SongFactory Launched!

After 2 long years of work, my songwriting software, Songfactory is launched! It seems a lifetime ago that I started to think about this project, so it's fantastic to finally get to launch day.

I'm really pleased with the result - it's certainly something that I'd buy, and I hope other people feel the same way! There's a free trial available on the website, so why not give it a spin and let me know what you think?

Music on demand

I've been using Spotify today.  It's not a treatment for acne; it is in fact a "free" music on demand service.  Like itunes, it allows you to choose music from it's online library but, unlike itunes, you can stream it for free.  In return you have to sit through a short advert every 20 mins.  You can pay a monthly or daily subscription to avoid the adverts.

I like the idea and I like their interface - it's quick and easy to use and seems to have a lot of music available.  The monthly subscription price is £9.99 which would translate into probably about 1 CD, but with this service you can listen to a whole load of new releases every month.  I guess it's a weigh-up of how much music you currently buy and how you like to listen to it.  I listen to most of my music whilst I'm working, so it makes me a happier man!

Month Review - April

The months are disappearing this year! Classic blog apology - sorry for the lack of activity on this blog - I've been quite busy!

It's been a good few months. Songsmith's really starting to take shape - most of the functionality is there, so I'm tidying things up and getting some feedback before I start to finalise things. The closer it gets, the more excited I am that it'll be a great product!

This month, I've also paid myself for the first time! It's the first pay I've received since I left my job in December. I've done a bit of work on the side, building a website and playing at an event which has meant I've had the funds coming into the company to allow a salary. It's a step of faith that things will continue to progress.

I incorporated (became a limited company) back at the start of April, so I'm now officially a company Director. I thought about putting it on my email signature, but I think it sounds a bit pretentious still! Perhaps when I start selling units I might do that...

Wedding plans are coming along well. The invitations went out over the last couple of weeks, and these have been hard work to do! My wonderful fiance has worked her socks off to create them, and we've both spent many long nights cutting, sticking and writing them.

Lessons

One of my big lessons from the last few months is to set good deadlines. I've given myself a few tough but realistic deadlines, and have pretty much met them all, but the best thing about this was that it made me focus my work. It's so easy to be distracted by fiddling with stuff, but when you know you need something done by the end of the week, it helps to clear the mind! I've obviously worked with deadlines before, but when you don't have anyone over you, telling you what to do, I've found it quite a steep learning curve to figure out how best to make me work!

Welcome to May!

Month Review - January

January's been a challenging month! I started working full time on my software at the start of the year, so here's look back at the month:

Achievements

I've got quite a bit done, but a lot of it has been "under the hood" stuff which isn't that visible. I've been tidying up some fundamental things that I'd left earlier in the project - things are a lot better now, but it's quite frustrating to not be able to see any dramatic change!! I'm happy with what I've got done, but I'm not quite as far on as I hoped I'd be.

Lessons

I've learned that it's important to have a life! I cleared all of my spare time at the start of this project, cancelling commitments and activities, in order to focus on what I'm doing. This has given me more space, which was great, but I've been struggling to switch off from the work, which is bad! I've been amazed at how much this kind of thing has affected me. The solution so far is to make time for some evening stuff to try and balance me out a bit. (...well, as balanced as it's possible for me to be...!)

Looking forward to...

Getting married!! The wedding plans are coming along slowly, and Laura and I are very much looking forward to having a break on honeymoon! I'm also looking forward to getting the software sounding better - there's some tweaks I need to make, but once it's sounding good, it'll feel like I'm getting somewhere!!

Roll on February...

The start of a company year

The company project starts in ernest today! I've been working on the software now since August, and it's starting to take shape. From today, I'm working on it full time which should help me to work much faster in putting the finishing touches to the software.

We're hoping to launch by March/April, so there's a tight project plan in process at the moment! Exciting stuff...

The only way is up

I've finally taken the plunge. After almost a year of research, advice seeking and general thinking I've given my notice at work to drop to a 3 day week. My company have been fantastic and they've allowed me to reduce my hours so that I work 3 days for them and then 3 days for myself each week. This means that from the beginning of August I'm going to be at WPC from Mon-Weds and then slogging it out at home Thu-Sat.

