A New Tool for Podcast and Video Creators Uses AI To Readily Compose Music
Beatoven.ai co-founder Mansoor Rahimat Khan, also a sitarist, talks about building a bank of sounds across styles for Indian and international users
The music creation and selection features in Beatoven.ai
In the slowly untangling jungle of sync licenses, overused copyright-free music and for creators to find a good tune for their content, Beatoven.ai enters with artificial intelligence as a possible game-changer.
Founded in February 2021 by Goa-based sitarist Mansoor Rahimat Khan and Bengaluru-based chief tech officer Siddharth Bhardwaj, Beatoven.ai was born out of the popular Entrepreneur First investment program. For their idea of using AI over a pre-created bank of audio samples to allow users to create their own background music for their show, film, podcast or other content, they gained $55,000 in pre-seed funding in May.
Khan says, “We used these funds to build an MVP [minimum viable product, a sort of prototype] and launch it with our initial users for further product validation. We also used this money to source 2,500 samples from 20 amazing producers across five genres.”
The five “genres” up for creators to browse from are indie, cinematic, Indian, electronic and ambient, plus further subdivisions based on 16 moods as well as themes and specific instrumentation. Users upload their video or podcast and mark out portions in their clips where they want music to come in.
Khan adds that Beatoven.ai wants to simplify something that’s often a huge learning curve for creators. “Music theory and music production is hard, it takes several years for a person to master. We utilize AI to do this heavy lifting. But, when it comes to customization, we leave it up to the end-user to decide,” he says.
Currently in beta mode and prepping to become public, Beatoven.ai’s founders hope that they can change things in the sync music industry, specifically in regards to licensing original music and acquisition. They call it “non-unique music” for creators, which of course still means there’s a chance the algorithms throw up a score that could be similar to another user’s creation. One way they’re reducing chances of that is by increasing their sample bank and bringing on more music producers to contribute.
Sitarist Chhote Rahimat Khan, electronica duo Merak, producer Trix aka Sanjog Bhushan, sarod artist Abhishek Borkar are among those commissioned by Beatoven.ai so far. The platform is hoping they can create an opportunity for India’s music producer community. Khan says about their prerequisites to accept music for Beatoven.ai, “We primarily seek originality in terms of their production and look for quality artists who have been consistently at it for several years. We primarily look to work with smaller and medium producers since they are the ones that are most underserved in the market and we believe we can provide a good opportunity for them through our platform in the long run.”
Producers can write in to hello@beatoven.ai
