The Norwegian-based AI-driven mastering service Masterchannel has announced its full launch and a partnership with the digital music company amuse.     

The partnership is the first time amuse has engaged in a music tech partnership. It will see amuse marketing Masterchannel's revolutionary technology to their user base of thousands of musicians and artists at a discounted price.  

Masterchannel soft-launched in the summer of 2021, offering industry-grade audio mastering powered by the latest AI research. Masterchannel's proprietary algorithm mimics the thought processes of a human mastering engineer to deliver superior results. A fully autonomous solution, it takes the quality of a mixed song to studio grade quality in less than ten minutes. Other AI-driven products on the market compare the tracks users upload to existing songs and genres which Masterchannel believe is too limiting. 

Masterchannel was co-founded by the superstar DJ Tom "Matoma" Stræte Lagergren - himself one of the most popular producers in the world, with over three billion streams amassed of his tracks - alongside German Mastering Engineer and Audio Researcher Simon Hestermann and Norwegian serial entrepreneur Christian Ringstad Schultz. The three share a burning desire to be a positive change to the music industry. 

Masterchannel aims to democratise the mastering process, offering a premium service at an affordable price, and per track instead of subscription. This flexibility will be hugely attractive to smaller labels with limited recording budgets, and also opens up opportunities for artists to supply studio-level sound enhancement in earlier demo versions of their tracks. 

Since announcing itself, Masterchannel has attracted attention from around the world. It recently completed a $350,000 round of pre-seed funding led by StartupLab, the most active early stage investor in Norway, with angel investors including the world-renowned Norwegian artist Ane Brun. The team is now further expanding its team and new services to attract a wider mass of creatives.

Tom "Matoma" Stræte Lagergren says:  "Democratising the industry and high-quality audio is something I feel very strongly about, so I'm so proud to be involved with Masterchannel. Its unique AI achieves a different and, in my opinion, superior result to anything else out there, and enables new and upcoming artists to achieve studio-quality recordings at a low cost which levels the playing field for them." 

Erik Ljungqvist, Director of Product at amuse, says: : We are very happy to partner up with Masterchannel and provide our artists with tools that will help them elevate their work to an even greater level. Amuse is all about simplifying and democratising the process of releasing your music to the world, and this partnership adds another dimension to that mission.

Christian Ringstad Schultz,  Co-founder and CEO Masterchannel, says:  ”When we founded Masterchannel, one of our main goals was to allow artists to focus on the creative part, and not technicalities like mastering, while still getting premium sound quality at an affordable price. Supporting independent artists’ careers is something we strive for and a value we share with amuse, as both our companies work towards democratising the music industry.” 

Simon Hestermann,  Co-founder and CTO Masterchannel, says: “The shift we see in the creative industries is that creators are becoming aware of the powerful potential AI-driven tools can unleash for them. It’s not about whether they will become mainstream, it’s about what those tools will look like and who they will benefit when they do, and our mission is to tailor them to every artist’s true needs.”