Skip to main content

Understand a Track

Finding music often starts from a track already in someone's head (yours, a colleague's, the client's). Understand a Track takes that starting point and turns it into a search, even when you can't yet put into words what you are after.

Start from a reference track​

  • Name it. For a commercial track, just name it and CMI pulls a 30-second preview to work from.
  • Upload it. Drop in an audio file; the format barely matters (WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3, MP4, AAC, M4A, and most others).
  • Paste a Spotify link. CMI fetches a 30-second preview from the web.

CMI then describes the track: the familiar basics (genre, keywords, instruments, BPM, key) and, above all, CORPUS's detailed description of what the music actually is and does, with the preview to play.

CMI's 'Reference Understood' card for Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (118 BPM, F minor) with a player, basic tags (Punk Rock, Hard Rock, angry, intense, rebellious, driving, Electric guitar, Drums, Bass guitar, Vocals), a note that the description is based on a 30-second clip, and a detailed prose description of the track's rhythm, guitars, vocals, production, and mood.
Naming a track: CMI pulls a preview and reports the basics plus a detailed description of what the music is and does.

Something in that track caught you, and many people can't name exactly what. So CMI offers a numbered set of three track-specific characteristics: the angles most likely to be what matters here. Pick one and CMI runs a grounded Precision Search for catalog tracks that share it. You never had to learn genres or tag vocabulary; you started from the music.

A fourth option, "as close as possible," runs an audio-to-audio Similarity Search instead.

Two steps stacked. First CMI asks 'What are you looking for in this track?' with four options (1 The Grunge Sound, 2 Rebellious Energy, 3 Driving Rhythm, 4 As close as possible to the original), and the user picks 'The Grunge Sound'. Then a Precision Search runs with the resolved query 'grunge hard rock distorted guitar heavy', a composer briefing, a green 'Strong matches' indicator at score 5.25, and ranked catalog tracks (Neighbor by The Sure, My name is by Jahzzar) with BPM, key, and instrument tags.
From a track to a search: picking one of three track-specific characteristics resolves to a query and a grounded Precision Search. The green indicator reports how strong the matches are.

Already know the change you want? Say it with the title ("like Wicked Game but darker, no drums") and CMI skips the description, building a grounded search straight from the track plus your tweak.

When a track was rejected​

Paste a track a client killed and ask for a way forward ("they rejected 'No Time To Die' for the title sequence; where do I go?"), and CMI asks what didn't work, then searches in that lane minus what you pushed away from. You get advice grounded in what the track actually did to your picture, not just a list of alternatives.