CCB Magazine

If you’re interested in music tech in Berlin, you can’t get past Matthias Strobel. How could you? In 2011 the jack-of-all-trades of the tech scene had already founded the label Nagual Sounds; up until 2017 he was a co-organiser of the Music Tech Fest and then founded the nationwide association MusicTech Germany – just to cite a few highlights in his full CV. Now he has just launched the MusicTech Meetups, a new format for Berlin that brings together music tech companies, technology visionaries and forward-looking ideas in one place. What exactly happens at the MusicTech Meetups? What’s in it for the scene? And what challenges does the music world face in times of digital upheaval? 

Interview Katharina Warda     

CCB Magazine: Hello Matthias, first things first: There are many people, like me, who like to listen to music and therefore probably benefit all day long from the digitalisation sweeping through the world of music. You’ve been working in MusicTech for years. What exactly does Music Tech mean to you?

Matthias Strobel: Music Tech is basically everything that’s not singing, clapping, pounding, whistling; seen in this light, MusicTech is nothing new. Music and technology have always been connected. If you take a guitar, for example, it’s already a technological work (product) that someone has assembled and thus a music technology. Already in the Stone Age people looked for new ways of musical expression and built flutes out of bird bones.

CCB Magazine: You’ve been working in music tech for years and you’ve been advancing project after project. In 2017 you founded the Bundesverband für Musiktechnologie Deutschland e.V., last year the Berlin MusicTech Meetups, a new format for the Berlin music tech scene. What exactly are the MusicTech Meetups? And why does Berlin need such a format?

Matthias Strobel: What was missing in Berlin was a physical place where everything that happens in the field of MusicTech in Berlin comes together. And that’s a lot. But there are also a lot players in the game, the competition is big and there are some misunderstandings when assessing the (added) value of technology for artistic creation. That’s why I thought: “Ecosystem” instead of “Egosytem”. I now bring everyone together and create an analogue platform for exchange on a level playing field. At the Meetups, label operators meet hardcore nerds, or musicians sitting in wheelchairs looking for barrier-free tools meet start-ups working on new solutions. To date we’ve had four MusicTech Meetups.

What was missing in Berlin was a physical place where everything that happens in the MusicTech sector in Berlin comes together. Basically the events are the basis for the community here in Berlin, almost like a mini conference with free beer

CCB Magazine: And what exactly is happening? 

Matthias Strobel: The first Meetup was held under the motto “Innovation through Cooperation”, so the first thing was to bring the scene together. The second centred around “Music Making (Hu) machines”, where we focussed on extraordinary creative new music machines. The third Meetup dealt with AI and communication and the fourth Meetup addressed “Music in and for new contexts”. The next one is currently being planned. In the meantime, about 200 people from a permanent pool of over 1,000 people are coming to the Meetups.

The Wall of Opportunities on the MusicTech Meetups. Photo © MusicTech Meetups

CCB Magazine: How do you select your topics and why? And what has been the response so far? 

Matthias Strobel: The response has been very good. And I choose themes according to their topicality. Each Meetup takes about three hours. I invite experts who start by dealing with a particular topic. Not through sales pitches, but more like TED talks. The rest of the evening is then utilised to make new contacts and exchange ideas. That’s exactly what it’s all about. There is a “Wall of Opportunities” where everyone can leave what they are doing or who they are looking for and resourceful inventors have the opportunity to exhibit their prototypes and get feedback from the participants. So far we’ve seen how the coming together of all these different people at the events even spawns new projects, or enables start-ups to find new employees. Basically the Meetups are the basis for the community here in Berlin, almost like a mini conference with free beer.

CCB Magazine: But is the whole development also critically reflected? What does it do to us when AI music suddenly adapts to human emotions or technology and thus replaces humans? What are the limits? 

Matthias Strobel: We have to identify these limits for ourselves. That’s why these sorts of “analogue” events are so important. The central question of MusicTech Meetups is not only: How does current technological development influence the way we create and interact with music? It’s also about which value chains will result from this in the future. What is becoming apparent at the moment is that AI and smart algorithms are not only increasingly determining what kind of music we listen to and when, but are also increasingly being used by artists for inspiration as partners in the creation of new works. AI is also used to find the right music for movies, commercials or brands in catalogues and is also used to better identify rights owners of individual works, ensuring a fairer and more accurate distribution of royalties.

