For any musician out there reading this, it’s common knowledge that tech innovation has made it easier to record and publish music, along with building a global fanbase, than it’s ever been and all for a fraction of what it once cost. Equally, technology has undermined the industry gatekeepers, who no longer get to decide who can have a career in music and what we get to record. Amen to all that!
But despite all these technological disruptions, one problem that technology has yet to fundamentally fix is how we find and connect with our fellow musicians on a local and global level. Vampr was created to do just that, aiming to help bring musicians together anywhere, any genre, any age, to play, listen and collaborate together.
Thankfully through the support of our ever growing community it’s off to a really good start. Literally tens of thousands of musicians, industry creatives and professionals have connected and started down the path of working together. Real opportunities are being created, friendships made and songs begun. Nevertheless, for all Vampr’s beautiful tech and opportunities within, it all still relies on the user making that first move, swiping right on someone they want to connect with. And we understand that for many people just starting out in music it can feel like one very big and bold swipe to make.
Which became the inspiration behind our Vampr Stories series. We thought we would try doing the swiping for them. We wanted to know if there were opportunities for anyone and everyone on the platform.
So throughout the month, we started hitting up various talented members of our community and asked them what they needed help with. We’ve only just begun but already can see that there really are opportunities out there just waiting behind the next swipe right…
Here’s a few examples of what we’ve been doing –
Steven, a Virginian producer with an R&B edge:
He needed a top-line writer/vocalist with “silky tones”. By week’s end we found him Elizabeth to work with, a fellow Vampr member from London, UK. Despite the 3000 mile gap, the two have since organized dates to start work on a brand new collab!
The following week we heard from Manny, a recording engineer with a studio on the Sunset Strip in LA:
He simply wanted to help develop a fledgling singer-songwriter. Enter Marcus:
Our hope is that by demonstrating not only the power of Vampr, but also the effort required in making stuff happen, that our community members will be guided by example in how to make that nerve-wracking first approach, and that the individual’s Vampr experience and thus overall community’s will benefit.
So go on, swipe right. You never know what you’re missing if you don’t.
Good luck ✌️️
UPDATE 19 August 2020: We now show up-to-date key numbers on the bottom of our homepage due to the high number of views this post still receives. Below is an archive of our original post in April 2017.
Since launching a little under 10 months ago we’ve received an overwhelming amount of feedback. Our community’s passion for making Vampr the best possible professional network for musicians is humbling to say the least. And we appreciate your patience with the Android version of the app. Launching publicly as a Beta product was a risk but it’s been invaluable as an exercise in gathering insight as to what’s broken and we’re working overtime to make it as reliable as possible.
When trawling the net, the comment I see most frequently about Vampr goes something along the lines of:
“This app looks sweet, but does it actually work?”
Let’s break down some of the recent numbers:
- Vampr users have swiped on each other 12 MILLION times
- This has led to 2 MILLION unique connections made on the app
- 10% of these swipes have been in an upward direction, which indicates the user would like to see a profile again later — a UX concept we pioneered
- Users are spending 8 minutes on average in total on the app each day
- Since launching Version 2 for iOS and Beta for Android, 57% of users have made a connection;
- In 180 countries
This is more than we could have hoped for in the first year and if we continue along this trend we are well on the way to achieving our goal of levelling the playing field for all musicians, of all calibres, in all locations, creating the kinds of opportunities that only arise with access.
The other question I get asked daily is “what’s next for Vampr?”
Well without giving away the whole enchilada, by year’s end we hope to introduce localized versions of Vampr in Spanish, Japanese, Portugese, Chinese, Russian and French. We have a couple of fun features to help break the ice when you first connect with somebody, but most importantly (and we know a lot of you have been shouting from the hills for this one!) we will be introducing email login.
Please keep flying the Vampr flag — we are so proud of our community, and we want you to be proud of the app you took a chance on.
As always, please hit us up if you need anything at support@vampr.me
Play Together,
Josh ✌️
What a whirlwind — we managed to give away 5000 guitar picks at SXSW 2017 and had our biggest week yet. More connections were made, and more messages sent on Vampr in a single week than any time since launching some eight months ago! With that said, here is a visual recap of our time at the annual event…
I know we’ve been a little quiet on the blog front lately…
Well, after months and months of building and testing with some very smart and generous Android peeps, we’re finally ready to release our Android Beta candidate into the wild — and you can download it right now: http://bit.ly/VamprAndroid
Buzzing!
We didn’t need a call to Einstein to figure out that a pile of the world’s musicians are on Android and if Vampr was ever going to be a truly global opportunity to connect, then we needed to be on Android too — it feels like the other half of the band have finally arrived.
(Shout out to Product Hunt also for featuring the Beta, helping to kick things off!)
Vampr has already turned up on users’ phones in 76 countries, with all types of musicians on the app — from bedroom strummers to the bigwigs of the industry and of course the odd oboist or two. Borderless access to the whole totem pole of musicians and industry everywhere has always been our aim, and if Vampr can help get passionate and talented musicians collaborating then we’re on the way to mission accomplished.
While we were getting the Android version of Vampr ready it gave us an opportunity to fine-tune all the moving parts of the app. Our iOS users had a lot to say about what was good and what annoyed the living hell out of them so we got deep with the deep stuff — algorithms etc — and also redesigned the eye candy and introduced some new features to make the app a whole lot easier to use, with ever better chances of making a connection.
In celebration of the release of Vampr for Android (Beta), we’ve been at SXSW all week promoting the app, with some pretty nice prizes being handed out and our favourite piece of merch, THE VAMPR GUITAR PICK!
