
The Observation
The Separation of Social and Sound
Solo Struggle
The social spark of jamming with others is missing in the physical and digital landscape of music today.
Passion Pays Pennies
Artists need sustainable income streams to keep creating passionately and freely.
Shifting Soundscape
The Price of Progress
While the internet revolutionized and enriched our lives with the access to music, it has disproportionately impacted artists ability to earn a living from their passion.
Tidal
$0.009
Apple
$0.007
YouTube Music
$0.006
Deezer
$0.006
Spotify
$0.004
Amazon
$0.004
The Vision
The Sound Of Opportunity
Connection and Collaboration
To bring back the communal energy and raw creativity of jam sessions that has gotten lost in the digital age.
Compensation
By empowering listeners and music lovers to directly support and show appreciation to the artists and sound makers they love, Stemstr aimed to provide artists with a new and direct revenue stream to help financially fuel their passion.

Early Explorations
Keeping artists need at the forefront, in addition to being a musical artist myself, I studied the diverse digital workflows of other creators. The exploration underscored the crucial role of integrating the software within their established processes, making it intuitive and readily adoptable.

Compact Collaboration
Stemstr was designed to seamless integrate into an artists workflow, with an emphasis on taking up minimal space in their digital music-making set up while simultaneously living harmoniously alongside their beloved studio tools like GarageBand, Logic, Ableton, etc.

Principles
From Concept to Chords
Defining the Journey
To equip our team with a holistic understanding of the customer experience, I mapped out our core customer journeys, encompassing everything from initial interaction to finalization, including sharing and payment aspects.
Setting the Tone
Despite diverse time zones spanning from the US to El Salvador, our geographically dispersed team seamlessly stayed in sync and maintained project momentum thanks to Discord for communication and GitHub for open-source tracking.


Setting up our system
Typography
Two important typefaces were featured in Stemstr. Satoshi, which honors the creator(s) of bitcoin and Onest, which speaks to the truth found in music and creation.

System Setup
Logo & Colors
Roberto brought a beautiful palette and logo design to our project. The simplicity of the logo allows for elegant motion as well as reflects the movement of a waveform.
Movement and Music
I translated the desired motion experience into a visual rendering using a randomized waveform, conveying Stemstr's excitement and flowing work flow.
Drag and Drop The Beat
From the moment you drop a sound, the waveform comes to life.

Focus on the fine details
Turn the Turntables
Brought physical details like a phonograph spinning into the small moments of scrubbing through a sound.
Focus on the fine details
Light and Shadows
Desktop hover can be used to bring more life and tactility into the digital experience.
Creative Connections
Stemstr transcends a traditional tool by fostering a social and collaborative environment for music creation.

Share In Seconds
With a single tap, Stemstr removes friction from the sharing process, allowing artists to focus on what they do best: making music.

Setting the Stage
Testing One, Two, Three
Beta Access
By allowing early access users and early adopters, we were able to gather invaluable feedback on usability, features and overall user-experience.
Early Excitement
Our early access users have become some of our most loyal artists and created organic buzz and excitement through their experience from day one.

Simple Sign Up, Big Impact
Stemstr successfully welcomed 700 early access musical artists in the first 48 hours with effortless onboarding.
The Sound of Connection
Our commitment to open and engaged communication during the early access period helped the community understand and embrace the social DNA of Stemstr.

Launch
Testing One, Two, Three
Beats
Shares, Posts, Blogs
Buzz
Great stuff
August 4, 2023
Sound Off
Collaborations from the Stemstr community

The Applause
Stemstr received a waveform of excitement and new sounds from our community.
From Stemstr to Streaming
Stemstr ignites a spark, fueling a vibrant online ecosystem where sounds have resonated across popular sites like Wavlake and YouTube.

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