Abandon
Normal
Instruments

Re-designing the content creation infrastructure for the modern era—a new booking and networking system working in tandem with redesigned physical studio space to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving market.

Project Summary

ROLE

Founder • Product Design
UX/UI • Prototyping

TIMELINE

6 months

PLATFORM

New IOS App

TOOLS

Figma • Webflow • Airtable
SurveyMonkey

USER DEMOGRAPHICS

Professional Music Creators:
Writers, Producers, Performers, Instrumentalists,  Podcasters

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The modern music and entertainment market moves at lightning speed, demanding content at an ever-increasing pace. The lifeblood of this new era, independent creators, are primed to rise to the occasion but are impeded by an antiquated system (from production studios to scouting/booking logistics) that is too slow, expensive, and disconnected to meet the moment.

opportunity

While emerging technical advancements would contribute to the cratering economics and resulting splintering of the established music industry, it would also bring a wealth of new tools to reimagine an outdated infrastructure. No digital networking and booking tools had been successfully introduced to this market, and mass closures of antiquated recording studios provided an opportunity to reimagine the system from the ground up. I was a professional musician, studio owner, and designer, perfectly positioned to tackle this issue.

RESULTS

This is/was a REAL project. What began as an exploration into adapting existing studios evolved into a user-based mobile application design paired with reimagined physical music creation spaces that could achieve lower costs, increased production speeds, and connect the newly independent workforce. The final designs would garner a large buy-in from investors, the industry, and creators prior to being put on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic.

IMpact

Preliminary testing and field studies showed promise for this new system, with estimated production cost decreases of up to 75%,  and cutting production times in half.

55%

COST 
REDUCTION

2x

PRODUCTION
SPEEDS

Goals

business goals

Cater to an increasing market segment, faced with a dwindling supply

With traditional studios closing en masse, there is a large opportunity in designing a new workspace for this growing market.

Operational Efficiency

Optimize a system that hasn't been updated in decades, delivering increased profitability in a traditionally expensive environment.

USER GOALS

Increased Productivity

To work with stakeholders and a developer to design a mobile application that connects users to each other, production spaces, and tools at the speed of the current industry.

Decreased Costs

Work with users to discover and minimize redundancies of current system while working with a developer to leverage digital capabilities to help optimize space bookings, allowing a notoriously expensive industry to realign to new economics

Process

To investigate this complex problem plaguing a multi-billion dollar industry and its lifeblood—independent creators—I assembled a diverse team from both sides of the market—industry professionals and creators—to analyze how the industry got here, and where it was going. What is the market demanding? What is the industry doing as a result? What does the new era of music professional need to best serve this market, and how is the current environment failing them?

To find out, we would perform more than a dozen Interviews, perform field studies embedded in both “home’ and professional production studios, and sent out 2 surveys that would receive over 300 responses regarding goals and pain points. We used this feedback to develop ideations that were then re-presented to our research groups and refined repeatedly.

Discovery

Field studies

What is/isn't working in the current process?

Interviews

Industry and creator goals, pain points, and trends.

Surveys

Follow-up feedback on workflows, pain points, and idea feedback.

3rd party data

What is and isn't serving the about the current process? What trends are emerging?

Initial Competitive Analysis

Based on our initial assumptions and understanding of the problem, I would explore the existing environments—both direct and indirect competitors—that music professionals were utilizing to accomplish their workflows. The initial assumption—that the competition was only physical spaces—would be revised soon after as it became clearer that emerging digital networking apps, and "personal" production rigs would need to be considered.

Analysis

USER demographics

Expanded, diverse specialties needing access to Affordable pro audio environments.

What we discovered was diversified, multi-disciplined demographics. Many users would not just fit into 1 particular category but wear many hats. Each of these categories would have very different needs, and each would need each other’s talents to complete their tasks. 1-size would not fit all. Our first glimpse into the idea of a modular, adaptable space.

Instrumentalists

Engineers

Producers

Songwriters

Podcasters

Industry Pros

PERSONAS

Our prospective users' needs greatly differed from the previous generation.

