“PIXELYNX is a new venture that is focussed on blurring the lines between music, blockchain and gaming. We are building technology and acquiring equity in a range of startups that will form the foundation of how music is experienced in the metaverse.”
PIXELYNX was created by musicians Joel Zimmerman aka deadmau5 and Richie Hawtin, as well as music and gaming industry veterans Dean Wilson and Ben Turner, also founder of International Music Summit, and Inder Phull. And it is precisely in Ibiza that PIXELYNX presented Metaverse & Web3 Day at IMS Ibiza on day 2 at Destino Pacha Resort. It has been a special day in partnership with RCRDSHP, Sensorium, EQ Exchange, and CELO. Through panel discussions, presentations and a beginner’s guide clinic, PIXELYNX aims to provide IMS Ibiza Summit delegates with a comprehensive understanding of how to navigate and harness opportunities of Web3 and the metaverse, from NFTs to DAOs to monetization. We got the opportunity, thanks to SpinLab, to interview Inder Phull, CEO & Co-founder of this new company.
Interview w/ Inder Phull
- How did you and PIXELYNX team come up with the blend of all these different fields to be mixed together?
Yeah so, first thing first i didn’t actually think Sandbox or many others are competitors, actually we see them as collaborators. We’ve got partnership with Sandbox and many other virtual metaverse projects where would be exploring how NFTs and our world can be used, and each other ecosystems. But you know our focuses stay with this idea that gaming and music will come together and shape the future of interactive content, and the way fans wanna engage with music, we think (it) will change as interactive experiences really grow. So the focus really stay with that and looking at how can create a new platform for artists to release their music in a way that they’re enable to perform, and thinking about gaming is being this new canvas for creativity.
- Which are the steps you could suggest to an artist to properly get ready and then join PIXELYNX and which will be the main policy and features?
You know, the first pieces consists in creating interactive content and experiences, so what we’re creating tools for artists to be able to create content and NFT that can be experienced to all web to reality, or desktop browser-based experiences and that could be anything from launching digital merchandise all the way to hosting virtual concerts, and many games around the music. The idea is: one is actually creating the content which does require new skill sets, we help our artists in the process mainly like 3d designer, someone that can come up with the concept. Once we have the asset, actually minting it on the blockchain is very simple like setting up a facebook account or anything comparable, uploading a file, adding your informations and filling in a form. What we have done is we got few different assets type, one asset is just digital merchandise, so fan can be able to buy virtual t shirt and you can use that asset in our platform, but we also have a network of over a thousand of developers and gamers, you can also wear those assets in its world. So that’s the first, but then we started to experiment with new ideas like if you own an NFT in our world, what does this NFT looks in Sandbox? It may not be the same thing, it could be something completely different and I think that is an interesting idea, because it’s gonna be thought to create the same asset for every single world and have the same utility, in this case, because each game is gonna be slightly different. So the idea is, if you own a Jetpack in PIXELYNX game which is maybe a deadmau5 jetpack , when you’re in the sandbox that might be something else. We’re experiment with it a lot, and trying to think how would be NFT be used with all of these different spaces.
- How hard is working on an ambitious project like PIXELYNX for a fresh new team like yours and which are your company key points?
For us one thing is really exciting, as we come from multidisciplinary entity. People coming from music industry, from gaming, from blockchain, from AI all coming together and we really embrace the idea of multidisciplinary thinking. This is really important for us. Bringing people in from all those different worlds and don’t think about what the future of music will look like. You know, i make music for fun. I think about canvas as an artist to express yourself are not limited but you need to set an amount of tools to may be able to use them. You can use like TouchDesigner, make your music video and maybe a live show. What we are building today is just an extension of these canvas for artist to express themselves. This is just a new dimension as an artist to be brought to life. We have deadmau5 for example – who is a co-founder. He is a programmer and developer as well as being a musician. He has been working in game engine for 5-6 years during his pre-visualization for his live shows in a game engine! Just think about what it could look like. A lot of our focus is just to show artist the potential of what gaming can do the creativity and then hopefully get the tools to let them go further with their vision.
- How do you think music streaming and business like monetization could be managed in the Metaverse and in which way are you planning to use Music NFTs in yours?
Of course there’s a big emphasis on experiencing and consuming music. For us what we are looking at is just: this is not a competitive streaming, this is just an addiction! Some fans want to listen to music just by leaving it in background and not diving in. For us this is just a way for fans to really want to dig in artist’s vision. This is an opportunity for them to come closer to that. You can listen to music, but most important for us is that you can play the experiences that bring music to life. And then if you want you can start a tape pieces of that music in a game and remix it and start to create your own variation of what that song could be through an interesting phone-game mechanics. Compare it to Roblox or Minecraft where you build worlds: artists will release their music in stem files in our platform and fans can basically start piece together that song in multiple ways. They can listen to it as it should be but they can also take it in a different direction through a fun gameplay. In an early stage we thought was “imagine Ableton combined with Roblox, what would that look like?”. We are taking these fundamental ideas from DAWs and production softwares and we are trying to simplify it and turn it into a game. You don’t need to know anything from music production to be able to create and have fun.
- Where this new web3 era is bringing us? Opportunities and risks?
I don’t think there will be a single platform that defines what music will look like in the metaverse just like in the physical worlds there is not just one festival that people will go to. There are many different clubs and different festivals. There will be many different games people will create that will give you the chance to experience music in this new dimension. We wanna be one of the best but we also want to create info structure that allows other people to create on top of it. And if you wanna make a music game that is different to us, hopefully we will create the tools that let you take it in any direction you want to. So the aim is to drive innovation in interactive music experience.
- Lyor Cohen in his conversation with Pete Tong said “The Web3 is designed to perfectly suite only the music industry”. Do you agree?
100% agreed! deadmau5 said in one of our videos we posted yesterday that for him Web3 means liberation for artists. It’s an opportunity to finally gain more control of how their music in monetize, consumed and distributed. We have been looking for this kind of solution in the music industry for many years, always talking about transparency, on how to be sure to get more money back. Music industry is so small compared to Film, TV, Gaming. I think people are exited for Web3 because it feels a transition. It feels like the future of not just music but entertainment and culture as a whole.
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