Everline Future 50: Jukedeck

Says founder Ed Rex (cool name): “We want to use this software to revolutionise the way people and businesses interact with music.”

Jukedeck’s genius is that it doesn’t just use loops, but writes the music note by note, just like a composer would. It can create an unlimited amount of unique music, in a variety of styles, that is copyright-free, created on the spot and can react in real-time to external inputs.

Over to Ed Rex.

“When I started developing it, three years ago, I had just left Cambridge University, where I’d been studying music. I learnt how to code in order to build it.

“The reason I started was that it struck me that this is something that should, theoretically, be possible, but no-one’s done it yet because of the amount of work it takes and because no-one really knows how to build a tune from scratch. That’s what I think we’ve cracked.”

There are many potential markets for this type of unique, copyright-free, responsive music. Rex is focusing on two in the short term:

1. The user-generated video market (100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute); and
2. The games market (24 of the top 25 apps on the App Store are games).

Compellingly, Rex quotes legendary music producer Brian Eno as part-inspiration: “I really think it is possible our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: ‘You mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?’”

Rex says his software has proved that computers can write music – “it’s not a case of if this will happen, but when. And we want to try to be the ones to do it.”

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