How many times has a friend recommended an artist, saying, “the next Drake,” only for their music to sound not so exciting?
There’s a good chance it’s happened more than once. For years, artists have struggled to find beats online in the same way. Once-ingenious ‘type beat’ tags have been watered down, leaving real talent and quality beats in the dust.
Airbit is using artificial intelligence (AI) to change that dynamic.
The platform’s Search by Sound feature compares tracks based on their sonic similarities, regardless of genre or “type beat” tags, letting the sounds speak for themselves.
Airbit’s new AI tool: Search by Sound.
Airbit, the beat marketplace dedicated to helping producers build long-term careers, has launched Search by Sound, a simple and ingenious way for artists to find their next killer beat. Beat seekers can use Search by Sound to enter a file or a link into the search bar. The first of its kind in the industry, Search by Sound filters out vocals, which can skew results, and finds the perfect sounding beat, which is often created by up-and-coming producers.
These gems have been buried far too long, oblivious to algorithms and tag-based search. Regardless of producer hype, tags, or other factors, Airbit’s Search by Sound uses machine learning-based audio analysis to find sonic similarities between tracks. This changes the game in terms of discovering new beats.
Producers have traditionally angled to be discovered by beat seekers via type beats, tags, or file names that bake the name of a star artist into the beat’s name, making it easier (in theory) for recording artists to find something in a style they already know and love in the world of buying and selling beats.
How does it work?
- Start: Find a beat you like – it can be from Airbit or a beat on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud or Vimeo!
- Analyze: the AI-driven technology analyzes the acoustic profile of the beat.
- Match: the service finds the beats that are most similar to the selected beat, purely by audio reference.
- Results: it returns the beats that are acoustically similar! No keywords, tags, or guesswork required!
Type beats aren’t bad in and of themselves; in fact, type beats have been one of the only tools producers and artists have had to find each other. Type beats are the symptom, not the disease. They get in the way of truly talented people getting their work out there, and of music fans finding truly good and creative music. It’s a dilemma for both new talent and curious fans. – Wasim Khamlichi, Airbit founder and CEO.
Airbit wanted to improve the experience for both parties, by removing human bias and ensuring producers get in front of prospective beats buyers on the merit of their beats, not their tagging hustle. It’s part of a bigger mission to support producers, veterans, and new, as they create more sustainable careers and businesses. “We want good producers with great beats to get discovered, so that artists can make the amazing tracks they hear in their heads,” says Khamlichi. “AI and better search were the way to make that happen and build a more meritocratic marketplace.”
You can try it for yourself here.
