Press Release.

May 7, 2024

Music innovation company RT60 launches Songzap V2, the new version of their music-making mobile app for performers and songwriters, introducing ground-breaking AI technologies to support musicians and creators.

RT60 have been developing innovative applications for musicians and the creative industries, including iDrumTune Pro, which has been the number one iPhone music app in over 100 countries since its launch.

In 2023, RT60 won Innovate UK’s Creative Catalyst Fund for the development of Songzap V2, a programme set up by UK Research and Innovation to provide support for high potential businesses in the creative sector.

The first version of Songzap was launched in 2022, created by RT60’s directors Professor Rob Toulson and Dr Michail Exarchos with a clear vision to help musicians create, develop and learn. The app is aimed exclusively at musicians and songwriters, rather than music producers, providing powerful creativity-enhancing features, minimising interface complexity and offering support via comprehensive online learning environments.

Songzap V2 ups the ante with innovative machine-learning features to boost songcraft. Perhaps the new feature that will be most talked about is Autozap, an intelligent process that listens to a performer’s recording, analyses their chords and rhythm, and composes a trio of drums, bass and keys accompaniments; turning a quick musical idea into a complete song. The user can then modify the intelligent compositions via tactile interfaces, browsing viable parts of different feels and complexities, and accessing a range of organically-curated drum, bass and keys sounds. Additional new features include a four-track loop recorder, a clip-based arrangement page and an advanced mixer to fine-tune recordings, while everything crafted inside the app can be exported to a DAW or professional studio for further refining.

Creative Director of RT60, Dr Michail Exarchos, describes the Autozap feature as:

“a powerful new concept for musicians who write alone and want to quickly hear their ideas in a duo, trio or full band context. During our own educational experiences, we recognised that many musicians are not comfortable with using current DAWs and production systems, so we wanted to develop a music recording platform that non-technical musicians can easily use, while also having access to the benefits of AI music technologies.”

RT60 has focused on an alternative take with their embrace of AI. Unlike their competitors, Songzap avoids the instant-generative-gratification paradigm and instead invites musicians to play, record, co-create and be assisted in their songwriting and arranging efforts. RT60’s CTO Prof Rob Toulson was previously Professor of Creative Industries at University of Westminster, and has been evaluating the growth of music AI tools over recent years. Prof Toulson comments that:

“We’ve seen many new technologies recently that enable music to be ‘unmixed’, automatically mastered or generated artificially from a simple text input. While these are clever innovations, they don’t add significantly to the creative landscape and moreover facilitate a ‘race to the bottom’, where non-musicians are empowered at the expense of those who have learnt creative skills and capabilities. Now that we better understand AI for music, there’s an opportunity to develop far-reaching tools that will help real musicians to be more creative, collaborate better, learn more effectively, and ultimately bring back innovation and individual songcraft to the music that we hear everyday.”

The basic version of Songzap is available for free on the Apple App Store, while a Songzap Premium subscription unlocks the full range of advanced features.

RT Sixty Limited (operating as RT60)

SOS Review (V1).

“a great way to organise and develop your song and recording ideas without getting bogged down in the inevitable distractions of a full DAW”

Sound On Sound Magazine

Word on the street.

5 5 5

Game changer for guitarist!
★★★★★
5 5 1
“Absolutely love this app. It has everything I need for songwriting and capturing ideas on the guitar. The beat maker is genius, practicing is now fun and gives me new ideas I wouldn't have had without it. Well done Songzap!”
5 5 5

Super intuitive and full of great features and functions
★★★★★
5 5 1
“This is bloody brilliant. Been wanting to get a hands on look at this brand new Songzap from Rob Toulson & Mike Exarchos for a while. This is an "In your pocket" 4 track pre-production app with an additional track for fully programmable drums (with multiple kits to choose from). With the ability to import audio and also export your finished project for use in your DAW it does everything you could possibly need.”
5 5 5

FANTASTIC!
★★★★★
5 5 1
“This app is terrific...It has all...easy-to-use and great value for money, inspiring and fun: it's making me improve fantastically!!! Thanks!”
5 5 5

Absolute genius.
★★★★★
5 5 1
“Occasionally, just occasionally, an app gets developed that is so incredibly valuable that it becomes indispensable to your workflow. SongZap is unquestionably one of them. The incredibly simple to use interface, and intuitive design, mean that -rather than focusing on technology - songwriting and preproduction can focus on just that. Highly recommended!”
5 5 5

Fun and useful for piano
★★★★★
5 5 1
“I'm learning piano and have found this app to be really useful. It's fun using it to play along to drum beats rather than a boring metronome and I find it really interesting to record myself and listen back to see how well I play things. I'm starting to add extra piano layers and find it easy to make little instrumentals that I can share with a few people. It's really helping me get better! All other apps seem to be subscription based so I think this one is really good value as a one off price.”
5 5 5

Better than GarageBand
★★★★★
5 5 1
“Great functionality - recommended by a friend and hugely impressed. Very easy to use.”
5 5 5

Really cool and unique app
★★★★★
5 5 1
“Great for catching musical ideas on the fly!”