Universal Music Group and Super Hi-Fi partner to enhance listening experiences on digital music services

LOS ANGELES (June 5, 2019) – Super Hi-Fi, the artificial intelligence-based programming company that delivers innovative song transition, voice-over, and artist interview insertion solutions for music service providers, and Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, today announced a strategic partnership that will provide UMG’s artists with new tools for engaging fans.

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The companies will work together to introduce Super Hi-Fi’s powerful AI tech to UMG’s partners across the globe and to co-develop new ways to enhance and promote UMG artists and music. UMG will advise and support new product development initiatives and help Super Hi-Fi attract new business relationships.

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Super Hi-Fi enables digital music services to leverage AI to deliver enhanced listening experiences, including human-level song transitions, precise crossfades, sonic leveling, truly gapless playback, audio branding, audio ad stitching as well as other voice-based audio solutions such as artist and track information and audio news headlines. These advanced capabilities allow clients to produce high-quality, personalized audio experiences at scale. Super Hi-Fi helps services transform potentially mood-killing gaps of silence between songs into personalized and relevant audio-based content, creating ideal transitions between tracks.

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“The digital music landscape is undergoing dramatic change as technology creates demand for personalized music experiences across multiple sectors. We are excited to work with UMG, a global leader in innovation across the music industry, to advance this space,” said Super Hi-Fi’s John Bolton. “With the shift to smart speakers and voice-controlled experiences comes a completely anonymous listening experience with no visual interface and no visual branding. Super Hi-Fi’s AI-powered technologies create compelling, branded audio and production-quality experiences, both of which are critical needs for music experience providers to stay competitive.”

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Michael Nash, UMG’s Executive Vice President of Digital Strategy, said, “Universal Music is constantly focused on leveraging technology to provide new experiences to music fans around the world. We’re excited about the kind of in-stream audio enhancements made possible by Super Hi-Fi, which can help artists deepen connections with fans and drive longer-term engagement for digital music services.”

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Developed by a team of digital music, technology, and computational musicology veterans, Super Hi-Fi’s suite of tools is available as an ultra-high scale set of cloud services and APIs for easy integration into existing music services, adding significant capability without requiring a change to any existing music delivery architecture. Super Hi-Fi’s services provide several solutions for reinventing the space between the music, including:

• Perfect Transitions: Dynamically creates the perfect transition between songs every single time.
• Sonic Leveling: Automatically adjusts song volumes so listening sessions are smooth and consistent.
• Gapless Playback: Eliminates the clicks and gaps between album tracks that some codecs create.
• Ad Stitching: Seamlessly stitches audio ads into the music so they sound professional and fully polished.
• Audio Brand Imaging: Brand-centric audio content blended directly into each listening feed to build powerful audio identities.
• Custom Audio Content: Artist interviews; exclusive audio interstitials; sweepers and liners... like fully produced music experiences on steroids. And it’s all generated automatically for each listener.
• Audio Experience (AX) Strategy & Development: Super Hi-Fi provides sonic design and audio production to help companies develop and implement their sonic identities.

About Super Hi-Fi
Super Hi-Fi is an artificial intelligence (AI) company focused exclusively on the space between the songs to provide highly polished and produced audio experiences for digital music services. The company’s innovative and patented AI technology was designed from the ground up to understand the nuances of a song with the expertise of a human DJ to create perfect transitions that weave music, audio ads, and other voice-based content into high-quality productions. The result is a seamless and scaled digital audio solution that transforms the pervasive gaps of silence between songs into relevant and personalized content.

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About Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group (UMG) is the world leader in music-based entertainment, with a broad array of businesses engaged in recorded music, music publishing, merchandising, and audiovisual content in more than 60 countries. Featuring the most comprehensive catalog of recordings and songs across every musical genre, UMG identifies and develops artists and produces and distributes the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful music in the world. Committed to artistry, innovation, and entrepreneurship, UMG fosters the development of services, platforms, and business models in order to broaden artistic and commercial opportunities for our artists and create new experiences for fans. Universal Music Group is a Vivendi company. Find out more at: http://www.universalmusic.com.

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Media Contacts:
Andy Fixmer for Universal Music Group
(310) 865-0132
andy.fixmer@umusic.com

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Whit Moses for Super Hi-Fi
(415) 323-5494
superhifi@slingstone.com
www.superhifi.com

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