Social Media

Discover New Music through Sound Analysis With Mufin (20 Invites)


Up until now, discovering new music online has been mostly either a social experience through services like iLike and, or a function of the wisdom of the crowd determining “most popular tracks” on big music stores like iTunes and Amazon. Today, a new entrant into the space called Mufin adds a twist: recommending songs based completely on their sound.

Utilizing technology developed in part by the same folks who created the MP3 format, Mufin analyzes more than 40 different characteristics of every song in its system to recommend similar tracks. So is the machine better at recommending songs than your friends? Let’s take a look:

How it works:

Similar to other music discovery services, Mufin starts by asking you to input the name of a favorite track or artist. After getting a list of songs that match your query, you can click on “similar tracks” for each title, which is where Mufin’s secret sauce kicks in. For each song’s similar tracks, you can see the percentage match, based on the characteristics that the service looks at, which include tempo, rhythm structure, and which instruments are used.

From there, you can play 30-second previews and continue drilling down by clicking the similar tracks link on any title. If you find something you like, you can add it to a playlist. There is also a link next to each track to buy it via iTunes. Mufin plans to incorporate Amazon purchases by the time it launches publicly next month.

Social networking apps:

Mufin is also building applications for MySpace and Facebook. These apps offer the same functionality as the website, with a few social twists incorporating your friends' lists from the social networks. On MySpace, when searching for music, you can add songs to your “discoveries,” which in turn can be displayed in a profile widget. Additionally, you can send any song you find to your friends with a Greeting Card feature.

How well does it work?

Overall, I found the recommendations on Mufin to be quite good for my admittedly unadventurous taste in music. What makes the service interesting is that because it is based on sound analysis and not wisdom of friends/crowds, when you enter in the name of a popular artist, many of the recommended tracks that come back are from complete unknowns. This offers a stark contrast to the “people who like this also liked that” model, where popular artists have a huge advantage.

Mufin plans to exploit this further, allowing any artist to upload their music when the service launches publicly. In turn, that means if an unknown artist sounds similar (according to the algorithm) to a hugely popular band, they may have a much better chance of being discovered than on other services.

The biggest weakness for Mufin right now would be that it is only offering 30 second previews of songs, at a time when many competitors like imeem, iLike, and MySpace are offering at least some form of full track streaming. The company is working on deals with the record labels, but consumers will increasingly expect free music from discovery services, so for Mufin to truly be competitive, it may need to sign some contracts before its technology can shine to its full potential.

Try it out:

Mufin is in very private beta right now, but we do have a few invites for the first 20 people to go here. If you get in, let us know how good you find the recommendations.

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