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Lively Demo with Zach Varnell

Our next guest is our friend Zack, from a company called Lively here in Seattle. Who's gonna talk about about their product? Which is really cool way for for artists to sell their live shows. So, Zack, you want toe come on and tell us a little bit about lively Cool. Well, my name's Zak. I work with a company called Lively here in Seattle, which is basically a company that tried to solve a problem. When you go to a concert now, it's often times you'll see a whole bunch of people with their phones in their trying to capture the experience, which is kind of a lose lose for everybody, obviously, the fans not getting a good recording of what they're trying to capture the band's not getting paid for basically Pirated, you know, content that's leaving out being posted on YouTube. And so lively was trying to figure out what's a way that we could sort of take bootlegging into the modern era and use technology as a way to sort of help that and maybe create some revenue for some bands. So we have...

a couple different pieces of technology. One is the consumer app, where you can go in and buy different shows. It's basically five bucks for audio for a show. Sometimes we do video to for $10 on bits, a consumer app on pretty much every platform IOS, Android, Windows phone. And we actually just launched on Kindle recently, Andan. The second piece, which is what I developed, was called the lively audio Manager. Basically, that's what we're going to talk about today. The idea manager is pretty simple. It's basically just a stereo recording tool that allows a front of house engineer in a venue or with the band to be able to set up it from the house and capture a stereo mix. Either just a direct left and right feed from the board. Or a lot of times. Well, it's kind of set up a stereo recording matrix blend in some ambient Mike's set up kind of a better sounding mix for recording Andi ideas is basically you can capture that mix on the uploaded directly to our servers and push it out to the fans by the time they get to the car after the show's done. So it's kind of an immediate thing, reaching directly to fans that kind of at the show. So yeah, it's a It's a pretty basic set up. It's an app for the IPad. We talked to a lot of front of House engineers that are using IPads, and they're set up to control digital consoles to use for for meeting and play back. A lot of different tools are available on the IPad, so we developed an IPAD app for them to be able to use its a free app to download. You basically signed up for an account on our website and then download the app on your IPad and then any sort of stereo audio interface that you can connect with that supports IOS. We usually work with Apogee. The Apogee duet is an amazing stereo interface with great sounding converters. Way kind of worked with them to be able to develop that app around the happened. She do it. So that's why we have set up here. This is sort of set up, So if you look at the screen basically when you log in, it shows all the shows that are assigned to your account s. A lot of times will have, like a said venues or set up with multiple artists they're coming through. Sometimes it's just one band that's touring, but when you log in, you'll see all the shows that kind of assigned to your account. We're gonna pick in a local artist in Seattle. We've worked a bunch with here. This is Shelby Earl s. So the first thing that happens is when you log in, pick the show and you can sound check. So I'm going to just play back some sound here so we can kind of get a sense of what that looks like. The sound check mode, once you arm it and start recording is basically just for your reference. It's for an engineer to be able to record the sound check and then later go back and listen. After sound checks done, you gotta make any final adjustments to the mix. The church that you're doing this'll isn't kept on the server. This is just like I said, just kind of for your reference. So once that's done, you go to the live show mode, which is next, and the live show is basically the same thing. Um, like a different show here. The live show mode is where you actually start recording and capturing the show. So if you start recording, it basically just records the stereo mix. And the idea is for a friend house engineer. I don't wanna have to think about it while I'm mixing. Obviously, mixing a live show is a huge thing, and you don't wanna have to be ableto fuss with it all during the show. So once it starts recording, it's sort of like you'd ignore it for the rest of the show. It's It's all going. You're good to go if you want to. During the show, you can actually mark tracks so you can put markers and say, This is a new song starting if you want to, you can do that at the end as well, and so this will show will go on when you kind of get to the end of the show and you're ready to stop. You have finished and go into the finalized screen, and the final I screen basically says, What are those track markets that you put in what you want, enable you to these songs you can put entitles you can move them around, called with song. Whatever you want, move or add or delete markers dragged into different locations. And when you're done, basically all you do is sit upload, and it says these tracks are being submitted their ready for upload. Obviously, this is a really short recording, usually have a couple hours, but over a standard lt connection, it usually takes about five minutes before you hear back from the server that all the tracks have been uploaded successfully. And then once they're up, we have Q engineers that go through, do some final sweetening and then push it live to fans. So it's kind of a whole one step process from, you know, by the time you load in and sound check tell, fans can walk out with a recording of the show on their phone that they can keep for, you know, for the rest of the time that they have that app. So So I think you guys have done a lot of really exciting