The Digital Demo Tape


When Jayou Productions, a music production team out of Melbourne, Australia, wanted to get their music heard by successful artists in the United States, they ended up learning some painful lessons. “We paid hundreds of dollars to illegitimate outlets and never heard anything back,” says Sinmayan Thilagarajan, a Jayou producer.

That was before they signed up for Blazetrak. Now they’re in the process of closing a deal with Eddie Weathers and Jermaine Dupri of SoSoDef/Dieniahmar Music. Weathers heard Jayou’s music via Blazetrak. He liked their sound and told them how to improve it, and eventually introduced their music to Dupri, resulting in a face-to-face meeting. “Blazetrak got us heard with the same music that was being ignored everywhere else,” says Thilagarajan.

Launched in 2009 by music industry veterans Ron Harrison, Nate Casey, and Corey Stanford, Blazetrak provides personal video messages from entertainment professionals. The trio partnered when they realized that feedback on demo tapes had monetary value. The goal was to develop a systematic way for record company executives, producers, choreographers, and more to receive music from aspiring artists.

Blazetrak users can search through a database to find one or more entertainment professionals from whom they would like to get critiques. The user can then submit video, audio, images, or documents directly to that professional. “We focus on making sure the targeted person in your submission personally responds to you via video–no middleman,” explains Harrison, the chief sales officer. “We created this company so that you don’t have to live in L.A. or N.Y. to get connected.”

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