SCIENCE: ALEX LOSCOS ABOUT FUTURE MUSIC EXPERIENCE

As of today, BMAT is a technology provider to third parties. However, in a couple of months you will be launching final products and services for the end user. Anything you can tell about these products yet?

"Not yet. I'm sorry..."

How do you intend to sell these products? By third party distributors or through a self-operated web shop?

"We mostly sell our products our own but for certain specific markets and/or territories, we have agreements with third party distributors. But yes, we will open our own website to offer new music related services directly to the end user."

Your b-Vocal solution includes a singing robot! Do you expect one day it will be hard to distinguish generated vocals like these from human singing?

"It is already! Check out this completely synthetic generated voice using Yamaha's singing synthesizer. This was a project we did with Yamaha five years ago. On those days there was not BMAT and we did everything through the university. You can find more info at www.vocaloid.com. They've just released 2.0 version and it is a hit in Japan." (read all about it here)

We think generation, distribution as well as hosting of Playlists will play a very important role in the next era of the music industry. How do you feel about this?

"Playlist Generation will definitively will. People now have access to millions of tracks and carry mp3 players with gigas of music but still there are no interaction tools apart from naming the artist, the album, the track or the genre. In terms of music experience, this is rubbish. Why have so much music available if we are not able to organize, discover and play it in meaningful ways? At BMAT we offer playlist generation solutions that we believe will change completely the landscape of music interaction and distribution."

Suppose someone would grant you unlimited budget. What type of product you would develop?

"I would love to come up with the perfect virtual DJ. A software that could play you the most appropriate music based on some of your biometrics. A player that could drive music to make you feel better. Not only at emotional level but physical as well. Music has been proven to have neurophysical impact on humans. It would be absolutely great if a playlist could heal a depression, an addiction or even a headache.

"In fact this is kind of what we have tried to approach with the new mp3 device YAMAHA is launching powered by BMAT. A tiny step towards it, but a step after all!" (www.bodibeat.com)

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