Pro Interview Series: Episode 1 - Emily Gonneau

Emily Gonneau
Entrepreneur | Music & Tech Expert | Writer | Lecturer | Label Owner

The Bridge.audio Blog is here to further increase the strong link between our platform and the music world.
Following this core value, we decided to start an interview series with music professionals.

Our guests will represent the full spectrum of the industry, from musicians, producers, label managers, to music supervisors, sync brokers, and many more.
They figure among the first users of Bridge.audio, and that makes us very proud.

This week, for the first episode of the Interview Series, we’re very pleased to have Emily Gonneau answer our questions about the way she works, and her impressions getting in touch with Bridge.audio.

Emily’s background in the music industry is very impressive. Her passion and hard work have led her into many different activities on the music spectrum. Her multidisciplinary insight makes this interview truly worth dipping into.

Enjoy!

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While reading you can listen to this great playlist Emily created just for us.
A fine selection from her label Unicum Music.

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Who are you? What is your job?

My name is Emily Gonneau, I’m half French, half English. I’ve been working in the music industry for a little over 15 years now.

After 4 years at EMI (London then Paris), I left to start a number of ventures: Unicum Music, my own label, artist management, and publishing company, and later Nüagency, a digital strategy and communication agency advising and training artists, labels, festivals, and venues (we are an officially recognised training organisation). This year, I co-founded the Social Music Awards to reward the French music industry’s best digital campaigns and strategies.

I am also an Associate Professor at Paris Sorbonne University teaching Music Industry topics at Master level. I’ve authored the book “L’Artiste, le Numérique et la Musique” (Surviving the Internet Jungle as an Artist), IRMA / CNM. I’m also a proud member of the editorial committee at MaMA Festival & Convention in Paris ; as well as an Expert and Board Member of the European market accelerator program JUMP.

Last but not least, I also dedicate my free time to making the French music industry a better place via two separate non-profits. First I created La Nouvelle Onde, an organisation spotting and highlighting the industry’s next-generation execs. Then I co-founded another organisation, Change de Disque, to fix the rampant problems of sexism and discrimination in the industry, by focusing on structural change through collective and decentralised actions.

So on a daily basis, I do many different things I absolutely love. I just need a bit more sleep!

What tools were you using so far to store and share your music with other professionals?

When it comes to sharing music, it’s essentially an important part of the daily work at Unicum Music. Because we are both a label and a publisher - with two different catalogues - they were scattered across devices so I decided the lesser of all evils for me was to simply store the music on my hard drive. Then I usually shared the tracks via a private Soundcloud link, Google Drive, or Wetransfer, depending on what my contacts used.

Could you give us a concrete example of the way you use Bridge.audio?

As a publisher, I used to try to update the metadata on my files for sync pitches via Audacity but it was far from ideal. So Bridge.audio fixed that problem for me. It’s also super useful for me to organise my publishing catalogue with the tags when I’m searching for the right track to pitch in terms of mood, instrument, language, etc… And from a pure admin perspective, it’s a good back up for the excel sheet I have with my database.

As a label, I particularly like the “project” functionality that allows you to share a link with some media, or with whoever I wish to send the music to ahead of release.
First, because you can add key files (artwork, press release, artist bio, and more) which means goodbye bulky emails, or scattered information across different links or drives.
Second, because the stats are very insightful.
Third, because I love the UX, it’s super intuitive.

Goodbye bulky emails, or scattered information across different links or drives

What did you gain with this new tool?

Time, peace of mind, and a sense of freedom.

Remember the hard drive I stored all the music on? During the first lockdown, one of my children accidentally bashed it: I lost 10 years worth of archives, until I found a way to resurrect that data a very long month later. Now those files are stored on Bridge.audio, I’m understandably not so freaked out about the possibility of that happening again.

Also, having all the files in one place and up-to-date with the correct metadata just simplifies everything in terms of music sharing on a daily basis at Unicum Music.

Would you recommend Bridge.audio to fellow music professionals?

Oh absolutely. To be honest, I already have!