If you see us there, please come and say hello — we’d love to meet you all.
To end, we’d just like to ask you please send us through as much feedback as possible — the good, the bad, the damn right ugly. We know this release is far from perfect, but we wanted it in your hands so we can learn more about what to keep and what to throw in the trash and never speak of again. We continue to work on improving it everyday, so come on, keep us in the loop and here’s hoping you find a lot to love already.
We’re looking forward to seeing this community of ours continue to thrive, collaborate, create and Play Together ✌️️
Josh, Baz & the Vampr team x
As a musician, one of the biggest obstacles one faces is finding talented collaborators. A country singer sitting in their room in a small town in Iowa may have a hard time connecting with a seasoned mix engineer who lives in New York or LA to put the finishing touches on their latest track — or might not even know why there’s a need to connect. That’s where Vampr comes in. Vampr is an innovative new app connecting musicians and facilitating collaborations, artist promotion and fan base growth.
Let’s say you are starting a rock band but are having trouble finding the right drummer to complete the lineup — Vampr can help. In the app, you upload your music, paste or type in a biography and highlight your musical taste. Once you set your discovery settings in the direction you are looking, profiles will begin to pop up and you can then swipe right to connect or left to pass. When you connect with a drummer who seems right for your band, you can start messaging each other to take the next steps on your musical journey. The app is not limited to musicians, however. Let’s say you are looking for a photographer for your latest cover art or are in need of a manager, simply adjust your discovery settings accordingly and start swiping. If you’re just a fan of music, no problem, enter your favorite genres in settings and start discovering new music through people with similar taste. Vampr connects creatives and music lovers alike.
Recently we took providing musicians with opportunity a step further with a competition for two lucky singers to open for Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia with the band Buchanan. After reviewing hundreds of talented entrants, Vampr bent its own rules and ended up selecting three vocalists, a trio by the name of Folk U, to accompany Buchanan at the shows. The young trio’s cover of Mexico by The Staves blew away our judges and secured the three young ladies their spot as the winners.
In the music industry, and in life, you never know where connecting with others will take you. With Vampr, you can find that drummer you desperately needed to complete your band, or score a spot on stage as part of an arena tour from the comfort of your own bedroom. We are slowly but surely breaking down the existing barriers to successfully enter the music industry. The power to success lies in collaborating and making incredible music.
If you’ve ever had doubts in the past because you didn’t have access to the right market or couldn’t find others to validate your talent and help further your ideas, then fear no more, Vampr is here to help 😉 Download Vampr today in the App Store and Play Together.
ps. we’ve nearly finished our Android build — watch this space…
Memories! I’m sitting in the room as Tom Jones is on the phone with my grandfather, Cyril Simons, who years before had signed him, the two of them discussing Sex Bomb, Tom’s soon to be smash hit. Cyril was the head of Universal back then. Backtrack about 25 years, and my Dad is setting up Paul McCartney’s publishing consortium for his solo career and… Well, intoxicating stuff. I lived in a house full of music surrounded by the business of the music industry. No surprise then that I was bitten by the bug and ended up a singer-songwriter.
It would be reasonable to assume I would be given a pretty good head start with some heavy duty contacts to get the ball rolling and wham bam I’m a superstar.
Only kidding — I wish! As it turned out my contacts were either too busy, uninterested or simply wanted me to pay my dues. Fair enough. So like every other musician I set off to make it happen myself.
Arriving in London from Australia back in 2013, and quickly exhausting my contacts, I cold called other musos and hit up every industry person I could, “Hey, I’ve got a bunch of songs and want to start gigging.” If you have done the hustle you know how tough it can be, not to mention intimidating, with a load of dead ends, bum steers and wasted hours on the tube. A whole different ball game if you’re a happening artist with a buzz and selling serious units. Otherwise, you’re starting from scratch, no matter what town you live in. But back to reality…
I eventually formed a band and in the process got to understand a very simple fact: us musicians have a problem.
We don’t have an easy way to connect with other musos and get to see and hear the stuff that matters — how they sound, what’s their vibe, where they live, what’s their ambition. Trying to solve that problem was what led to Vampr. Online professional networks aren’t new but musicians’ needs are beyond the typical resume and photo bio. There had to be a better way of fast tracking the discovery and connection process (ie. let me hear your latest demo, see what albums you dig, watch your new video, chat.) Vampr was conceived.
Two years on and Vampr is on the app store. It’s been a crazy ride. Musicians, thankfully, have strong opinions about absolutely everything, especially technology and art. So how an app looks, what it does and how it does it is important. Our hope is that we have made something that most artists would enjoy and get real value from.
We appreciate that Vampr can only work if we have a vibrant and meaningful community of creative souls for each user to connect with. So our challenge is to fast track engagement. All you musicians and music lovers out there, we would love you to download Vampr and check it out. And of course let us know what’s working and what’s not. We are looking forward to a really exciting year and if we can solve the problem of finding meaningful contacts for our musical friends, particularly if some of them can go on and enjoy a career out of a network they created using Vampr, then we’ve succeeded.
And for those still wondering how my personal musical journey panned out, the story is still unfolding, but I formed a band by the name of Buchanan, released two albums between 2013 and 2016 and have been fortunate enough to have had a couple high rotation singles on Triple J, hit 1 million plus streams on Spotify, half a million on YouTube and 200,000 on SoundCloud — so things are looking up. Not to mention Keith Urban just asked me to support him on tour this December — mental!
It might not be Kanye territory but I’m proud of what I have achieved.
Download Vampr for free on iPhone at https://appsto.re/us/PucX_.i
