Music Xray Honest Review: Real Or Fake?

Music Xray is a New York City based music tech company that is co-founded by music entrepreneur, Mike McCready. McCready achieved success as a musician but understood firsthand the struggles of achieving said success and finding lucrative opportunities in his early career. Thus, Music Xray was born with the objective to connect artists, musicians, industry professionals, talent scouts, and music fans all together on one platform. 

On the website, artists can submit their music to pitch for different opportunities within the industry; whether it be to a music supervisor looking for a song in a TV show or movie, or submitting lyrics to a record company looking for the next big pop single. The different opportunities available on the platform are vast and users can browse and filter out what they want to submit based on different specifics and categories.

The main feature of Music Xray is their Sonic Opportunity Matching (S2O). This is a tool designed for artists to help streamline the submitting and matching process. Once you upload music to the website, the S2O performs a sonic analysis of your song and uses a technological algorithm to automatically match your music with the opportunities that your music is most relevant for. 

You will be emailed an analysis of your song and any industry professionals or opportunities that it would be a good suit for. As long as you have an account with Music Xray, your music will stay in their database so that if any new opportunities arise on the platform, your song will then be reanalyzed for any potential matches. This highly advanced feature saves artists the time and hassle of having to constantly search and submit for new opportunities. 

After you submit your song on Music Xray, they uphold a 45 day Listen and Response Guarantee. This means that you will never be kept out of the loop after submitting and you will be guaranteed a response within 45 days from the industry professional or opportunity you inquired about. This also ensures the professionals on the site have enough time to thoughtfully consider all submissions but upholds them to give some sort of feedback to the artists who are interested. 

Though Music Xray is a highly advanced ‘21st century A&R’ platform, the visual appeal of the website is a little outdated. Once you sign up and create an account, they do have a convenient Soundcloud extension so that users can easily integrate their music from Soundcloud to the website.  

They request that your music uploaded is in MP3 format and must be under 20MB, as well as it being high-quality sound and professionally mixed and mastered to better your chances of success on the platform. Once your songs are uploaded, you can then begin submitting for opportunities which you can easily find on the website and filter among different aspects that you are seeking.

Opportunities posted on Music Xray can only be posted by verified and vetted music industry professionals. There is an application and approval process that companies and professionals must go through before they are able to post opportunities through the website. The staff filters out all postings to ensure they are accurate, legit, and relevant. 

The opportunities you will find on the site are posted by a wide variety of pros ranging from different backgrounds, genres, experience, and notoriety, so you can be assured that the opportunities you see listed are highly significant and worthwhile.

Fan-Accounts are another great feature Music Xray offers and is great for music lovers who are always seeking new music. This is also helpful for artists who are seeking new fans and looking to grow their fanbase. Fans can create a free account on music Xray and enter the type of music they enjoy, then the site uses its sonic diagnostic testing to send fans music from their database that would most be interested in hearing. This becomes a win-win feature for both artists and fans alike.

There is no sign-up cost or annual membership fees for Music Xray. However, a downside to note is that they do charge a $10 fee for the first submission of each song. This charge is said to cover their ‘diagnostics service’, because as we mentioned with the S2O feature, once the song is uploaded, it will stay in the Music Xray database and will be continuously analyzed for any potential matches for future opportunities. 

The $10 fee only has to be paid once, but once per each song you upload. This is one of the biggest downfalls of the company, because this price can start adding up depending on how much music you have. Along with the $10 upload fee, they do require a $5 submission fee for each time you submit for an opportunity. So, every different opportunity you choose to submit for, you will be required to pay $5 or more. 

We say ‘or more’ because the industry professionals choose the price they want to charge for the submissions. So to break it down even further, you will be charged $10 per each song uploaded, then you will be charged $5 for each opportunity you want to submit for, then if the professional looking to fill said opportunity wants to charge for submissions, you will have to pay that as well. 

Yes, this sounds like a lot of money upfront and truthfully it somewhat is —  especially for emerging artists who are on a tight budget. However, if you are lucky and your submission is chosen for an opportunity, the deals you can get out of the website can be highly lucrative and career changing. Music Xray will also never take a cut from any deal you make, so you will get to keep all of the revenue from that opportunity. 

Here are some of the main pros we found that Music Xray offers, including the benefits and features that artist can find helpful with using the service.

• Numerous and legitimate industry opportunities are posted regularly

• Only highly-vetted professionals are allow to post opportunities

• The diagnostic and S2O services allows artists to be matched quicker and more efficiently

• Artists can earn commission by inviting other artists to the platform

• Analytics are provided so artists can keep track of their work

• Easy Soundcloud integration feature

• Opportunity email alerts

• Free to join

Just like anything else in life, there are positive and negative attributes that come along with Music Xray. We’ve listed some cons of the service that you should consider before moving forward with using the company. 

• The interface is outdated and somewhat difficult to navigate

• You are not guaranteed your music will be accepted for an opportunity

• Costly fees to upload music and submit for opportunities

• 45 day wait time to hear feedback on your submissions

• Most recent success story dates back to 2014, which is concerning with so many postings listed

• Not Better Business Bureau accredited

• Quite a few customer complaints are found on the web about the company  

Music Xray is definitely a legitimate company and can be a real benefit to artists who are seeking opportunities within the music field. Although the service has some downfalls, there are real testimonials from users who have found true success through Music Xray. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that you will have a similar experience or get luckily with an opportunity. 

With so many fees for submissions and uploading, it’s really up to each individual artist to decide if they think their investments put into the website will pay off in the long run. Luckily, the music you upload to the site will stay in the Music Xray database and be assessed regularly for any potential opportunity matches in the future. With that said, I think it is worth the shot for artists. 

You never know when and where your big break will come from, but if you don’t take the time and chances to better your success rate, it will be much harder to come by. You may be extremely satisfied with your results from Music Xray, so we encourage you to give it a shot. We wish you the best of luck with your music career and aspirations!