work on the business side, too, because what what What really is most interesting to me about this is that it's in an era where everyone is trying to find new ways to monetize their music right and it gets harder and harder, you know, here's an opportunity for them to do that. Can you talk a little bit about kind of what that means? You know, on the business side for the artists? Absolutely. Yeah. So one of the hardest things about doing this, obviously, is that you have to be able to clear the publishing for this. There's a couple different ways, so look at how you sell music fans. Obviously, it's a big thing right now for, you know, trying to figure out whether it's a streaming model or a locker based service or direct download or tether download. You can look at the different models, and there's like 30 year, 40 different models that have payouts were, technically what's called a tether download, but it is an incremental sale. So for every time fan purchases and owns that content that song, we actually treat it just like you were buying it on ITunes. So yeah, the way that we actually pay out royalties is based off of a direct download. And the cool thing about the software that we're building on the back end that's coming soon this summer is that we have We're actually creating new masters every time a song gets uploaded. So when an artist logs in and creates an account on our server, it actually pulls all other track titles they've ever recorded before from Media Net, including the Ice RC codes, which are linked back to the original publishers. And then we've done deals with Sony and Universal on a bunch of different publishers to be able to pull those track titles in and pre clear all those tracks before they even go on tour. So when they log in, they see which tracks have been cleared. Which ones are pending. And then when they create a new track or a new master in the lively audio manager and uploads that actually creates a new ice, or C code that links back to the original master from their studio recording. So that way, we contract to all the publishers are. There's some songs, you know that have, like 15 different publishers on, you know, three different publishing companies summer in non U. S. Territories, and it can get pretty complicated. Eso The idea behind that is that we have all that pre cleared in advance so that when they create that new master. It just fires off through HF a all the publishing information back to their original publishers, and everybody gets their percentage of the mechanical royalty. That's amazing. That's that was the biggest is the biggest thing you know, when I met with you guys and heard about we're doing is like, Wow, that doesn't sound fun. Yeah, exactly the clues. But you guys figure out that's amazing. And I think you know, that's one of the biggest roadblocks toe you know, clearances or one of the biggest roadblocks for monetizing music for using music and other applications on you guys figured that part out? What are what are some of the like success stories you've had as far as artists using this? You know, like I know there's some people. There's artists out there that sell their live shows, like every night you get hundreds and hundreds of, um, what are kind of big success stories on that front for you guys, you know, we're sort of art. We keep saying we target the super fan. We want artists that have fans that are dedicated and loyal and want to engage with their fans in a new way. So one of the best examples one of the biggest you know selling content we've had is from Van. Fall of Troy. They did something really cool. We have a space here in Seattle where they came in and they actually recorded the day before recorded in our studio six songs the day before their show, the show box that was their big reunion show. And then at the end of the show, they came back on stage for their encore and they told everyone at the show way Don't We're not gonna play an encore tonight, but we actually recorded the encore yesterday. So if you download the app right now, you can get six songs that we didn't play tonight. That's our on court and their fans, just eight of those awesome. They had, you know, a huge success with that. So we're actually continuing to do some exports in the things we could do with them as well. You touched on something. I was curious. So I find that most of the bands that do a lot through lively are they are putting up one show focusing on that where you have bands that are have more of an improvisational content where a lot of the bands are like putting up, like every show on on their tour following that. Yeah, What kind of depends? I mean, we kind of try to tailor to the artist and what they want to use it for. I mean, I think the way that you have to build a successful platforms to say, How do you want to use this and how can we adapt it? So it goes both ways, you know, like, right now we have Blues. Traveler, for example, is posting every show of the tour, and before this, before lively, they would, you know, put him on a USB sticks and selling it at the merch table at the end of the show. And this is just a way more cost effective way for them to do that. I remember seeing some company that was doing the same sort of thing. They were they would have like, towers of CD. But, you know, and I mean, it was cool of the time. I'm not, but like to do that now. It just seems so laughable. This is like the way everyone always wanted it to work. I was like, Yeah, I'm walking to my car. Yeah, okay. Five bucks toe. Listen to this on the way home. Yeah, sure. That sounds great. Exactly how did bands usually price their shows? And did they do like, if it's that kind of situation where answering their whole tour did they do, like, packages and bundles? Or is that how does that usually work? Yeah, we've done a bunch of different types of situations. We did A lot of times will have a band that would come through Seattle, which is kind of, you know, where our primary market is. We're expanding out to L. A in New York and done