Seth Goldstein

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@vsaketram im not sure its either/or. since even if with a fully "human curated" music experience there is often so much data and noise that you need to apply algorithms to make sense of it. discovery is a magic word that resonates for both users and for the music industry. everybody wants to be on the right side of discovery. i do think there is a big seismic shift in music that many are not focused on, namely how songs are getting broken down into constituent parts like loops/stems/drops and getting quoted and remixed as part of new remixes and mashups. similar to how the unit of the album got broken down and unbundled into songs.

3 share tweet・2 years ago

V Saket Ram

@vsaketram · trbble

@seth Loved your take on music discovery, esp since we at @trbble are looking to solve the problem through crowdsourced best parts of songs

Rick Right?

@rickright_

Hi @Seth, this is Rick Right? from Crossfader. Where do you see Crossfader in a year and do you think it could somehow make its way into a festival/club setting?

4 share tweet・2 years ago

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@rickright_ hello mr dj. by next october... id like for crossfader to provide more direct ways for you to collaborate and communicate with your fellow djs on the platform. i have always dreamed of enabling a new kind of global drum circle with people taking turns crossfading without the mix ever droppping the beat. there are some new platforms like appletv and oculus vr that are also interesting and which we are prototyping for. in terms of festivals/clubs, yes. we need to enable our power users like you and @hopey_scorpion to find local opportunities to crossfade; and we will identify tent-pole kind of opportunities on a country by country basis and invite some of our favorite djs to come and perform. for example, we are eyeing envision festival in costa rica in february http://www.envisionfestival.com/ as a possibility along these lines.

Hopey♏️

@hopey_scorpion

@seth do you think crossfader can keep getting bigger and bigger?

3 share tweet・2 years ago

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@hopey_scorpion we need to keep working both sides of the "easy to use, hard to master" statement: ie we need to make it easier and easier for first time users to figure out how to use it and get them to make a mix and share it. and we also need to keep adding subtle improvements to the core instrument (better loop management / improved filters ) to keep our power users like you engaged and feeling like it continues to be worth the time investment you are making. at some point, i think we need to help our best djs elevate their game to the next level, in terms of finding bigger audiences and getting paid $.

Emily Hodgins

@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt

What moment in your career to date has surprised you the most and why?

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@ems_hodge im not sure these were the biggest surprises, but they are memorable moments: i remember going to esther dyson's release 2.0 internet conference in 2006 and listening to a panel about social networking with zuckerberg, reid hoffman and somebody from microsoft. it was so clear to me that zuck was playing chess while everybody else was playing checkers. he had a native understanding of how social media worked that was not studied. i also remember in 2004/2005 getting my name as a address when google first launched gmail, and thinking that this was a game changer. so there are moments like those, when new platform realities make themselves obvious.

Melissa Joy Kong

@melissajoykong · Content, Product Hunt

You launched one of the first internet marketing firms in NYC back in the mid-nineties (SiteSpecific). Did you have the big vision for what it was going to be when you first started it? Or did it evolve into something different/bigger than you imagined?

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@melissajoykong it really just started building web sites and evolved into more of an interactive advertising agency. back then (1995) there were no iab banner standards or search engine keywords or anything like that, so it was more fun and irreverent and less about optimization. it was me and some friends and we just hustled for business. and had lots of fun. and ended up creating some cool stuff.

Melissa Joy Kong

@melissajoykong · Content, Product Hunt

I've played around with Crossfader, and think it's so fun. But, earlier this year, I was at a dinner table across from two prominent DJs and when Crossfader came up (most of the table seemed to love the idea), the two DJs went stone-faced and said the app "took away from the art of DJing." How would you respond to artists who make a living off of DJing and think apps like Crossfader.fm are a watering down of their craft?

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@melissajoykong thanks for sharing melissa. one of our angel investors told me that crossfader made djing about "taste not technique" and i think that makes sense. crossfader takes away from the art of djing in the same way that laptops and cdjs bastardized classic vinyl turntablism. this is the relentless reality of technology in its impact on artistic production. think about how instagram took maybe 5% of the functionality of photoshop and yet made digital photography relevant to 5,000 times more people. its fairly obvious to me that the next generation of great dj artists are going to be using their phones rather than their laptops on stage. and so thats where crossfader fits in.

Will Paz

@will_peace

@seth Crossfader is a brilliant idea and potentially could be the future of djs mixing music. How did the idea come to fruition and how were you able to execute your vision? The idea alone is great, but I enjoy how it is social as well. What do you see in the coming months for the community and its growth or what would you LIKE to see?What is your goal for Crossfader? The end vision, I suppose? For example do you want it to change the way music is mixed or become the standard of how we mix? Do you just want it to be a great time? Etc.

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@will_peace i am blessed to work with a great team here in sf and we have created crossfader together. fortunately, we have been doing it long enough now that we have attracted some alpha users who use the app even more than we do and who are helping to lead us towards what it needs to become.

Will Paz

@will_peace

@seth @will_peace lol like myself @deejaychilliam yeah you mostly answered my question with @totalmusicpower @rickright_? And @Hopey_Scorpion we've all been sitting here in chat talking about everything. Mission successful. All we needed was a chat and it's been one day and your top DJ team is tight like they've been brothers their whole life. Great family, great app, lead by an even greater team. Thank you. 🙏🙏👏🏼

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Ryan Hoover

@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt

Seth! We see so many startups build a "better music discovery" experience and most fail. Are current solutions good enough? If not, what's missing? Also, where do you listen to and discover music? I'm a big fan of Spotify and Hype Machine.

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@rrhoover i use songza and sonos and spotify more or less. i discover a lot of stuff through crossfader of course, but they are just excerpts from full tracks so then i might go to spotify to listen to them fully.

3 share tweet・2 years ago

Emily Hodgins

@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt

Hi Seth, what has been the biggest challenge you've faced getting turntable.fm off the ground? What advice to find yourself giving to founders most often?

@seth · co-founder: crossfader, turntable.fm

@ems_hodge sadly turntable.fm is no longer with us. :-( in terms of advice, as i get older i seem to fall back on more and more cliches like: "the perfect is the enemy of the good" , "nothing like numbers to ruin a good story"...