General Conclusions

• Education space seems "ok", but seems dominated by hardware-enabled apps
• Creating a new instrument is visionary, but unlikely. Could be more fun than useful, eg. a keys/theremin for your computer?
• Production seems pretty out of reach
• The amount of added functionality would be multiples what's been invested so far
• Hypothetical markets
• Is there room for a super-casual music production element?
• Should we just market AS a game?
• osu.ppy.sh
• They have a community around beatmap reviews, etc.

Considerations / Risks

• Inherently solution-first
• Hardware limitations
• N-key rollover? Mac keyboards do <6 keys. Seems ok. My Windows bluetooth & wireless only does 4, seems tougher
• Latency? Would be a deal-breaker for using this like an instrument
• Much better on wired than wireless/bluetooth, but ever so slight. bit jarring
• Production likely more forgiving on fidelity / latency
• Relative sizing vs. complexity. Music production greater market than education(?) Music production $1bil
• What’s the easiest music production software out there? Lil Nas X has a tiny keyboard — seems more doable!
• Next steps on music production:
• Try making music ourselves
• Talk to people who could have produced music

Compete

Music Production

Assume our space is casuals.

• Competitors: FL Studio, GarageBand, Ableton
• All pretty intimidating
• Hour-long "simple" tutorials
• Limited interoperability between these solutions
• bounce.town is picking up traction, but what is it?
• https://twitter.com/vidythatte/status/1341575228774871041?lang=en
• Using web:
• A lot more screen space
• bounce only gets 20% of the feature set
• Pick a few tones, pick where the beat goes, loop
• Inclination — we can go a lot farther
• Production layout - tilted 90 degrees
• Familiar with other production software

Games

• A market for this exists on mobile. Rhythm tap games are a dime a dozen. All monetized, probably decent entry even for a copy if we have an angle

Music Education

Landscape: hardware-enabled vs. software-only

Perceived pain points

• It's difficult to learn a new instrument in a "fun" way, but not impossible.

Piano hardware-enabled

• Synthesia, Phase Shift, Yousician
• Mobile: Simply Piano, Yousician
• Midi Interop between piano keyboard <> software.
• Low-latency, full-capture
• All seem to have pretty similar UIs, Synthesia might be most popular
• Hardware-enabled apps have larger audiences others (eg. Simply Piano has 328k reviews). No substitute for the real thing

Guitar hardware-enabled (for reference)

• Good
• Plugs into existing guitar
• Guitar-hero-esque. Nice!
• Reviews are generally positive
• Bad
• Super busy — is guitar truly learnable in this interface?
• Chord work is tough, but maybe not impossible

Various iPhone apps

• Pretty crowded overall
• Tactile, non-game, non-hardware: Reviews ~6k range (600k users optimistically? Seems high)
• Touchscreen better than keyboard? Prob not
• Examples: Piano Academy, Yokee; Piano for iPhone
• Instructional:
• How do these guys have installs?
• Flowkey
• General observations:
• Pretty crowded overall
• [Peter] On a phone, apps are pretty commoditized
• Download a couple apps, never reuse it. Low stickiness, low switching costs
• Need some really meaningful differentiation
• Organic traction on an iPhone is niche
• Everyone wants to learn an instrument
• Hard to disrupt from inside the app store
• Price range: $3 lifetimes - $30 yearly (Piano, Impala Studios)