Companies who provide plug-ins and sound packs to music producers have become big news in 2020.
Splice, which has raised $105m in investment, recently told MBW that it had paid out over $35m to musicians to date.
And in July, BeatStars – famed for providing the sound pack used by Lil Nas X for Old Town Road – confirmed it was on track to have paid out over $100m in lifetime royalties to producers by the end of this year.
Today, another major headline from the sector: UK-based Loopmasters has been fully acquired by Beatport, the platform that provides music and tools to DJs worldwide.
In acquiring Loopmasters for an undisclosed fee, Beatport snaps up the UK firm’s two consumer brands – Loopcloud (which provides sound packs via a subscription service) and Plugin Boutique (which sells music plug-ins).
Loopmasters’ model sees it typically license sounds from music creators, and then pay on a share of the revenue generated by their music. In other cases, Loopmasters buys out the rights to these sound packs upfront.
Both the founder of Loopmasters, Matt Pelling, and Plugin Boutique’s General Manager, Gareth Halsall, have signed multi-year contracts and will continue to lead Loopmasters under Beatport’s ownership.
Pelling will report to Beatport CEO, Robb McDaniels, and Loopmasters will maintain its offices south of London.
McDaniels stated “Matt Pelling and the entire Loopmasters team are world-class people who have built amazing products for the producer community that simply belong in our ecosystem.
“The phenomenal growth of Plugin Boutique, the leading global seller of virtual instrument plug-ins, and the recent launch of Loopcloud, an innovative subscription service for the samples market, are a testament to the talent of their team, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome them to the Beatport family.”
Loopmasters was founded in 2003 to sell soundpacks to the professional audio market and function as an online store for music composers and producers using computer- based Digital Audio Workstations (DAW).
The company launched its Plugin Boutique division in 2012 to provide a destination for the best music software companies to sell their VST Plugins, Virtual Instruments, Synth Presets and Music Plugins.
“Everyone at Loopmasters strongly believes that the combination of these two great companies will deliver an unparalleled, end-to-end content supply chain for music producers for many years to come.”
Matt Pelling, Loopmasters
“We have been very impressed by the power of the Beatport brand with the global DJ producer marketplace, and have thoroughly enjoyed working closely with the Beatport team over the past few years,” commented Pelling.
“Everyone at Loopmasters strongly believes that the combination of these two great companies will deliver an unparalleled, end-to-end content supply chain for music producers for many years to come.”
Beatport called the acquisition “strategic and accretive” for its company, which has been profitable every quarter since McDaniels took over as CEO in 2017.
“The phenomenal growth of Plugin Boutique, the leading global seller of virtual instrument plug-ins, and the recent launch of Loopcloud, an innovative subscription service for the samples market, are a testament to the talent of their team, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome them to the Beatport family.”
Robb McDaniels, Beatport
In a media release, Beatport said: “The global market for soundpacks and plugins has exploded over the last few years as more producers are able to create songs from their home studios using less expensive software and digital tools. As the world’s top seller of these products, Loopmasters is uniquely positioned to offer a best-in-class product to Beatport’s massive community of 36 million annual visitors who are passionate about DJing and producing.”
Beatport’s existing products include Beatport LINK, its new integrated streaming subscription product for DJs, as well as Beatsource LINK, its new service targeted towards the open-format DJ community.
The firm says that the addition of Loopmasters and Plugin Boutique “provides Beatport with a suite of services for DJs and Producers that is unparalleled in the music industry”.
Beatport previously sold its own online sound packs to DJs since 2010, but later exited that business and instead signed a partnership deal with Loopmasters in mid-2019.Music Business Worldwide
