❓Why Silver Audio?

Published by Rushi Panchal on April 2, 2025

Hi all!

Rushi here. I wanted to share the story of Silver Audio with you today.

I’ve been making music since middle school. Music isn’t just a way I express myself—it’s how I’ve built a community of people I feel the most comfortable with.

As I moved from place to place for school and work, my network of musicians and collaborators spread from coast to coast. Because I moved so frequently, I couldn’t really sustain being in a band. Instead, I started The Folks Around Time—a project designed to make space for anyone to contribute, no matter where they were in the world. Through it, I worked with high school friends, friends-of-friends from college, and even random musicians I met on the internet. I love taking a song I’m working on and having someone with a completely different musical background rework it.

One of those collaborators is Theja, the co-founder of Silver Audio. We met while doing our Master’s at the University of Ottawa, and he quickly became my best friend and longest-standing collaborator.

After finishing school, I left Ottawa but still wanted to work with Theja on music. While we made it work (we wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered an album and two EPs completely remotely), our workflow was a nightmare.

Our process looked something like this: I’d start a song and get it to a point where I wanted Theja’s production input. That could be at any stage—sometimes just a rough voice memo of me strumming and humming nonsense, sometimes a fully structured track with fundamental arrangements in place.

Theja would download the files, work his magic, and then re-upload them to Google Drive. We’d give each other feedback through whatever app we happened to have open—Facebook Messenger, iMessage, WhatsApp. At one point, I used Google Drive while Theja switched to OneDrive because he got a free upgrade from work.

It was a mess.

We constantly gave feedback on the wrong versions (was I supposed to comment on BestSongv4_mix or BestSongv4_mixed or BestSongv4mix?). When Theja sat down to mix, he might forget to check iMessage and only apply the changes we discussed on WhatsApp and Messenger. And sometimes, I wanted him to listen to a subtle synth track meant to add warmth to the song, but because I’m not great at mixing, he wouldn’t even hear what I was talking about.

There wasn’t a tool that solved all of these problems—so we decided to build one.

Theja loves the technical side of building, and I love the product and business side. With Silver Audio, we’re solving a problem we’ve experienced firsthand, and we’re creating something that helps artists focus on what really matters: making great music.

While we started with musicians in mind, we believe Silver Audio can also help podcasters, audiobook creators, and anyone working with audio. We’re excited to build a tool that removes friction from the creative process—because collaboration should be effortless.