Musiversal: My honest review

daviddas.com -- Musiversal.com is a web site that sprang up during the pandemic, offering songwriters and composers the ability to buy online recording sessions from their roster of musicians, and have them record via Zoom. I've been a customer for more than a year now, and I have some thoughts on how well it's working.
This video is not sponsored in any way; I have been a paying customer and have received no input, compensation, or other benefits from Musiversal other than the sessions I've done through them (on my own dime).

[@Musiversal]

It's awesome to learn about your experience, David! Thank you for putting together this honest review of Musiversal 🙏 There are a couple of things we didn't see in your review which could be really helpful and interesting for your viewers: 1. 😍 We hire our session musicians, paying them stable monthly salaries at the equivalent of $48,000 full-time in the US. This is really important to us so that musicians can spend more time at home with family, know when (and where) their next check is coming from, and generally live a better life. 2. ❤ Our musicians love working at Musiversal. We have a dedicated musician's manager whose sole responsibility is making sure they are cared for. 3. 💪 Also included in the monthly subscription, which often goes unnoticed, is prep time! The reason musicians come to the session prepared is because we make sure they have time (which is compensated) to go over your material, rehearse and set up the session so they're ready to hit the ground running. Without this, the 30-minute session structure wouldn't work as efficiently as it currently does. 4. 🌟 Hiring musicians and paying them a salary, for the session work & prep/ admin, is the reason why our sessions & subscription is so affordable. It's around 10x cheaper than alternatives and we believe unbeatable in the market for the quality and efficiency you are able to get. 5. 🏆 Our acceptance rate for musicians is less than 1%. They must be incredible musicians, great at sight reading and playing by ear, have industry-standard professional home studios (or access to a professional studio), have fast internet speeds and most importantly, be great people who are amazing to work with. We work hard on curation. Finally - we're dedicated to developing a more premium experience this year, with more musicians, instruments, services and features with higher quality and customization. And whilst we have wonderful subscribers & investors to help us do that (we would love to hear your feedback on what you'd like to see next!), we've recently started crowdfunding so that the public can invest; to support hiring more musicians, the democratization of music production and to benefit from the fruits of our future growth and success. More info here: www.wefunder.com/musiversal Thanks again David, we'll see you in the studio! ;)

[@jwtgm9]

Yeah…your job posting says USD500 PER MONTH for 8 hours and 20 minutes of work PER WEEK. Sorry, that’s insanity. There’s no way I would ever work for that kind of money, even as a side hustle. The last time I did live studio gigs like this I was paid USD100 an hour.

[@arthurneeman]

Thank you! Really helpful explanation. I had a discussion yesterday with someone from musiversal and now cannot wait for first session :) Hope this will be soon.

[@MaxxBigg]

I think you're right that we'll be seeing more and more services like this. Currency exchange and living expenses in different parts of the world will make things feasible. Unfortunately, this is really bad news for players and singers in the U.S. hoping to have careers as session players. There will be pressure to lower rates, here, even further. And, pressure to do work as a complete buy-out, with no hope of any additional payment down the line. Also, it really has to be taken into account that when it comes to gig economy work done behind a computer, the internet is REALLY good at finding people around the world willing to do that work at low prices. So, if you're a music producer in the U.S. working on music for media, film-scoring, music library content, etc., you can pretty much expect that these systems finding low-cost players around the world will also be finding low-cost composers/arrangers/music producers around the world to do the whole job. So, Musiversal can be a good, low-cost service, but it definitely is going to accelerate the race to the bottom when it comes to trying to make a living on making music, especially here in the U.S.

[@kidtunes1]

Thanks David! So helpful!

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

this is very interesting! i did now imagine it could exist

[@RodoSanta]

Thanks for this video. But, can you activate the subtitle button?

[@joro7656]

You have any samples to listen to?

[@douglasphillips5706]

Thanks for the information, it is very helpful, but I was wondering if you think at $199.00 per month, it’s still a good deal?

[@r.a.fiallos234]

It absolutely is a great deal. I just had 4 sessions within the first couple of weeks and feel the service already paid for itself). A couple of things though…to maximize your session and mitigate frustration on your part, you should be well prepared also-upload music and charts, and have a plan for providing direction., and secondly, for longer or harder pieces of music you should probably book a longer session(like 2 back to back sessions).

[@loud1632]

They appear to be scamming people. When you buy credits in advance, they don’t make it clear that if you don’t use them within a year they will expire - just vaporize. Also they promised to add male vocalists to entice me to buy credits in advance, never added those options and then tried to make me buy more credits just to keep the ones I had already bought. 🚩🛑🚩

[@daviddas]

I had similar issues later (after making this review) especially with the lack of availability of musicians. I don't think it's a scam, but I also don't think it's a well-oiled machine yet. I haven't been a customer for the past year or more, so things may have changed in the intervening time.

[@Ivegell]

Thank you! After you review I’m considering using this service. I thought it would be a scam 😂.

[@Alenciasmusic]

I can confirm that it's not a scam. I signed up for the service and just had my first 2 sessions yesterday with beatmaker and guitarist. AWESOME results!!! 😊

[@Ivegell]

Thank you!

[@HidNTrackz]

Not a scam. Absolutely enjoying the service.

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

no classical music?! why! man

[@daviddas]

They don't want endless classical music re-records, which would bog down the system.

[@ferdmusic8]

But isn‘t there even a classical tag on the czech national orchestra for example?

[@daviddas]

@@ferdmusic8 Don't know. But their prohibition on doing classical music recording is really to avoid tons of people creating new masters of public domain classical recordings in order to license them.