BandLab buys beat marketplace Airbit

[Esteban Villanova]

BandLab buys beat marketplace Airbit - now creators can make their beats and sell them in one integrated service - RouteNote Blog

Quote

 

BandLab buys beat marketplace Airbit – now creators can make their beats and sell them in one integrated service

BandLab is acquiring Airbit – an online beat marketplace that boasts over two million beat sales on its platform. In a bid to expand its creator toolset and provide alternative revenue sources for creators on the platform.

Bandlab Technologies, the parent company of the artist services platform ReverbNation, offer Bandlap as a free-to-use DAW and social music creation platform, in addition to Cakewalk – their reputable, professional-level DAW. Bandlab allows anyone, anywhere, to make music online, and I consider it to be one of the best free DAWs around. Bandlab is a mobile-first cross-platform DAW and social network that provides users with all of the tools they need to start making music.

BandLab offers free music creation tools across computers & mobile devices.

Bandlab buys Airbit, giving beat makers an integrated service to create beats and sell them

Now, Bandlab users have the opportunity to cook their beats in Bandlab and sell them on Airbit in one integrated service. In fact, BandLab’s acquisition of Airbit adds to BandLab’s list of services also including SongStarter, the AI musical idea generator – providing artists with services for music creation and promotion.

Artists have earned over $45M+ on Airbit with over 2M+ beats having been sold, and the platform itself boasts a catalog of more than a million beats from notable & merging producers. But BandLab’s acquisition of Airbit is set to expand Airbit’s current audience to millions of new customers.

The acquisition of Airbit comes after two artists recently hit the Billboard charts while using Bandlab’s services. Boasting over 60M+ users, BandLab states it “has grown with its user base, always developing or integrating the latest tools an artist needs”.

“We are thrilled to bring Airbit’s community to BandLab. We are continually looking for opportunities to support BandLab artists in their creative process, and this has been one of our communities most requested features,” says Meng Ru Kuok, CEO & Founder of BandLab Technologies.

Meng continues “Thanks to companies like Airbit, self-serve beat marketplaces have become an exciting route for creators to find and purchase high-quality beats to kickstart their creative process. We’re excited to improve the user experience for our creators and introduce new ways for them to earn a living.”

All current Airbit employees will remain with the company, but Wasim Khamlichi, the Airbit CEO, is to step down after a transition period. However, users can expect “an uninterrupted integration of Airbit’s features into BandLab’s creator platform”, which is said to be happening in the near future.

CEO of Airbit, Wasim Khamlichi, says, “Airbit shares BandLab’s ethos of allowing music makers every opportunity to find success. Airbit was started with the intent to empower creators as artists and entrepreneurs through new technologies and forward-thinking music monetization tools. Since Airbit was founded in 2009, it has grown to become a powerful platform for hundreds and thousands of creators. BandLab is best positioned to take it to the next level.”

 

You think we'll be able to sell beats directly from CbB?

[craigb]

Can't beat that! ?

[Grem]

2 hours ago, Esteban Villanova said:

You think we'll be able to sell beats directly from CbB?

IDK about selling directly from CbB, but probably be able to upload beats you make from CbB directly to the cloud. 

[paulo]

Whenever I see/hear the word beats in any article/video that has a musical context I immediately lose interest.

Is it just me?

[InstrEd]

17 minutes ago, paulo said:

Whenever I see/hear the word beats in any article/video that has a musical context I immediately lose interest.

Is it just me?

"Just Beat It"  

[InstrEd]

Meng keeps expanding his Musical Empire

[paulo]

28 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

"Just Beat It"  

I lost interest on what you were saying at the second word.?

[Xoo]

2 hours ago, paulo said:

Whenever I see/hear the word beats in any article/video that has a musical context I immediately lose interest.

Is it just me?

No.

[InstrEd]

3 hours ago, paulo said:

I lost interest on what you were saying at the second word.?

I'm not surprised  ?

[Rain]

Instagram Buffoon: Are you a beatmaker?

Me: Actually, I've studied classical music, I've dabbled with traditional jazz as well as traditional music from many cultures, I can read and write charts, I play an actual instrument - even a few of them. I have, on multiple occasions, played music and sang live on stage. I also like to amuse myself by indulging in rudimentary sound design and, yes, I sometimes "make beats".

