Listen to this articleGismart has been producing music apps for iOS and Android since 2013 with a driving passion for music and mobile. With their easy to use mobile, musical instruments people are able to connect and share the experience worldwide. Below is our interview with Alex Minets, CTO and co-founder at Gismart:
Q: How would you describe Gismart in your own words?
A: In a few words, Gismart is a music app developer that gives people a way to express themselves musically on mobile whether they learning to play musical instrument, looking for a way to develop interest in music for their children or simply having some fun playing favorite songs in music games that do not require any music skills really. Music is a universal language and a growing number of our already 100m user base just proves it.
Q: Why music apps?
A: Rolling back to the start, I had an idea of bringing musical instruments to mobile devices. As an amateur guitarist myself, I was always fascinated about guitars. Having tech background and working in IT, I decided to make a move from my corporate career and pursue my own dream of making something I like. At that time, I had no idea that it will scale up to having a company with over 50 people on board.
As much as we love our musical simulators, our product focus gradually has been shifting to music games. And this is very exciting niche. Also recently we became a publisher. Having niche expertise in music apps and games for mobile, we feel that we can help out indie developers on anything from gameplay balancing to marketing and monetization.
Recommended: Q: You’ve recently partnered with Taylor Guitars and Made In New York Jazz Competition; tell us more about that?
A: We are very proud of being partners with both Taylor Guitars and Made in New York Jazz Competition. Meeting and partnering with such legends in guitar world as Taylor’s is a great way to show that digital world has become interconnected with an old-school music world. Having similar user audience, we run Taylor’s guitar giveaway in our Real Guitar, Real Metronome and Guitar Tuner apps for our user in US and Canada. The giveaway was going on for two months and we just can’t wait to announce the lucky winner of brand new guitar made by Tailor.
We actively support music competitions, events and festivals. When we met guys from Made In New York Jazz Competition it was a natural move to partner with them. It’s a really unique competitions for jazz musicians whether you are vocalist, solo musician, composer, small or big band. Together, we’ve added a new category to the competition where musicians record a composition played entirely on Gismart apps or in collaboration with real musical instruments. Even though it was something completely new to the jazz community we were surprised by the amount of interest.
By supporting and contributing to music events and contests, we are trying to prove the influence of technology in the musical world, and so far it’s been going great. We are obviously open for partnership with musical instrument makers, music events and independent musicians.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your music apps?
A: Sure! We have a range of musical instruments simulators such as Real Guitar, Piano by Gismart, Real Drums, Real Ukulele and more. Beside that we have a couple of professional music tools that are replacing real devices worth $50 – they are Real Metronome and Guitar Tuner. All our apps are free and available for both iOS and Android by the way.
From the beginning, we’ve been focusing on providing as realistic experience as possible to our users. We’ve recorded all sounds from real instruments, which makes our musical simulators sound so real. You can check the guitar sound in one of the videos on our YouTube channel. In fact, when we were at NAMM this year, we received a bunch of compliments from music industry professionals in regard to the sound of our mobile instruments. Having said that, we understand that our apps cannot replace real musical instruments and it was never a plan really. All we want is to give people a way to enjoy playing some music when they feel like right from their mobile device.
Except for so-called “Free play” mode, we have “Fun” and “Learn and Play” modes in some of the apps. Though the dose of entertainment our users engage in a certain music training, like keeping up with tempo and rhythm or simply playing back a tune after they’ve been shown the sequence. Also, we are literally a few weeks away from a release of our brand new beat making app, made for those who are keen on electronic music and making some beat on the go. Follow us on Facebook and stay tuned for updates if you want to be among the first one to give a go.
However, I have to say that our primary focus today is on music-based games. We know that there is a huge audience of music lovers out there and we’d like to give them a way to connect with music in a fun way. Soon you can expect a release of two brand-new games. We can’t reveal what would they be yet, but we promise they are great fun, yet challenging. So watch this space.
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Q: What are your plans for the next year?
A: Music games will stay our priority. Couple of releases of brand new games are coming out early next year. We would definitely be tuning our existing set of apps making sure that they are fun enough for people who are willing to learn to play musical instrument as well as for those who are looking to have some fun.
Besides that, we are in the early stages of planning of our grand project that has a potential in future to become our flagship app. I cannot reveal much at this stage. I just say that it will be all about music and expressing yourself musically.
We are also gonna work on adding more content to our apps. So whether you are a rock-and-roll guy or love pop music, you will have a good selection of songs to browse through and pick the one of your taste.
Besides that as a music game publisher, we hope to build a strong network of indie developers who are into music games as much as we are.
Q: How would you convince the reader to start using Gismart music apps?
A: Our music apps are so diverse so anyone can probably find something of their choice and taste. Say, you professional musician, then our metronome and guitar tuner could be your daily tool to use. By the way, we know that these two apps have been used in music schools by pupils and teachers. If you are a parent looking to introduce your children to the world of music, Gismart apps would be also really helpful. People can learn to play their favorite tune with “Play and Learn” or “Free Play” modes. And the last but really not the least, people can simply have some fun and relax playing our games and enjoying music. Music is truly universal language, so if you speak this language then you are probably can check out our music apps.
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