Abbey Road Red presents the studios' first ever hackathon

12 November 2018 - Press release

ABBEY ROAD RED PRESENTS THE STUDIOS' FIRST EVER HACKATHON
IN COLLABORATION WITH MICROSOFT & MIQUIDO
 
‘REIMAGINING MUSIC CREATION AND CONSUMPTION’
 
This weekend, Abbey Road Red, the incubation programme from Abbey Road Studios, hosted its first ever hackathon event in partnership with Microsoft and software house Miquido. The hackathon competition, which took place over a 24-hour period from Saturday 10 November  until Sunday 11 November, covered a variety of accelerated challenges, including exploration of the future evolution of music creation, discovery and production.
 
Taking place at Abbey Road Studios, the hackathon was held in Studio One, the studio which saw Sir Edward Elgar perform Land of Hope and Glory as part of the studios’ opening ceremony in 1931 and, more recently, has played host to iconic film scores from The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back to Gravity and Black Panther. 100 participants including developers, technologists, designers and music producers from all four corners of the world, came  together in teams to create new solutions and explore questions including:
 
How will artists create music in 2030?
 
What tools, instruments and mediums will they be using?
 
Could you train AI to ‘play music’ and jam with you based on cues?
 
Can you play or create music using emotions to trigger different sounds, samples, parameters or effects?
 
The teams were  supported by a number of music producers and Abbey Road engineers. Start-ups and partners of Abbey Road Red were also present in the studio to demo smart microphones, innovative instruments and chip level hardware devices to help inspire the hackers.
 
To deliver Abbey Road Red’s first ever hackathon at such a large scale, the studio welcomed partners Microsoft and Miquido, who both share Abbey Road’s vision of tech enabling musical creativity.
 
The event culminated with each team’s ideas being pitched to a judging panel consisting of top industry experts, including:
 
Isabel Garvey, MD, Abbey Road Studios
Jay Katsuyama, VP Technology, Universal Music Group
Steve Kelly, Senior Director of Innovation and Technology, Universal Music Group
David Hawkes, Managing Director, Commercial (UK), Universal Music Group
Noelle LaCharite, Leading Applied AI DevEx, Microsoft
Krzysztof Gudowski, Business Development, Miquido
 
The judges were looking for the most innovative business opportunity and use of technology, and for the best user friendly solution. Winners were then provided with a selection of prizes from event partners Microsoft, Miquido, London Fields Brewery and JUCE.
 
 
Dom Dronska, Senior Manager, Digital at Abbey Road Studios said: "In the same room that witnessed the inception of the recording industry, we  embraced the next paradigm shift in music creation – exploring the influence of the newest technologies and high performance computing on our creative tools. For the first time ever, we brought together the brightest technologists and music producers and created a unique inspirational atmosphere where beautiful accidents happen. Abbey Road’s sole reason of existence is to enable creativity in its many forms, this weekend we employed AI, machine learning and the weirdest hardware to see how music makers can apply technology in the post digital era."
 
Karim Fanous, Innovation Manager, Abbey Road Red said : “Having established our start-up incubator Abbey Road Red, we are now excited to be engaging innovation at a more nascent and playful level with our first hackathon, helping brilliant developers build bridges between ideas and future technologies in the music industry.”
 
Noelle LaCharite, Leading Applied AI DevEx at Microsoft said: “I’m incredibly excited to share some of the latest Microsoft AI tools with participants in the Abbey Road RED Hackathon. Our suite of AI technology, including facial recognition, object detection, sentiment analysis, and natural language understanding, has awesome potential for musicians, engineers, audio programmers, and designers. My team and I were on hand over the course of the hack to assist participants in unlocking and infusing the full power of Microsoft AI into their applications. I can’t wait to see what it inspires, and how we might help push the music industry as a whole, forward.”
 
Krzysztof Kogutkiewicz, CEO at Miquido said: "At Miquido, we want to be a part of the technological change, addressing not only enterprises but also rising tech innovators — that’s why we were excited to partner with Abbey Road Red’s Hackathon. We enjoyed helping the attendees reinvent music creation process with a use of the latest technologies and user-centred design which both lie at the root of our thinking."
 
On Sunday 11 November winners of the coveted partners prize were announced after 24 consecutive hours of idea exploration at Abbey Road’s Studio One. Winner if the Microsoft prize was Rapple, a tool made for rappers, which mimics the rappers vocal style. The Miquido prize went to HRMNI, a collaborative music instrument that allows users to join a jam session with their phones.