But since I do not require a laptop to make music, I believe the proper term would be "musician".

Edited February 5, 2023 by Rain

[Starship Krupa]

17 hours ago, Esteban Villanova said:

BandLab buys beat marketplace Airbit - now creators can make their beats and sell them in one integrated service - RouteNote Blog

You think we'll be able to sell beats directly from CbB?

Yes, there will be a Control Bar module with a picture of a drum and a button with a $ sign (€, £, ¥, etc. depending on localized version). The module will include an algorithm that will check your beat for freshness against a vast database.

14 hours ago, paulo said:

Whenever I see/hear the word beats in any article/video that has a musical context I immediately lose interest.

Is it just me?

I make EDM and I cringe when I see (and especially) hear it. Probably because of having endured so many pinhead poseurs in the past quarter century saying  “I make beats (“yo” optional).”

I do understand that the term “producer” has now shifted closer to its literal meaning, which is amusing because you can now hear geezers saying things like “he says he’s a ‘producer,’ what does THAT mean?” As if they understood what it used to mean.

At least today’s “producers” actually intend to produce music. When I “produced” a single for my friends’ band 35 years ago, I mostly sat in the control room and mediated disputes. A valuable role, no doubt. “3rd party who makes creative suggestions/decisions and otherwise facilitates creation of a recorded work?” I guess that was it.

 I’m not even sure what “beats” are in this context. A percussion and bass pattern? A loop that only has percussion and bass? How many measures do you need to have before a “beat” is ready for market? Is it the minimal bass and percussion beds that people rap over?

I come up with a (drum part, bass part) beat for every song (except for the ambient drone pieces), often before I come up with anything else. It’s hard to imagine stopping at that point, deciding that I was done and that it was ready for consumption by anyone, but I guess I’m not widely enough versed in modern techniques at this point.

[Grem]

45 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I’m not even sure what “beats” are in this context.

It could be anything musical, as you point out in your next paragraph.

But will it sell? That's the key to "beats".

I have purchased a lot of beats (more than I will ever use) geared towards a type of music I will write.  Others purchase beats based on what they write. 

Airbit was started back in 2009. Has millions of sales made. Somebody is buying it. So Meng apparently sees something we don't. 

Electric guitars and amps weren't looked at with much respect when they first hit the stage. But they changed the world.

[Starship Krupa]

44 minutes ago, Rain said:

Me: Actually, I've studied classical music, I've dabbled with traditional jazz as well as traditional music from many cultures, I can read and write charts, I play an actual instrument - even a few of them. I have, on multiple occasions, played music and sang live on stage. I also like to amuse myself by indulging in rudimentary sound design and, yes, I sometimes "make beats".

But since I do not require a laptop to make music, I believe the proper term would be "musician".

I get what you’re saying, and much respect. I wish I knew more. The more theory I’ve learned, the easier it’s made things. I still sometimes forget whether Every Good Boy Does Fine is bottom to top or the other way round and I never have figured out exactly what the word “harmony” means (I’m sure that I know it but not by name) except the thing with people singing at the same time. I think it’s the part of theory that has to do with how multiple simultaneous notes go together? There’s probably a Rick Beato video about it.

There’s so much baggage around the term “musician,” I kind of squirm when it gets applied to me. It sounds like a title rather than a description. I make music. I play drums, guitar, bass, keyboards and sing. I’ve led rock bands where I wrote most of the songs. I’ve created orchestral pieces that I would like to have played by a small ensemble. But I’d still rather not be called a “musician” unless there is an attractive woman nearby whom I would like to get to know better. Don’t want to be any kind of “ist.” Guitar player will do fine. Doesn’t work for drums, though.

(I think I was exposed to snobbery around those terms in my early youth and decided to leave them for others. My early youth occurred during the heyday of fusion and I don’t believe I’ve ever fully recovered. My later youth occurred during the heyday of punk, which was healing, but perhaps not completely.)

Fortunately, Kids These Days who make music on their laptops found a clever way to dodge bullets from people who see “musician” as a title rather than a description: they call themselves “producers.” Which baffles and angers enough older folks to make the younger folks happy and is maybe a more accurate use of the word than when it applied to Phil Spector and Tony Visconti.

