MXP4 remixing it up with $4 million round

Orkos Capital betting on French startup looking to change the music industry with interactive songs

You ever listen to a song and wish you could remove or add musical elements to it, essentially, remix it on the fly, maybe just turn off the vocals all together?  Well, MXP4, a startup based out of France could be the team to make this a musical norm.  

The company announced it raised $4 million for its interactive music solution, on Thursday morning.  Orkos Capital led the round and was joined by previous investors Sofinnova Partners and Ventech.  The company has now raised a total of $13 million.

So what is it exactly?  MXP4 takes listening to music to the next level by adding interactive elements to the ritual.  Instead of simply listening, users can mute and unmute tracks, add premade remix layers, and basically mold the song structure to their own likings.  It all comes in the package of a widget which easily loads in your Web browser.  And in all truth, it becomes quite addicting.  

I decided to try out remixing Britney Spears "Radar," which started off with a simple synthesizer loop, once I started feeling the rhythm, I clicked the vocal track and she started singing.  Then I dropped the drum track and the song was in full force.  Being a digital musician myself, I found this quite amusing but then was also disappointed to find the song moved in a very linear nature - you're not actually remixing loops and recreating the song, instead your just turning individual tracks on and off.  

Either way, people are digging it.  MXP4 said its data shows fans are playing with its widgets for an average of 9.1 minutes per track, drive 75% of traffic virally and click through to purchase as much as 3% of the time.  

MXP4 has also worked with around 100 recording artists so far including some you may be familiar with, like David Guetta, Britney Spears, and Michael Jackson.  

The startup along with its investors are betting this will change the music industry.  "By reinventing the way music is played with today and in the future, MXP4 is proving that interactive music is a real revenue opportunity for the music, media and marketing industries,” said Albin Serviant, CEO of MXP4.  

The concept of having fans remix artists music is nothing new.  What MXP4 has done is simplified the process for anyone with this widget.  Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails, for example has given out entire stems of his more recent albums.  Unfortunately for the fan, unless you own high end studio software, like ProTools, there's not much you can do to actually remix the tracks.  At the same time, there is a learning curve MXP4 has eliminated.  In the case of Reznor's attempt - users would have to know at least the basics about audio file formats and how to manage them in a remix project.  

Other artists have tried to increase sales on their music with the notion of remixing as well.  For example, releasing versions of their albums at a higher price which include all the stems so tech savvy fans can remix at their leisure.  While even coaxing them into buying these higher priced albums through remix competitions for cash prizes.

All in all, MXP4 is looking to bring this idea of the remix, to the masses.  No longer do you have to sport a strong background in digital music production to experience what it's like to control a song.  

MXP4 said it would use the funds to accelerate the rollout of the MXP4 Everywhere roadmap, which ensures the interactive music technology is readily available in third party services, apps and music formats.

Along with the funding, MXP4 today launched a downloadable desktop version of its remixing tools.  Give the widget a try below.