Abbey Road Red welcomes Japanese firm to tech development programme

Abbey Road Red, the music tech incubator of Abbey Road Studios, has today announced Tokyo-based Cotodama as the next tech company to join the programme. 

The award-winning Japanese firm uses a software engine designed to drive lyric visuals and related products, as well as its forthcoming Lyric Speaker Canvas, which will be released in mid-September 2018.

During the six-month Abbey Road Red incubation, Cotodama will benefit from Abbey Road Red’s multi-faceted programme which includes collaborations and guidance around strategy, business development, technology iteration and more. In addition, exposure to Abbey Road’s internal and external mentor network all to help develop its lyric visualisation engine and deployment.

Cotodama will also create YouTube lyric videos with Universal Music Group artists and fully launch their next flagship product Lyric Speaker Canvas.

In collaboration with the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Cotodama has created a proprietary Expression Engine algorithm which uses song structure and mood data to determine how to animate the lyrics for each song played and which Cotodama-designed animation template to use. 

00The lyrics are then animated using lyric timing information down to each individual letter exclusively supplied to Cotodama by metadata provider Sync Power Corporation. This all takes place in real-time while the listener is choosing and listening to songs.