It's been quite a month (and change) since I last checked in and first and foremost I'm happy to report that each of the first sixteen AmbieNFT sold in a matter of minutes from drop (at .1 Eth of late no less,) an achievement I hadn't even considered plausible when I first started with a blank twitter and 0 followers in September. It's been a hardcore, all-in grind both creatively and promotionally but one I'm finding quite satisfying on both counts. Speaking of promotional grind, before I get in the weeds here (and we are going way into the music NFT weeds) ... if your first response to "generative modular synth music NFTs" isn't "HUH", come join our ragtag bunch of musicians and forward-thinking weirdos on the Discord: https://discord.gg/5snUcuf4Pk.
For more information about how I'm turning 16 digit hexadecimal hashes into generative modular synth NFTs (and how this is an actual sentence I type to people in my day to day life now) .... check out https://ambienft.com.
Some observations from my immersion in Music NFTs:
The entire game is on Twitter. In terms of using your calories efficiently, this should be where the lion's share of your energy goes, both in promoting your own project and discovering relevant projects/where the projects on the bleeding edge of your niche are already at. Your instagram followers don't matter. Your normie friends on Twitter don't matter. The game is played by very dedicated folks and their Twitters universally reflect this. For what it's worth I had 0 interest in Twitter as a platform till I had a specific reason to be there and metrics to measure a project that I cared about's success. 0. -100 even. Now the grind is just part of what I signed up for and I'm grateful to have a project that has made zero artistic compromises to fit into the generative heavy NFT scene. All those years with Music For Airports, turns out, not for nothing.
The first 100 followers on NFT Twitter are exponentially more difficult to acquire than any other 100 followers you will ever acquire anywhere. You could have a concept so well thought out that it will revolutionize the way music is created and consumed forevermore and with less than 100 followers it's an autopass. Absolutely nobody cares. Do everything possible to get out of this stage immediately because it is crippling for morale. Worthwhile to grind well past this point long before you actually drop an NFT, and a notable exception to the normies-don't-matter rule. Get past 100 and everything becomes much easier.
The faster you get out of the "shill" mentality and into the "cultural immersion" perspective the better. This obviously applies to life, in general but you are about to have your hair blown back by the viscosity of the shilling happening on Twitter, necessary evil or not. The lightbulb moment for me was on the 0xDeafbeef discord (https://discord.gg/9Ca96embWP) as I realized the powerful magnet a groundbreaking project can be to other people doing badass work in the space. Deaf's stuff is all compilable on-chain, a property that ensures its futureproof-ness in a way that an .mp4 on ipfs simply can never do. 1000 year from now if .mp4s are thought of the way we think of cave paintings, Deafbeef pieces will still be recompilable so long as a record of the Ethereum chain still exists. The instructions for assembly are baked in. Meeting people who "get" something as niche as this and see the value in it sparked conversations that informed the ideology behind my own hash-based generative project as well as my first crucial collectors, people who continue to shape the project through their participation on the Discord.
If you are reading this on Hive, you are already far more web 3.0 than the average bear and as you immerse yourself in your own NFT journey you are going to discover people from your existing world already making headway. Just by hoping around the Discord and Twitter of relevant music nft projects I managed to reconnect with OG Steemit musicians @vachemorte and @soundwavesphoton (who is, for the record, absolutely crushing the music NFT game) and an IRL friend I've recorded in the studio multiple times who happened to be the guy answering my persistent questions as one of the leads on Dreamloops, a stylish music NFT project that's done over 700 ETH in volume. That's a lot, and that's some Beckinsale/Cusack level serendipity.
Cute couple, bold font choice.
Final note about Twitter: once you know a few people and projects, your time spent in Spaces (a group voicechat integrated natively into the platform) becomes a 10x multiplier on your networking efficiency. Getting to talk and shill your project is great (if awkward) but just being present and using some good old fashioned follow-for-follows becomes highly relevant when you are talking about 20 people interested in and conversing about something as niche as generative music NFTs.
Rapper/Producers are leading the way in bringing traditional music formats to the blockchain, as in dropping exclusive tracks as NFT releases (see Dyl, Spottie) and beatmaking (like my boy Lilastro.eth!). Dyl even came up with a brilliant 0 eth free trading card as a promotion that once sold out quickly became valuable and unlocks exclusive releases and discord priledges. Much hustle, this one.