I know many people who can play guitar, sing, even write songs who know diddly about music theory (except of course they do, they just don’t know they do) and are completely helpless in front of a DAW. They look at it like you’re showing them the C++ IDE. Actually, being a musician (squirm) of a certain age, I know more people who can play traditional instruments and sing than I do people who can operate DAW software on even the most basic level.

It gives me and their kids a shared interest to bond over, but believe me, I’d love to know more musicians over the age of 45 (my cutoff for “now that you’ve stopped pretending that you’re going to become a rock star we can talk”) who are into working with music software. It’s the reason this forum is important to me.

I see “the DAW” as another instrument unto itself. Your skills can be as rudimentary as arming tracks, hitting Record, then hitting Play, or as advanced as creating entire soundtracks and albums from start to finish that never leave “the box,” that use processing and editing techniques that don’t exist in the physical world.

Its definitely something that takes plenty of time and effort to get good at. To the point that it’s considered difficult to switch to another main piece of software after you’ve been using one for a while. And there’s always more you can learn.

I tell my friends that just like guitar, almost anyone can learn it, but it will take some time and effort, and getting really good takes years. It’s fairly easy to get to the point where you can record voice and guitar, but from there the adventure expands, and it can expand to the point where the software becomes your main instrument.

But there’s no term for “DAWist,” unless that’s “producer” (curr rather than arch).

[paulo]

46 minutes ago, Grem said:

So Meng apparently sees something we don't. 

He sure does. 

Many more numbers before the decimal point of his bank balance for starters....

[Grem]

18 minutes ago, paulo said:

Many more numbers before the decimal point of his bank balance for starters....

Yep. Capitalism.  It drives innovation like nothing this world has ever seen!

 

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, Grem said:

I have purchased a lot of beats (more than I will ever use) geared towards a type of music I will write.  Others purchase beats based on what they write. 

I’ve built more than one song around a pattern that came with Break Tweaker. Same thing, I guess. It’s just my own ignorance about how things are done these days.

 I didn’t know that buying just the patterns was that big a thing. Now I have a lot of questions that are probably best answered by just going to Airbit.

 I have no disrespect for any method used to create music. It’s the end product that counts most to me.  We’ve probably all known that guy who practiced 10 hours a day and could run scales at lightning speed whose music sounded horrible and that nobody wanted to play with.

I often think that if I could let go of the need to come up with every little aspect of the music myself and use more loops and sampled material that my music would be better. I mean, if I am trying to produce modern music, I might want to learn some more modern techniques, right? The people I most want to emulate don’t write or play every single note.

I’m continually stunned when I see breakdowns of what samples were used in songs I love, like from Daft Punk or LCD Soundsystem or Air. I went to see Air live and they played everything live. I guess they learned to play what was in the samples. One of the best shows I’ve ever been to, BTW.

I guess what remains most important to me is how to create a given sound. If that’s via hunting for loops and beats, that’s what I have to do.

[Rain]

50 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I get what you’re saying, and much respect. I wish I knew more. The more theory I’ve learned, the easier it’s made things. I still sometimes forget whether Every Good Boy Does Fine is bottom to top or the other way round and I never have figured out exactly what the word “harmony” means (I’m sure that I know it but not by name) except the thing with people singing at the same time. I think it’s the part of theory that has to do with how multiple simultaneous notes go together? There’s probably a Rick Beato video about it.

There’s so much baggage around the term “musician,” I kind of squirm when it gets applied to me. It sounds like a title rather than a description. I make music. I play drums, guitar, bass, keyboards and sing. I’ve led rock bands where I wrote most of the songs. I’ve created orchestral pieces that I would like to have played by a small ensemble. But I’d still rather not be called a “musician” unless there is an attractive woman nearby whom I would like to get to know better. Don’t want to be any kind of “ist.” Guitar player will do fine. Doesn’t work for drums, though.

(I think I was exposed to snobbery around those terms in my early youth and decided to leave them for others. My early youth occurred during the heyday of fusion and I don’t believe I’ve ever fully recovered. My later youth occurred during the heyday of punk, which was healing, but perhaps not completely.)

Fortunately, Kids These Days who make music on their laptops found a clever way to dodge bullets from people who see “musician” as a title rather than a description: they call themselves “producers.” Which baffles and angers enough older folks to make the younger folks happy and is maybe a more accurate use of the word than when it applied to Phil Spector and Tony Visconti.

