Last October, we launched Arpeggi Genesis: an in-browser DAW to mint songs as fully on-chain Music NFTs. Since then, we’ve evolved Arpeggi from a simple on-chain music creation tool to a revolutionary web3 music creation ecosystem.
Whereas most other web3 platforms focus on changing the way we own music, Arpeggi focuses on changing the way we create music. By ensuring attribution when any sound is used, Arpeggi helps free creators break from traditional constraints of music collaboration, turning sampling and sharing from theft to collaboration and connection.
In pursuit of this vision, on June 16th we formed the first on-chain CC0 sample library to power open-source music creation. Now, we take our biggest step forward with Arpeggi v2: a web3 music creation platform that builds collaboration into every part of music making. After months of heads-down building, we’re excited to announce…as of today, anyone can connect their wallet to Arpeggi, freely remix existing songs or use the CC0 sample library to make new songs in our in-browser DAW, and mint them as NFTs - completely free*.*
Here’s how.
Arpeggi realigns creator incentives, flipping the paradigm for artists to encourage the reuse of their music instead of restricting it. Traditionally, using someone else’s sound is viewed as theft. With Arpeggi, we’re building a future where the more your music is used, the more valuable it becomes. On Arpeggi, when a song succeeds, so do the contributors of the samples or loops.
At the core of Arpeggi V2 is Arpeggi Studio, our in-browser Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for composing, publishing and minting songs as music NFTs. When finished making a song, artists can press the “Mint” button to tokenize and publish their song to the blockchain. Artists then receive one NFT for their song, and one for each of their instrument tracks - completely free. We cover gas so artists can focus on making music.
When an artist mints a song on Arpeggi, the audio is registered in ARP, a decentralized on-chain music registry protocol that publishes a record of authorship to the blockchain and adds the song and loops to an open library of registered sounds. Through ARP, every song and loop created in Arpeggi is available for remixing and sampling with guaranteed attribution to original creators.
Arpeggi Studio is more powerful than ever, now offering unlimited access to samples and loops for sampling and remixing, an infinite number of instrument tracks, unbound song length, polyphony, auto-release, and more.
With ARP, musicians have full visibility into where and how their music is used. Every sample, loop, and song in Arpeggi has its own page detailing all the different places that sound is used. Upload one of your favorite samples? See every single musical piece where your sample was used. Make a song you are proud of? See who remixed your loops to make new songs.
As Clovis McEvoy mentions in Arpeggi’s feature in Culture3, “Arpeggi provides users with a complete, traceable, real-time, easily visible genealogy of every sound and song – a logistical nightmare using existing web2 technology that’s made easy via blockchain.” For the first time, musicians collectively benefit from sharing their work, incentivizing artists to promote the reuse of their music instead of protecting it.
With sounds tracked in ARP - whether one-shot samples, loops, or full compositions - any sound you hear on Arpeggi is a sound you can create with. As a part of Arpeggi V2, we have built explore tools for finding new sounds to use in Arpeggi Studio. Arpeggi grants creators access to an infinite and growing sound library through sounds registered via ARP. The more sounds that are minted, the more sounds that exist for you to create with and with the click of a button, you can go from listening to remixing using Arpeggi’s in-browser DAW.
Making music is an inherently social experience. With Arpeggi v2, your songs aren’t just an on-chain record of your creations, it’s an on-chain record of your artistic connections. To facilitate community, we have made connecting and collaborating with your favorite artists as easy as possible: navigate to their profile, see their creations, and in one-click begin working on something new.
Arpeggi is grateful to have a fantastic team of 12 helping make our vision for open-source music a reality. If our mission resonates with you:
We can’t wait to create together.