Music from code went from being a thing that generated a few thousand views on youtube:
to something worth literally 100 ETH a piece:
https://opensea.io/assets/0xd754937672300ae6708a51229112de4017810934/29. This is not by accident. A convergence of forces in the market (predisposition to generative work via the early rise and adoption of PFP (profile pic) projects, value of on-chain compilability, etc.) has projects like the aforementioned Deafbeef, Artblocks, Eulerbeats, Elliot Cole's Hashflowers and maybe ... just maybe ... my little slice of generative ambient modular synth goodness AmbieNFT, blazing trails in formats that never had a clearly marketable value now but now find themselves in a sweet spot of being "codeable" as a market turns to the blockchain and says collectively WEN MUSIC?Speaking of Elliot Cole, I discovered his project literally two hours after he sold out 100 generative hardware synth compositions in minutes at .4 eth. My first reaction to seeing somebody had just released hardware synthesized generative music was, predictably, horror. Then I dug into his work, got completely inspired and realized that here right in front of me was all the proof of concept that my modular synth "version" of the task of turning a hexadecimal hash into a music NFT could succeed. Multiple comraderic conversations later, Elliot ended up buying AmbieNFT #001. Don't fuck this up people. It's not Apple and Microsoft right now it's WHAT'S A COMPUTER and projects that do a similar thing to your own are badass resources in all the way, including actual you know, friendship and stuff. Elliot's stuff rules. Pretty much everybody I've mentioned rules. Not since Steemit 2017 have I felt such an immediate connection and acceptance by a community and, as is the parlance .... I can't help but feel like WAGMI.
Much like a bouncer in Roadhouse, BE NICE.
AmbieNFT Collection: https://opensea.io/collection/ambienft
AmbieNFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmbieNft
AmbieNFT Discord: https://discord.gg/5snUcuf4Pk
Twitter engagement reminds me of Hive engagement for success. Although you probably have a wider outreach to make connections over there. Your explanation of your experience was really helpful for me to see a bigger value and where time would be well spent. Cheers
I definitely felt prepared for taking it on based on my time invested in Steem+Hive ... and with masses and masses of people you do get the collateral benefit of more bodies to fill more and more specific niches. Thanks for reading it!!
You are most welcome bro! I know social media is a tool and i hate Twitter but see where and how it can be beneficial for many reasons. I never considered using it as a tool in the fashion you laid out very well in your post here.
So, i am thankful you put it the way you did because something clicked and the lightbulb went off! I still don't know how much i will market myself and art or use it to connect until that becomes something worthwhile for me.
But, there is great wisdom and a nice explanation for those that could benefit on how they may, given the proper approach. Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom gained in your own ventures. I really feel like this was a great motivation to see the greater potentials and i am glad to know the tools are there if and when i need them.
CHEERS!
@drumoperator, fascinating world i just discover with your post. Great ! I will go trough all these links. Storing executable code on chain looks indeed a very good fit with NFT. Csound and PureData i presume in this case. I heard some very recognizable sounds from Eno 's music for airport in your youtube presentation. Is it a sample or a reconstructed fairlight original sound ? Thx for sharing this. A new universe opens...
Thanks so much for the kind words! On-chain compilable music+video synthesis is absolutely the bleeding edge of what's happening in NFT world and generally doesn't exist without having a -super- forward thinking contract .... which is another thing early music nft investors absolutely fucking love.
My music is all created on a giant modular synth so no real sampling involved except the rare occasion that the hash selects for me the Morphagene sampler ... last time I sampled myself playing piano phrases and deconstructed them for some -very- Eno like tape loop textures so I bet that's what you stumbled across in the catalog.
Thanks a lot for your reply. I spent some hours digging into this. My skills are much too low to get the workflow here but your artwork is really stunning.
If i good follow you embedded modular synth into C ansi code enclosed in the blockchain so that a generative song is produced initiated via the hash of the nft buyer, without any external dependencies ( as long as you can execute it via a basic gcc compiler). I had already tought about maybe embedding text file (e.g. ABC notation or some sonic pi code) but that would sitll be dependant of ability to use such the dependant software... But here in your case permanence is indeed quite assured and brillantly peformed. Keep us updated time to time of your evolution.
Fascinating stuff, your your NFTs are awesome. I've only just joined on Hive (well, 1 solo post 5 months ago lol) and find it so inspiring what's possible on the web 3. This is a really interesting post, and has opened up another rabbit hole for me to now get lost in! I'll check out more of your posts, music and NFT too of course.
Wow, absolutely fascinating. And I thought I was cutting edge because we sell NFTs on the Hive blockchain. I think @tdctunes might like this.
!PIZZA
very interesting! good find!
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What an excellent post, thank you so much for sharing! !PIZZA
Generative modulars synth music! Right up my street!