What is becoming apparent at the moment is that AI and smart algorithms are not only increasingly determining what kind of music we listen to and when, but are also increasingly being used by artists as inspiration partners in the creation of new works

CCB Magazine: The digital market share of all revenues of the music industry now amounts to around 58 per cent, mainly due to streaming. One problem, however, is that artists earn very little from streaming. They generally earn too little from online cultural production. For this reason, a new copyright law was recently passed to better protect publishers, broadcasters and artists from unlicensed copies. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in Berlin against the reform, you and your association at the forefront. The protest was mainly directed against the so-called Article 13, which stipulates that in future the major platforms such as YouTube or Spotify will be responsible for copyright infringements. Exceptions are non-commercial platforms such as online encyclopaedias and new platforms in the first three years and those whose annual turnover is less than ten million euros. Isn’t it great that the big platforms are finally being called to account? They earn primarily from art and culture, not the creative artists. 

Matthias Strobel: Actually, yes. Especially with the ever-increasing exploitation possibilities of creative content on the Internet, it is important to adapt copyright law to today’s world. The only problem is that the passed law will not lead to artists earning more with their content on the Internet, but that less creative content will be available on the Internet. This is because artists and smaller companies in particular will no longer be able to upload content so easily because everyone must have a license. No matter whether the artist intended to market the music commercially or simply wants to make his work available to the world on the Internet. In the future, so-called content recognition filters will block any content that cannot be clearly assigned to a license holder. All the filter has to do is to detect any inconsistencies - and animal noises or noise are often enough. An upload or content filter technology that works error-free does not yet exist. For the smaller platform providers, the development of such filter technologies is too expensive. It doesn’t help that start-ups shouldn’t be obliged to do so until three years after their foundation. Anyone who’s reasonably familiar with the process of setting up a company knows that even after three years hardly any startup is in a position to bear the costs and the risk. Basically, the new Copyright Ordinance favours the tech giants that are supposedly the ones who are to be held to account. The artists who are actually at stake - and who, by the way, nobody consulted when the law was written – end up being the losers. 

That's how it looks on the MusicTech Meetups. Lots of people, lots of topics. © MusicTech Meetups

CCB Magazine: What would you propose as a solution? 

Matthias Strobel: One of the best systems currently available for identifying rights holders is in the hands of Youtube. Their Content ID works quite well and would work even better if there were a worldwide reference database for metadata in which every artist can register his works and with which other platforms can compare the uploaded content. But even then, mistakes would be inevitable because, for example, interpretations of songs at live concerts would not be recognised, or videos where music or sounds could be unintentionally blocked somewhere in the background. Anyway, there’s currently no tool that can organise the whole process. A worldwide meta-database would at least contribute to more transparency and could also help creative people to develop new exploitation models and remuneration systems that could ultimately generate further sources of income for artists.

The new EU copyright reform is using the tech giants they want to fight and harming artists

CCB Magazine: With the digitalisation not only the value chain of music has changed a lot, but also the music product itself. How important will music production be as a cultural asset in the future?

Matthias Strobel: I think music will always be incredibly meaningful for human beings. Unfortunately, the loss of music value will probably continue to increase. On the one hand this is due to the fact that one can consume music passively and, with today’s oversupply, is often only consumed this way. For the growing generation, the name of the artist they hear and the album he releases no longer matters that much; the only thing that counts for them are playlists. On the other hand, digitalisation creates completely new approaches and nowadays allows everyone to express themselves creatively, musically. Music production has become more accessible and affordable for everyone. 

For the growing generation it often doesn’t matter anymore what the artist’s name is, who they hear and which album he releases. The only thing that still counts are the playlists.

Photo © Alexander Rentsch

CCB Magazine: But couldn’t the development also have the effect that the person is completely pushed into the background? The emergence of music subcultures since the 1970s in particular has led to a cult of personality. Today, the focus is on the individual and his or her patchwork identity - here the curated self, there, the dominance of the playlist. Perhaps the value of music is simply changing – moving away from the cult of personality and towards a “pure musical experience” without authorship.

Matthias Strobel: That could be. But I would rather say: It’s not the music that loses value, but the individual artist and his or her creative work. I see one of the challenges in the fact that today we have an oversupply of music - and precisely because of this fact, the music itself loses value. I believe that the time will come when we’ll all long for some degree of limitations again. I’m always laughed at when I say that the cassette will outlive this technologisation or perhaps even become the next big thing. Cassette sales in the USA and UK have been rising steadily by 140% per year for years. At Bandcamp, vinyl isn’t the best selling product, it’s the cassette. Last summer, I dug out my old Walkman. The damn thing is so big, it just doesn’t fit in my pocket. A new medium like this would be needed, or a new Walkman that’s smaller and more comfortable. Then the Walkman could experience a true renaissance, because the appreciation for music is inscribed in everyone, almost to the core. Even though the sound quality certainly doesn’t meet today’s standards, I don’t fast-forward because I’m afraid that the batteries might run out or that the tape itself could get all tangled. So I listen every song to the end. And I think that’s exactly what the future may have in store – listening to music, consciously.