A solid infrastructure of tools for remote collaborative work exists in every industry except audio. While designers have Figma and businesses have Microsoft Teams, the music and audio industry is still stuck in the Stone Age—defaulting to emails and shared drives to collaborate. Now, Muse, a new Zoom-like platform for musicians, makes it possible for creators to effortlessly connect and make music together online in real-time. With users in 174 countries who have already clocked more than 25 million minutes in sessions, Muse is well on its way to powering a more accessible industry where global creators can collaborate from anywhere.
On the surface, the Muse app looks similar to popular video call platforms, but it has opened the door to an entirely new way of creating music online. Now, engineers can run remote mix sessions by streaming HQ audio and responding to feedback in real time. Producers can pull in musicians to remotely record instruments directly into their DAW. Built-in features like file sharing, screen sharing, and screen control eliminate the headaches from bouncing between multiple platforms and searching through email threads for the latest version of a recording.
“Luis (Caballero, Muse CEO) and his team have created a technology that consistently delivers exceptional video and audio quality, enabling music creators to collaborate effortlessly with our musicians, as if they were in the same studio room,” says Xavier Jameson, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Musiversal. “Together, we’ve raised the bar and set a new gold standard for remote recording.”
Thanks to the Muse Audio Engine, Muse is compatible with all pro audio equipment, allowing users to connect their gear and choose multiple channels from devices. Users can stream lossless PCM 32-bit audio, designed to prioritize stability and faster audio streaming.
The new workflows introduced by Muse have not only caught the attention of Akon, but all types of musicians across the audio industry—ranging from young bedroom producers to GRAMMY Award-winning engineers, composers, and producers working with artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Kendrick Lamar.
For Enrico De Paoli, a Multi-Grammy Award-Winning Music Engineer (Ray Charles, Elton John), Muse significantly improved his workflow: “Things that were once impossible have become possible, and tasks that were bureaucratic and tedious have become simple. In short, Muse has been a complete transformation!”
Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Muse co-founder and CEO Luis Caballero left his software engineering job in 2018 and split his time between making music and building meme pages to promote his music. As his meme pages grew, studio owner and future Muse co-founder Austin Dunn stumbled across Caballero’s account and convinced him to move to LA to promote music with memes for record labels. While in LA, Caballero quickly realized how difficult it was to make music with his friends back in Oklahoma: “The music collaboration tools in 2019 were unreliable, complicated, and fragmented. We had to patch together multiple apps to recreate the in-person studio experience, and even then, I still couldn’t do fundamental things like record audio or MIDI. I knew there had to be a better way.”
Caballero began conceptualizing his idea of Muse and brought it to Dunn who initially said it was “the dumbest idea he had ever heard”…until a global pandemic sent everyone home from studios for lockdown. The need for remote collaboration was more prevalent than ever, and while Zoom was great for regular conferencing, the more intimate and technical experience of creating music together demanded another solution.
That’s when Caballero reached out to his longtime friend and business partner, Sung Choi, who was serving in the Korean military at the time. Outside of boot camp, Choi worked tirelessly with Caballero to build the first prototype of Muse. But Choi’s work didn’t stop there, as he went on to build an entire audio engine from scratch (the one used in Muse today) and serve as CTO of Muse.
As Muse continues to grow their team, develop more features, and reach their goal of connecting musicians across the world, the music industry is also starting to pay attention. While the magic felt during in-person sessions are undeniably irreplaceable online, Muse acts as a tool in the industry to facilitate more efficient and accessible workflows. For example, A&Rs can now listen to a shared HQ audio stream while on a video conference, artists can watch their engineer tweak a session from their own bedroom, and songwriting camps can make space for musicians from different backgrounds and cultures around the world.
Throughout every phase of development and growth, the founders of Muse have preserved their core value of making music accessible, collaborative, and simple: “It can take a village to create great music, but fitting that village into one studio at one time isn’t always possible. On top of that, most people creating music today aren’t in the label ecosystem with access to resources and studio spaces,” explains Dunn. “We are proud to build an infrastructure designed specifically for artists that gives them the tech they need to thrive.”
Muse is a pioneering collaboration platform tailored for music creators and audio professionals, enabling seamless remote work within the audio industry. Designed as a virtual studio for musicians, Muse offers an intuitive, real-time environment to produce, record, and share ideas as effortlessly as if everyone were in the same room. With tools for high-quality audio sharing and streamlined communication, Muse is redefining what remote collaboration can be for the music world.
© 2024, Seth "Digital Crates" Barmash. All rights reserved.
