Regular DJWORX readers will be aware of the adventures of Gábor Szántó. He’s the one of the people behind DJ Player Pro, but also Superpowered, a rather clever audio specialist company that has worked tirelessly to make your mobile audio experience better. And it’s this work that has demonstrated repeatedly that Android was and continues to be terrible at audio, something that despite all the evidence Google just continues with the lalala-I’m-not-listening approach.
But someone has been listening and that’s Splice, a company rooted in the producer world. They’d decided that Superpowered would be the perfect complement to their existing offerings, so out came the cheque book (another literary device lost to the digital age), and Superpowered became a Splice company, retaining Gábor who gets a new fancy pants Head of Audio Engineering title and a whole wedge of loot.
What’s that? Is there a press release Mark? Of course there is:
SPLICE ACQUIRES LEADING AUDIO TECH COMPANY SUPERPOWERED
Technology Enables Fast, Seamless Cross-Platform App Development for AudioNEW YORK, NY | May 14, 2020 – Splice has acquired Superpowered, the audio tech company whose high performing framework for developing cross-platform audio applications powers thousands of apps and totals billions of app installs. The acquisition marks the first major investment in audio technology for Splice, the go-to source of royalty-free samples, loops and presets for more than 3 million producers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“We created Splice with the mission of empowering musicians to realize their creative potential,” says Splice Co-Founder and CEO Steve Martocci. “Content — samples — have been a huge part of achieving that mission to date. But technology is also key to the creative process, and we’re excited to be investing in technology that will usher in a new era of creation and collaboration tools that empower musicians to realize their creative potential.”
Digital music creation has historically taken place on desktop software, but Superpowered’s technology reflects the reality that today’s musicians create, manipulate, and consumer audio across multiple devices and platforms. It takes the lag and grunt work out of building cross-platform applications that run audio, so that developers not fluent in programming language like C++ can now manipulate and create real-time audio apps within JavaScript to serve end users working with audio on mobile, web, desktop and more. Superpowered’s key clients include Beatport, Byte, Fishman, Hoopla Digital, InMusic, Libsyn, Pzziz, Naver, Tencent and Voloco.
As part of Splice’s acquisition, Superpowered Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Gabor Szanto has joined Splice as its first Head of Audio Engineering. Says Szanto: “Creating new, interactive audio experiences can be unnecessarily arduous and time-consuming, because most of the audio development world is still stuck in decades-old paradigms. Superpowered is changing this status quo, and we’re thrilled that Splice shares our vision. We look forward to joining forces and extending our reach to unlock even more juice in Superpowered’s technology.”
Splice and Superpowered join forces with a shared mission to transform the audio ecosystem. Splice already super-serves sample creators and Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) developers with a robust sounds, plugin and Rent-To-Own marketplace. With the help of Superpowered, Splice will empower the next generation of audio developers and support long-term clients who rely on its technology to build the products of the future. ///
ABOUT SPLICE
Splice is evolving the way people create, connect, and collaborate. Our products power the creativity of today’s musicians, from our pioneering Rent-to-Own payment model for creative software to Splice Sounds, a browsable library of royalty-free samples, loops and presets that has paid over $25 million to the artists who’ve distributed their samples on it. Over three million musicians — from Top 40 hitmakers to bedroom producers — come to Splice to get started or unstuck, move forward and make progress on their music. Splice was founded in 2013 by Steve Martocci and Matt Aimonetti with a belief that an open music ecosystem will empower musicians to realize their creative potential.
ABOUT SUPERPOWERED
Superpowered develops audio technology allowing developers’ to build low-latency, interactive audio into mobile, web and desktop settings, embedded from one high-performance API. From primitives like FFTs to fully featured advanced audio players, all available on iOS, macOS, tvOS, Android, Windows, Linux as well as in modern web browsers, Superpowered’s real-time audio tech performs and sounds identical no matter the platform. Superpowered was founded by Patrick Vlaskovits and Gabor Szanto, and has raised financing from investors including TechStars Music.
SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
There’s obviously a plan or else Splice wouldn’t have dropped a serious amount of coin. SO rather than read between the lines, this is the important bit:
“Splice and Superpowered join forces with a shared mission to transform the audio ecosystem. Splice already super-serves sample creators and Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) developers with a robust sounds, plugin and Rent-To-Own marketplace. With the help of Superpowered, Splice will empower the next generation of audio developers and support long-term clients who rely on its technology to build the products of the future.”
So right now, publicly at least, it’s more intention that specifics. But one would hope that joining forces may well lend weight to Superpowered’s work, and perhaps have Google embrace it so that Android phones can get the plethora of pro audio apps that iOS users enjoy.
On a personal note — good work Gábor. So happy that your hard work has paid off so well, and also glad to hear that DJ Player Pro remains as your project with no signs of stopping.