We developed 2 original personas, making assumptions about 2 main user groups— the first a more amateur-level music professional, and the second, a more experienced professional but as the process went on, it became clear that a third persona representing industry professionals was needed.  


Name
Alma

Description
Young up-and-coming audio engineer building a new client list

Needs
Affordable, soundproofed workspace on-demand

Access to an industry community for collaboration opportunities

PAIN POINTS
Traditional studios too expensive

Hard to scout talent and work opportunities in decentralized industry


Name
‍Jake

Description
Seasoned professional in a touring band who also produces other artists

Needs
Pro studio environment on-demand. Often for long periods of time.

Access to a wide array of gear on-demand.

Pain Points
Owning and running your own studio is expensive, and dificult when on the road half the year.


Name
‍Sean

Description
Independent record label executive with a roster of about 10 artists     

Needs
Multi-room "Writing Camps" for his roster of artists.

Enabling artists rosters to make content fast and affordably

Pain Points

Current studios too expensive.

Current studios do not have multiple spaces and multiple functions.

Affinity mapping

Patterns begin to emerge.

4 main themes began to materialize. It is these categories that we would use to begin defining the

#1

Curent system
too costly

#2

Disconnected
community

#3

Curent system
too slow

#4

Lack of
knowledge

The Current journey

Creating songs is an inspiring experience, producing it in the current landscape is not.

The production infrastructure was built for a previous generation, centralized around record labels, and funded by larger, up-front revenue from physical record sales. Even though there is more demand for content than ever, the "traditional" studio model is not serving its users.

Click to enlarge

Competitive analysis - Round 2

The solution will likely be more than just a physical one.

I decided to do a second round of competitive analysis now that there was a better understanding of user needs. Community disconnection would become more pronounced as a core pain point—especially in a growing independent workforce— so I realized that competition would largely come from other networking apps.

linkedIn

soundbetter

co-working Apps

Audience: Professional talent and scouters of talent worldwide

Audience: Independent music creators looking for talent and spaces to make music

Audience: Entertainment + business pros looking to network and entertain.

Large pool of professionals

Not optimized for showcasing music + audio

Not curated

Access to network of talent and potential opportunities

Does not solve for the inaccessibility of physical space

Lack of Curation

Access to a beautiful workspaces

Access to a entertainment community.

Not audio environments

Community not accessible or searchable

early insights

The music production infrastructure and logistics have remained static for decades. There is a lot of opportunity to update it.

Disconnected community without a hub

With labels no longer the central hub, the increasingly dominant independent creator community needs each other now more than ever— They need easy access to each others talents.

Much waste and redundancy in traditional studios. Bad for user AND business.

Talent and studio booking is too slow and antiquated.

Booking is now completed mostly by phone and word of mouth. This is too slow for the speed of modern industry. Losing money and opportunity. Phone calls or emails often go unanswered.

Product costs AND turnaround times need to drastically decrease

Content is released much faster, on a per-song basis, yet the existing system is slow and not agile enough.

Growing use of “Home Studios”... but pro environment still a MUST for some tasks.

Outcomes + 
Opportunities

Defining Desired OUTComes.

Decrease costs to realign with new financial structures

To work with stakeholders and a developer to design a mobile application that connects users to each other, production spaces, and tools at the speed of the current industry.

Increase networking opportunities with other talent and industry

To work with stakeholders and a developer to design a mobile application that connects users to each other, production spaces, and tools at the speed of the current industry.

the opportunity space.

No digital networking interface has yet to successfully focus on this market...
yet the average user was VERY tech savvy. A digital infrastructure could be implemented to reduce costs and increase efficiency across the production AND scouting/booking processes.This could connect users to talent, industry consulting, and opportunities, then allow product to be produced in a cost-effective manner in a redesigned space.

A lot of waste in existing model for current needs.
Many, now-redundant aspects of the traditional studio model can be streamlined to optimize cost and efficiency. Rather than fight the “home production” trend, we can design a space to compliment it—catering only to the items which modern users could NOT accomplish at home?