The general response I've been getting back from the songwriting idea has been really positive and I reached the point where I realised that I had to make a decision. I'm looking forward to the challenge, but I am a little nervous. The biggest challenge might be getting out of bed on a Thursday morning, but I'm sure I can work around that. Perhaps I just won't go to bed on Wednesday evening?!

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a concept?

So here's the concept. Ever tried writing a song? It can be quite a painful experience. You're walking down the street humming when suddenly an idea drops into your head. You rush home, grab your guitar, strum some rough chords and write down a couple of lines. You can kinda hear what it should sound like, but you can't think of a good rhyme for life (wife, knife, strife...) and as the song slowly progresses, you forget the rhythm for the first bit. Soon the best bit of the song (your original idea) is forgotten amidst a see of scribbles and all you can think of is the annoying bit that you don't like.

The concept is a piece of software to ease the pain of writing songs. It'll allow you to stick down chords and words really easily as they come to you and play the whole thing back. I'm hoping to put a rhyming dictionary in for those difficult lines, and you'll be able to generate some great sounding accompaniments. In the space of half an hour, you'll have a completed song that you can print out (in lots of different forms (music score, guitar tab, just words etc...,) and burn to CD. That means that when you turn up at the band rehearsal, you won't spend an hour trying to explain how you imagined it would sound - you can show them. You could even email them an mp3 of the music before the rehearsal!

It all sounds great in theory but there are a few products on the market which do similar things. Market research here I come!

Songbird

After a lot of thinking and research I've come up with a brand new software concept that I like even more than my previous idea! After thinking through the legal implications of the other product, I decided to go back to the drawing board and see if I could come up with anything better, and I started thinking about Songwriting Software. I've done a quick bit of research into the market and it all looks positive so far...

I'm going to run the idea past a few songwriters that I know in the next few weeks (if you're one of them and you're reading this then watch out!) and then I guess I'll have to make a final decision.

I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with this which is very exciting. Any thoughts and comments are very appreciated. More tomorrow...

Read me my rights

I've spent the weekend mulling over a document which the nice people at http://www.own-it.org/ have sent me. They kindly had a look through my software concept and have set down their thoughts on the Intelectual Property (IP) implications of the idea.

Their basic summary is that they think my users could use my software to breech copyright, and that there's a possibility that I (as the software creator) could be held liable for "Secondary Infringement" as a result. They've noted that this kind of case hasn't been tried in a UK court since tape-to-tape copying machines back in the 1980's, but with Napster and Kazaa being found guilty in similar situations (within other duristictions), they think it possible that the court may decide differently this time.

Part of the issue hinges around reproducing music which is under copyright. Copyright expires 70 years after a composer's death and so most music used for learning a solo instrument are free from copyright because of their age.

My idea is much smaller than Kazaa and Napster and, having read the Own It document, I feel certain that the majority of my users will use the software legally. I guess that this could still potentially leave me open to lawsuits, but my hunch (without getting accredited personal IP advice) is that this is unlikely. For me, the big issue is whether I want to persue a piece of software that could be seen as "unjust". The IP laws are there for a reason (to protect the IP of creative people) and trying to get away with as much as I can just for my own ends doesn't seem right.

Dilemas all round! I'm having a think to see if I can come up with any other potential ideas. Anyone out there with a burning desire for some music software?!

"Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent." Oscar Wilde

How to take over the world

Conventional wisdom dictates that success comes to those who wait (along with ketchup). Never being one for convention, I've spent the last few months doggedly pursuing one of my childhood dreams of running my own business. Some people have suggested to me that it might be more prudent to build up experience before I launch into this adventure, but whilst I value their advice, I like to do things the hard way!

I'm a musician and a software engineer, and after a lot of research into other software markets, I started wondering about combining the two together. I've now built up an idea for a product that I hope will be successful, and I'm going through the process of checking it out before I launch into writing it. I'm hoping to document the journey here, as it happens, so feel free to join the ride! Failure is a possibility, but that makes the adventure even more fun!

Your thoughts, advice, support and encouragement will be very much appreciated along the way.