With more music streaming apps and music creation tools emerging to compete for users’ attention, social music sharing apps have become Popster Instagram is getting two new features to expand its user base: an AI image generator for cover art and a collaboration capability where artists can remix another user’s song.
Launched last year as a song creation tool and music video platform, Popster allows artists to connect with other musicians, create original songs and music videos, and share them on social media. Users can record video and audio directly in the app, and add stickers and colorful backgrounds. The app also offers a selection of sound effects (created in-house) and a community section for artists to interact with each other.
The app, of course, has joined the generative AI wave as well. For example, the app offers ways for artists to generate ideas for lyrics as well as create new beats to record vocals over. (Popster also uses AI to enhance audio if there’s background noise.)
Among the AI-powered tools is the “Add Beat” feature. Users can choose a music genre (Lofi Hip Hop, R&B, Indie Pop, Slow Ballad, etc.) and a beat like “Smooth” or “Normal” to compose a background music track for singers to add their vocal recordings on top.
Popster uses Mubert’s library of royalty-free tracks, setting it apart from smart music apps Udio and Suno, which have recently faced lawsuits for using copyrighted music without permission.
“The problem with AI right now is that a lot of people are creating songs that are trained from original songs, so you don’t know who the original creator is, and there’s no concept of creativity,” co-founder and CEO Themis Draconakis “We believe that if you put AI alongside the artist as a creative partner, you can experiment,” TechCrunch said. [different sounds]”Open up different ideas, take your creativity to another level.”
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Popster-app-1.png?w=314)
Popster’s new artwork generator, “Albums,” is the latest addition to its generative AI tools (all powered by OpenAI). In addition to the ability to record and upload videos, Popster now allows artists to enter a prompt to generate an image that can be displayed like a poster layer over the artist’s short video. This adds an extra layer of complexity for new and up-and-coming artists trying to get their new songs out into the world.
Another new feature on Popster appears to be a reworking of TikTok’s “Stitch” and “Duet” tools, which artists frequently use to combine their videos with other creators to add vocals, harmonies, or instruments. Popster’s new “Mashup” feature lets artists create remixes and collaborate with other artists. Users can now tap the “Mashup” button under someone else’s video and record their own, which will appear alongside it.
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Popster-founders.png?w=680)
Popster is still in its early days, with only a few thousand users. However, Popster’s latest features may be just what the app needs to attract more people. So far, there have been nearly 10,000 original songs created on the app. Drakonakis told us that users spend an average of 1.5 hours on the app per day.
The startup was founded by Drakonakis and Sotiris Kaniras (CTO). They have previously created three other apps: Nup, an anonymous chat app; Self’it, a location-based photo-sharing app; and UniPad, a collaborative app for college students.
Popster has raised $280,000 from the Realize Tech Fund and is in the process of raising a seed round, which will help it grow its team and improve its video server. Other future plans include launching paid features and collaborating with music labels.
The application is available for download on App Store.
Updated 3/7/24 at 3:30pm EST with correction that the beat generator is not powered by OpenAI. Popster is also not available for Android.