About Us

How We Started

In the Winter of 2006, MusicianLink co-founder and CEO, David Willyard, was working with a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter on some guitar arrangements via speakerphone from his home in San Jose, CA. The audio quality of the session was poor and the sound delay rendered playing “together” at the same time impossible. Having worked at several Silicon Valley networking and computer companies, David assumed that it should be technically possible for musicians to "play" over the Internet with minimal delay. He also assumed that someone, somewhere, had had the same idea and that a tool for online music collaboration already existed.

His search for these tools led to Chris Chafe's SoundWIRE group at CCRMA (https://ccrma.stanford.edu/). Chris demonstrated his high-quality, real-time Internet audio streaming technology and proved music could be performed among many sites, even planet-wide. The two agreed the time was right for the next step: bring the technology out of the lab and into the mainstream. They formed MusicianLink to provide commercially-available, user-friendly tools allowing musicians and others to collaborate and jam over the Internet as if in the same physical space.

In 2008, MusicianLink was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for a cooperative research project with Stanford University. Numerous prototypes and firmware versions later, the jamLink was born. The jamLink is a low-cost, low-latency audio adapter which consistently provides the lowest latency, highest-quality audio collaboration experience across the Internet.

MusicianLink Team

Dave Willyard, Co-founder & CEO
Prior to MusicianLink, David was a Sales Director for PerSe Technologies, and has also been a Systems Engineer for three networking and security startups in Silicon Valley. With more than 20 years as a performing musician and songwriter, Dave is a drummer and sets the tempo for MusicianLink.

Chris Chafe, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Adviser
As Director of Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics at Stanford University, his research culminated in several published papers focusing on network music collaboration and Internet acoustics. Chris is an internationally recognized composer and cellist.

Juan-Pablo Caceres; Software Development
Juan-Pablo is currently finishing his PhD in computer music at the Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics at Stanford University. His research focus on performance system for internet music, and performs habitually with people around the globe. He's originally from Santiago, Chile.

Ray Sayre; Software Development
Ray has over 20 years experience leading software development teams through the design and implementation of a wide range of software development projects including user interface, web, and embedded systems. He is also an accomplished Jazz, Blues, and Rock guitarist, and was the organizer of the "Jam Wow" festival.

Dan Meblin, Music Director
Dan has been a software developer, graphic artist, and 3D animator. He has worked in many capacities including UI design, testing, technical writing, sales engineer, software trainer, and demo artist. Dan is an accomplished musician whose professional career started in 1980, and he continues to play music professionally today.

Investors

MusicianLink is privately funded by angel investors and professionals in the music industry. If you would like information about investment opportunities, please contact us at partners@musicianlink.com