liminal space where musical properties are algorithmically combined and mapped with visual assets to create a near-limitless collection of audiovisual artworks. Lastly, we consider the following principals as SoundMint’s core offering to our NFT creators and collectors:
- A new artistic medium for the production of art music.
- Ownership over a first-of-its-kind form of art music.
- A platform to discover and connect with music artists.
- Sovereign ownership rights to production and distribution.
- Streamlined creation and sale through our production house.
Our genesis NFT collection and drop.
Our first drop will feature renowned EDM artist KLOUD in partnership with visual artist Alex Hooker.
The drop will offer buyers 5000 unique NFTs consisting of varying 30-second musical pieces, each distinct in its way and linked to generative visual art.
Backed by a team of industry leaders in music, crypto, NFTs, and marketing, SoundMint is working with rising NFT music-focused artists to help elevate their brand.
SoundMint’s platform will allow users to create music-based NFTs to create a novel tooling solution with relative ease. Over time, the platform will launch SoundMint DAO, a decentralized treasury system and governance structure where NFT holders can work with us in curating future drops with both established and emerging musicians.
Become a core community member.
If you’d like to work with us or become an artist on soundmint.xyz, please fill out this form and our team will reach out to you.
Visit our page and join our Discord to become an early contributor to our upcoming productions.
