TL;DR

Quantum Rainbows is a 16-minute composition released in 4 shorter tokenized sections to finance a limited run of tapes that are shipped to the backers.

About this project

“Quantum Rainbows‘ is the title of my first music NFT which I call a ‘Blockchain Beat Tape’.

First of all, let me tell you about what I call a "beat tape”: a series of short compositions that are embedded in an overarching structure, somewhere between DJ set and dub mix with a playtime of up to 20 minutes. In the golden days I would have recorded this to magnetic tape and sent it in a padded envelope to aspiring rappers.

Creating a beat tape is a process I thoroughly enjoy, but up until now I couldn’t find a way to share these compositions with the world: too long for a single, too short for an album. I now want to use my first NFT music release to amend this.

Release Concept

‚Quantum Rainbows‘ was broken up into 4 shorter sections, which were released bi-weekly and could be collected individually. If you held the tokens for all 4 sections, the full 16 minute composition was airdropped into your wallet, and you would have also been eligible to receive an actual physical tape that can be played back in any standard boom box or walkman.

My hope is that through the gradual exposure to the musical moods and ideas contained in each section, the collectors were able to experience all the details in the full composition that were otherwise easily lost.

Onboarding

Mint Songs created an onboarding experience to make it easy and intuitive for folks who don’t use Metamask: you could claim a free visual NFT of the artwork via this link and set up a custodial wallet in the process. You were then able to directly log into your Mint Songs account and start collecting.

Edition & Pricing

Tracks were minted in editions of 50, and the pricing started at 0.0064 ETH with the price being reduced by 25% per release. The music contained in the ‚Quantum Rainbows‘ release won’t be available on streaming platforms.

Release Schedule

The releases were scheduled as follows:

• 1 of 4 - January 28th (available via this link)
• 2 of 4 - February 11th (available via this link)
• 3 of 4 - February 25th (available via this link)
• 4 of 4 - March 11th (available via this link)
• The full 16-minute composition - March 25th (available via this link)

Audio Tape

On March 25th 2022 at 23:59 CET (two weeks after the release of the final section) a snapshot of the collectors was taken, and token holders of all four sections received the full 16-minute composition via airdrop. This audio NFT functions as the key to access this token-gated website where a copy of the physical audio tape can be claimed.

NOTE: If you collected all four sections after March 26th 2022 you won’t receive the full 16-minute composition audio NFT, but are still eligible to claim your copy of the audio tape through this link. The offer does not apply to purchases on the secondary market.

Manufacturing & Shipping

The tape manufacturing started in April, and collectors will be receiving updates on the production process. Once the tape is in stock, they will be shipped to the address provided via the token-gated website.