I know many people who can play guitar, sing, even write songs who know diddly about music theory (except of course they do, they just don’t know they do) and are completely helpless in front of a DAW. They look at it like you’re showing them the C++ IDE. Actually, being a musician (squirm) of a certain age, I know more people who can play traditional instruments and sing than I do people who can operate DAW software on even the most basic level.

It gives me and their kids a shared interest to bond over, but believe me, I’d love to know more musicians over the age of 45 (my cutoff for “now that you’ve stopped pretending that you’re going to become a rock star we can talk”) who are into working with music software. It’s the reason this forum is important to me.

I see “the DAW” as another instrument unto itself. Your skills can be as rudimentary as arming tracks, hitting Record, then hitting Play, or as advanced as creating entire soundtracks and albums from start to finish that never leave “the box,” that use processing and editing techniques that don’t exist in the physical world.

Its definitely something that takes plenty of time and effort to get good at. To the point that it’s considered difficult to switch to another main piece of software after you’ve been using one for a while. And there’s always more you can learn.

I tell my friends that just like guitar, almost anyone can learn it, but it will take some time and effort, and getting really good takes years. It’s fairly easy to get to the point where you can record voice and guitar, but from there the adventure expands, and it can expand to the point where the software becomes your main instrument.

But there’s no term for “DAWist,” unless that’s “producer” (curr rather than arch).

I do not disagree at all - and as you may have suspected, my reply was actually meant to sound a little pedantic, and to poke a little fun at people who tend to be a little stiff - myself first. I imagined it as something you might hear Frasier say (if you're familiar with the tv show of that name).

FWIW, the vast majority of my own music features absolutely no "real" instrument, neither live performance. I usually refer to my main project as EBM (Embalmed Body Music in this case).  Everything is programmed, sequenced, and whatever is played on the keyboard is ususally quantized becaue I am an awful keyboard player. Most of my creative output of the last 20 years or so simply wouldn't  exist without a DAW - I wouldn't have written that stuff on a guitar.

I've always been quite ambivalent. Yes, it irks me to no end when kids call themselves "producer" - pretty much like it does when a girl taking selfies called herself a "model" because she posts pictures of hersef on instagram. But I am old, and I get that. Likewsie, I can b*tch about hip hop one second and be digging out an old Beastie Boys record the next.  

I am a huge fan of dark electro/industrial music - and I am very much aware that a lot of those guys don't play any instrument and can't hold a tune to save their life. But at the end of the day, if the song is good...

I think that as long as you don't actually take yourself too seriously, it's ok to contradict yourself and be ambivalent. Not to be too rigid. Maybe that's why I feel that those self-proclaimed producers could also benefit from a little self-mockery. 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Rain

[X-53mph]

17 hours ago, paulo said:

Whenever I see/hear the word beats in any article/video that has a musical context I immediately lose interest.

Is it just me?

Personally, I just cannot get enough of watching kids on TwikTwok in their bedrooms tapping pads like Tourette patients playing a demented game of Hasbro Simon

I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether I'm being sarcastic or not.  

[paulo]

10 minutes ago, Philip G Hunt said:

I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether I'm being sarcastic or not.  

I hope for your sake that you're not because along with people who are cynical, "experts" have said that makes you more likely to die.

[Grem]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

have no disrespect for any method used to create music. It’s the end product that counts most to me.  

 

1 hour ago, Rain said:

at the end of the day, if the song is good...

Exactly. 

 

1 hour ago, Rain said:

as long as you don't actually take yourself too seriously, it's ok to contradict yourself and be ambivalent. Not to be too rigid.

Yep. Well said.

I have used Band In A Box to write and create songs. I have used EZ Keys to write and create songs. The songs I created with these programs (guess we could refer to them as "beats") I would have never come up with on my guitar.

And I have attempted to write what I call "orchestral" music in CbB using several different programs that generate midi notes/rhythms. These "works" are pleasing to me.

All in an attempt to get something inside of me out so that others may experience it, and hopefully enjoy it. 

Which brings me back to what Rain said, "at the end of the day, if the song is good..." I will add "who cares how it was created"

And just to be clear I don't understand a lot of the new ways of making music. And like Starship Krupa said "I have no disrespect for any method used to create music". I just sit back and try to take it all in. Some I like. And some.....

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Grem