Interview: Rory Kenny, CEO/Co-Founder of AI Music Creation Platform Loudly
In 2019, Berlin base Rory Kenny started Loudly to make music creation and integration easy for creatives after watching their struggles firsthand at previous roles. In less than 5 seconds, Loudly produces a track that is exactly what you’re looking for; saving you time, frustration, and endless dead ends when looking for the right tune.
Congratulations on your incredible new platform Loudly; how long had you and your team been developing the platform before launch?
Thank you! We’ve been working on Loudly for about four years now. The idea came about in 2019 and since then my team and I have been building it directly with our music producers to make sure it appeals to creators. I’m proud to say we are weeks away from our official launch!
How would you say that your time as Managing Director at JAM impacted/influenced you as one of the co-founders at Loudly in wanting to develop a better tool for music creators?
Working at JAM really opened my eyes to just how time consuming it was to complete a song. JAM was designed for easy music creation, yet I remember watching people work on one song for sometimes days at a time. Granted in the grand scheme it's not like that’s an absurdly long amount of time, but I knew there had to be a more efficient way.
The goal was really to make music creation more accessible, as well as faster, so that’s when AI came into the picture. Now, Loudly can generate a full song in 5 seconds with a simple set of inputs. That’s quite a difference from a full day's work.
What are some of the limitations of music creation using Loudly's AI Music Engine, if any?
I don’t think there are any real limitations in music creation when using Loudly. We designed it to be as eclectic as possible and cover a lot of different bases.
Users can generate, customize, and discover music on the platform, opening the door for a lot of variations in what someone wants to use Loudly for. Something we did that I think sets Loudly apart is the ability to download stems and customize them further in your DAW of choice.
There are already over one billion variations of generative songs on Loudly, but being able to customize them further in a DAW is a real game-changer for creatives, and allows them to still feel like they have creative control.
Who is the ideal Loudly user and how can the platform be used to generate revenue?
Loudly is really geared towards creators and anyone who would be in the position to make music for a specific purpose. Be it a brand video, a launch announcement, a creative project, etc; we want Loudly to be the place to go.
Due to Loudly music being royalty-free, it allows creators to monetize their videos, podcasts, or apps as long as they are subscribed to us. It removes all the friction in both the creative production process and the hassles of music licensing.
How do you see AI changing the music industry in the next 3 to 5 years, and would you say that it diminishes or compliments the role of human creativity in music creation?
There are so many different types of AI and how it’s being used that I think it’s really hard to look into the future with a clear end-game. I think AI will play as big of a role in music as people let it. I do think down the line it may become its own genre of sorts, in a way where we categorize saying this was made with or assisted by AI. I do not think it will replace music as we know it, but I do think it will become defacto toolkit for all creators, similar to how all music creators use DAWs on their laptops.
From my POV, I think AI compliments the role of ingenious human creativity the most. I think it allows artists to explore new concepts, attempt new creative processes, and try things they may not have done otherwise. AI allows for a new creative universe - everyone should dive in and experiment, learn and have fun.