Big Picture Ideation

No digital networking interface has yet to successfully focus on this market...
yet the average user was VERY tech savvy. A digital infrastructure could be implemented to reduce costs and increase efficiency across the production AND scouting/booking processes.This could connect users to talent, industry consulting, and opportunities, then allow product to be produced in a cost-effective manner in a redesigned space.

A lot of waste in existing model for current needs.
Many, now-redundant aspects of the traditional studio model can be streamlined to optimize cost and efficiency. Rather than fight the “home production” trend, we can design a space to compliment it—catering only to the items which modern users could NOT accomplish at home?

Feasibility

Exploring the opportunity space.

Pursuing the industry's first networking app that connects them to a modular studio system.

Reinvented Modular Studio Infrastructure

• Feasibility point 1

• Feasibility point 2

Digital Booking App for Studio

• Feasibility point 1

Digital Booking App for Talent

• Feasibility point 1

Knowledge-base for Independent Pros

• Feasibility point 1

Our decision

Our stakeholders and investors helped us to see that this was a rare opportunity—where current physical studio spaces were on the decline at the same time that users were demanding a new, multi-pronged solution.

We would be provided the resources to lease a vacant industrial warehouse to construct a paired-down, 10-room, modular production space test model that would be booked with a limited-feature mobile application where members could network, book each others' talents, and ultimately reserve a production space scaled to their needs.

If the test model was successful, we would then explore additional spaces—either adding more rooms to the existing location or expanding to other smaller, more intimate locations that members could select from.

This process would be approached iteratively with constant feedback from users and stakeholders.

Metrics

By what measures would we monitor the success or shortcomings of our solutions?

Cost
For these ideations, we chose to measure the estimated per-song production cost of each variation.

Time-on-Task
‍With shared-economy/co-working methodology on the rise, could we leverage a system like this to optimize bookings in a physical space and achieve profitability where other studios have failed?

Conversion Rate
Since this was a new business opportunity, we couldn’t calculate true conversion rates until a product was launched, but for this initial stage, we would calculate this with membership waiting list signups.

Design

Task Flows

Mapping out the central actions that we aim to deliver to users.

Booking a Studio On-Demand

Search available studios

Book
Studios

Add
Talent and
Gear

Confirm +
Pay

Share
Details

Scouting + Booking Talent On-Demand

Search available studios

Book
Studios

Add
Talent and
Gear

Confirm
+
Pay

Share Details

DESIRED USER FLOWS

I would expand on the task flows with an iteration on the user flow that we desired to create before I began considering even lo-fi designs to get an understanding of which screens and actions I would need to consider.

EARLY ITERATIONS

I would expand on the task flows with user flows before I began considering eve lo-fi designs to get an understanding of which screens and actions I would need to consider.

Early Iterations of the physical structure and how it would relate to the mobile application.

Using design thinking for the physical space as well. How the physical facilities could be reinvented to even allow for the digital application to do its work would greatly inform the app itself. I met with the studio design team on a daily basis for insights and our collaborative conversations would

Early ideations: a main hurdle to reimagining the studio environment was that they would all end up resembling the traditional model, just with a greater amount of compact rooms

Revised designs based on digital integration. All rooms would be a consistent design to allow for easy transition from one to another depending on availability.

FEEDBACK + IMPROVEMENTS

Regular user and AI involvement testing prototypes, fostering a valuable feedback loop, allowing for constant research and refinement as we went.

High Res USER FLOWS

The entire core of the application came down to two flows—

Studio Booking Flow

Talent Booking Flow

FINAL SCREENS

The entire core of the application came down to two flows—

Studio Booking Flow

Conclusions + Next Steps

By what measures would we monitor the success or shortcomings of our solutions?

Cost
To measure  I chose to go with an estimated per-song production calculation

Time-on-Task
‍With shared-economy/co-working methodology on the rise, could we leverage a system like this to optimize bookings in a physical space and achieve profitability where other studios have failed?

Conversion Rate
Since this was a new business opportunity, we couldn’t calculate true conversion rates until a product was launched, but for this initial stage, we would calculate this with membership waiting list signups.