Black Goblin is an audio service and technology company aiming to provide sustainable and accessible sound production for all. With the understanding that for most creative practitioners, sound is a daunting and sometimes secondary aspect to their work: our groundbreaking audio technology eases the growing pressure to master the realm of sound.
Our debut product 'Subversive' is a creative suite for sound-making (akin to Adobe Creative Cloud but for sound), and it is built for visual content developers who are not sound experts. Subversive revolutionises’ the user experience for those attempting to add sound to their work.
When uploading a video file to Subversive, users can create and add sound effects directly to the timeline by applying our signature sound effects generators. Our sound effect generators not only provide creatives with high production value sound, but because the SFXs produced are created using programming algorithms (meaning there are no samples or recordings behind the process), originality and creativity take precedence over any technical mechanisms, giving the user full creative control over the result. For our efforts in innovation, we have had the honour to be the recipients of several funding awards, which have allowed us to continue our development; the first version of Subversive will be ready for testing with our early adopter customers by September of this year.
Our experience and research have shown that the majority of independent artists and SMEs often find themselves hindered by the impacts of financial costs and the loss of creative control (due to outsourcing to third parties). Subversive tackles both financial concerns and the lack of artistic freedom, by enabling creators to have the capacity to retain control of their products not only in terms of IP but also the artistic direction whilst not incurring significant financial expenditure.
'Subversive' will solve a wide array of technical difficulties that currently exist while designing sound, eradicating the gap between those creating films, animation, or games and producing audio for them. By empowering filmmakers, artists, and other creatives with sound tools like Subversive, Black Goblin contributes to the growth of the creative industries and to the endeavour of sound technologies leaping into the 21st Century.
In addition, the software has the potential to impact other industries positively. Our project, Relict, is an excellent example of this potential; in Relict, we collaborate with Artist Tuuli Meriläinen, to develop new protocols that allow researchers to capture, visualise and analyse big sound data from natural spaces. The technologies necessary for achieving Relict’s goals are currently being developed in Subversive, and the possibilities of its applications beyond Relict include, digital archival analysis, user experience improvement and more.
‘Subversive’ answers the demand of a growing market of audio-visual content producers, which amounts to approximately 46,115 microenterprises and 327,000 sole traders; Black Goblin has confirmed written intent of purchase from at least five businesses and prospective intent from over 30 more organisations in the local area.
Being chosen to be part of the CIC CreaTech report in the ‘Ones to Watch 2021’ section would help us gain recognition for not only 'Subversive' but Black Goblin as a whole. We see this as an opportunity to connect with potential customers and create new partnerships with like-minded individuals and organisations.
