Beats Per Minute

SoundMachine offers two levels of service, and the premium level includes high-definition audio and a deep understanding of music, mood, and branding. “We have a group of customers that are what we call enterprise customers, and those are the ones we do the full curation for,” says Luppi. His in-house curators understand the impacts of various elements of music — the beats per minute, the tempo and key of a piece, and its production — even a misplaced two-second guitar solo can break the vibe.

“We have some demanding clients in the high-end retail world,” says Luppi. “They want simplicity, and they want a perfect ambiance. They tell me, ‘Well, first, we don't even want to know how to log in. But most of all, we want our own sound. We spend a lot of money on branding, furniture, and location, and we want to make sure that the music also sounds right. We don't want to leave that up to the store manager or staffer on a shift to pick the sound of a store. We want a very particular sound — not just something that is off the shelf.’"

“In those cases we have a team of curators that comes in, they have a briefing with the marketing team, and they tell us all the information they have available they think is relevant,” says Luppi. “We create a specific playlist, and then everything we do evolves as the brand evolves. If they're coming up with a new collection, for example, then we change the content as the brand changes the offering to make sure that there is a good match between the two.”

When the content hits the Crestron audio solution, then it really shines. As Luppi notes, “To my knowledge, we’re the only B2B service that is fully integrated with your DM NAX Audio-over-IP products — there’s a quality ‘match’ there, and it shows.

“Crestron’s approach is like ours — it’s indicative of the way we think about our service and the way that we really focus on music, the quality of the service, the UI, the delivery, and the customer support.”