some shows elsewhere. But in Seattle, like I said, we have the space here studio that we do some stuff in, and we've found really successful. We'll have a band come in record, like 45 songs, kind of is an intimate set and then not release it until they go do one of their shows. And then they kind of bundle track, select traction that into their live show. So if you buy the show in Chicago, you get this exclusive studio performance. Four tracks that were unreleased. We've also done things where a band has recorded one big show. We've done kind of a more comprehensive shoot. We multi tracked the audio, mix it you kno do like a 45 camera shoot on the first date of their tour on, and then they'll sell that all the rest of the dates of their tour, along with just the audio from each night. So, like we did that with Portugal demand, for example, we did a show with them at Terminal five, where we, you know, like, actually produced like a live DVD, basically made it available in the APP and then for the every day for the rest of their tour. They sold that same show, which was, you know, very similar set listo every night. But they got a much more higher quality content from what they're capturing. So if a band is looking, Teoh set up, you know, accounting and start putting their shows up on lively. Is it just purely, you know, an agreement that works per show or is there like, and only go a licensing thing that they have to set up ahead of time when you know what kind of figures? It just like it was just pure revenue split. How does that work? Yeah, it's a pure revenue split. So any show that gets sold through Apple or through I'm sorry through any mobile platform is considered an in APP purchase both for IOS and Android and Windows Phone, and they take 30% off the top of that as a distributor feed, just like ITunes does. So once that distributor fees done. The artists get 70% of of every sale after that and then likely keeps 30%. So they get the majority of the sales from each of those shows, and it's entirely revenue split. There's no up front fees. There's nothing costs to sign up. Its they actually own all the content. That was a big thing to that when we started off that we didn't want to look at it like a record label like these are Our masters were basically creating new masters for them. We have exclusivity for 30 days to sell it through the APP, and then after that they only content and they could do whatever they want with it. So cool. Well, it's get live dot l Y. That's correct. Yes. So if you want to check it out, go to get live dot l y take a look. Really nice looking websites into yourself, Favorite. Trick it out. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about that duet while we're waiting on Hans? Because we're big fans of apogee. I know that you chose, you know, this is the kit that you put together for a reason. Can you talk about why you chose the duet? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, apogee have been a huge fan of apple trees work in the studio for years, back from like on the first time. I mixed on a Mac e d A B and they had the u V 22 other built in from Apogee all the way to like all the products they're making now with the Rosetta's. I mean, they're converters have always been like the best. In my opinion, I was blown away when the duet came out. We were looking at different interfaces, and about a year ago I was reading a lot about how IOS core audio is really starting to take off in A lot of people are developing APS to be able to use for pretty, you know, robust recording applications on an IPad or an IPhone, Which to me was like, you know, I didn't trust it right away. It's an engineer, but I was learning about all these different interfaces that people are starting to use and seeing how a lot of especially or using on tour cause it's so mobile. So when the duet came out, do it do it too came out And it was specifically for, um, the ah specifically for IOS. I was really blown away by all the different possibilities that that, you know, you could you could do this and blown away by how great everything sounded I mean, the preempt that are built in some awesome the converters air. Great. I mean, it's kind of what you'd expect from Apogee. Yeah, it sounds great. And one other question For what? Say, you know, you're a band and you're looking to upload your lives. Your life show is on the app that you're using is that I was only Is it also on Android or they're like, you know, a PC or a Mac version of it or Yeah, We're developing something for PC that's more built that's more Web based. So if you're using, obviously there's hundreds of stereo recording applications, so we're focusing on the publishing side of that. So if you want to use anything from Pro tools toe logic toe wave burner, you know you could record it and then just drag a file into our into our Web server and then split up the tracks into all the publishing side of it there. So we're working on that piece that right now it is only payable on IPad. That's the primary source for the manager. So if I'm a musician, do I have to buy that hardware toe record my live shows? Or is there ever a level where you actually send like a kid out to U. S. So we have a bunch of kids we've sent out with different bands, just kind of check them out on, you know, a case by case basis. We're finding that, like I said, we developed for the IPad because a lot of, um, artists are actually taking, you know, ipads on tour with them and using them in different venues. Way also partnered with a bunch of venues nationwide that we've sent kids to, which is great, you know, great way to even reach out to new artists. There's a venue in Washington D. C that we've been working with for about a year called the Hamilton, which is awesome because bands would come in especially local man's will play sound check and Daniel with the Hamiltons awesome and says, Hey, you guys want to record the show and sell it a lot of like, yeah, that sounds awesome. So they kind of works both ways, either bands or venues.