Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Are you an aspiring musician or songwriter who wants to create a special song to grab more attention and expand your brand? Perhaps you are a dancer who desires to showcase your expertise to secure more work.

Regardless, a new app-based offering from a South Knoxville company provides a convenient, cost-effective and legal way to do so without fear of copyright infringement. Individuals are able to create a short video with music that can be shared on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok.

And, for a limited time only while the app is still in Beta mode, you can use it for free.

KR38R, pronounced as “creator,” is the latest offering from Joe Vangieri and the team at SoKnox Studios and DigiTrax Entertainment Inc. The company is probably best known nationally for its karaoke offerings that include KaraokeOnVEVO, Karaoke Cloud, and Karaoke Cloud Pro. With about 40,000 restaurants and bars in the country hosting karaoke at least one night a week, chances are you have experienced a DigiTrax offering even if you did not realize it.

We caught-up recently with Joe and his wife Cathy, the creator of the Sing and Spell series from Children’s Media Studio, another of their many media-focused initiatives. They are a perfectly matched couple. Both were animated, Joe in particular, as they described KR38R and their passion for it.

Regular readers of teknovation.biz should recall that DigiTrax Entertainment has aggressively embraced artificial intelligence (AI) in the past several years, and it is that technology that underpins KR38R.

“Our company was born out of recording soundalikes,” Joe explains. “It’s all about copyright and publishing. We (DigiTrax Entertainment) own copyrights (to the karaoke songs); we don’t own the publishing.”

Since we spotlighted the Vangieris in our first series of articles (Part 1 and Part 2) in 2015, we have followed their activities that have included participating in Launch Tennessee’s “The TENN” that year, launching DigiTrax Entertainment’s first AI product named Music Fact Reports in 2018, and exploring the Chinese market by being selected to participate in the InnoSTARS competition in 2018.

Some three years after first putting its toes in the water in the emerging AI space, DigiTrax Entertainment now has seven issued patents for its music theory-based AI music creation technology that is the foundation for KR38R.

Why are the theory and the AI tool important to a songwriter, musician or dancer?

Joe explains that it starts with copyright infringement, which is a serious issue. The KR38R app provides a way to create original music without infringing on someone’s intellectual property. All it takes to get started now is an iPhone – there is currently not an Android version – and Apple’s TestFlight app downloaded to the iPhone during the Beta test.

When DigiTrax Entertainment moves from Beta to a full rollout, the cost to use the KR38R app will be $1.99 per creation or $4.99 for unlimited use, significantly less expensive than other options. The creator and DigiTrax Entertainment will share ownership of the final product.

Joe says that the company is particularly focused on aspiring hip-hop artists, a music genre that surpassed rock in 2017 to become the most popular in the U.S. That said, he also believes that KR38R will be “great for dancers” to showcase their talents.

So, you are no doubt wondering how it works. Perhaps the best way to understand the product is to watch this YouTube video.

Those interested in being part of the Beta will start by downloading TestFlight, then clicking on this site, and completing the required information. From that point, the user will have access various beats, each with the possibility of 144 different combinations of music with three selections each for drums, basses, melodies, and effects available on the Beat Pad. After picking the right combination for their music, users will select three different video options that will utilize the iPhone camera and/or pre-recorded videos. Then, they make the recording and can adjust the video sequences based on their preferences.

“Artists can be discovered just like Justin Bieber was on social media,” Joe explained, noting that Scooter Braun, a well-known Talent Manager, saw the then 13-year old after watching his YouTube videos covering songs.

Cathy said that KR38R is the world’s only artificial intelligence creative product on the market, to which Joe added, “Where else will you be able to produce a three-camera shoot and original music for $1.99?”

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