Gemtracks Helping Music Producers Make a Buck

The beat marketplace industry has been reaching new milestones in 2023, with many of the renown brands coming into the general spotlight. According to Music Business Worldwide, BandLab reportedly acquired Airbit for an undisclosed amount, which is estimated to be in the millions. BeatStars, perhaps the biggest marketplace of them all, was making headlines for its list of A-list celebrities that have purchased beats from them.

Now, newcomer Gemtracks, is slowly making its way to the top too. Started in 2016, the platform started as a private music store that sold exclusive and original songs composed by its founder, DJ Jesse Neo. However, in 2019, the company was joined by singer-songwriter, Milana Leybovich after leaving her position at Disney. With the new team, the duo turned Gemtracks into a global marketplace and eventually, a playlist placement service and more recently, a subscription platform. However, due to undisclosed reasons a few months later, Milana left the company and eventually, the music industry as well.

"Gemtracks is where music producers come and exchange assets to use in their own songs," says Jesse Neo, founder of Gemtracks. "What makes Gemtracks stand out is that everything sold will always come with the full copyright ownership. This way sellers can charge higher prices, and buyers can avoid the headache of assigning royalties and remembering who to credit."

After successfully running Gemtracks for several years, a new model for allowing sellers to charge their customers a yearly subscription fee has just been released. Customers can download unlimited beats, samples and loops from their favourite music producers and use them for commercial purposes. In order to keep the tracks limited, there is a restriction to how many users can download a track before the track is removed forever. The Daily Caller has written about Gemtracks' unique formula.

If buyers decide they need a more personal approach to their songs, there is a section on the website known as 'Pros' where users can contact freelance professional musicians to help work on their songs. These include songwriters, vocalists and engineers, to name a few. Gemtracks creates a safe place for users to create contracts and make payments, where the seller is only paid once the job has been completed. Its instant messaging chat systems allow users to instantly exchange files, share videos and pay with a click of a button.

Currently more than 20,000 members are registered on the platform. Some of the big producers on the website include Beowolf, IYFFE, Lucas Gold, David Linhof and DJ Cheko. There are more with anonymous names that have never showed their faces, and are currently making more than $100,000 a year through selling exclusive beats. 

The platform is free to join. There is however a screening process before a user can start selling. This includes sending a photo of a government-issued identity card. After having the account verified, there is an agreement to digitally sign too, that mainly includes confirming all tracks sold are 100% original without any loops from third-parties, the terms of payments, and opting into a marketing campaign that automatically offers discounts to attract customers that have shown interest but did not place an order.

In most cases, sellers won't have to do any promotion to sell. Gemtracks runs on an algorithm that gives fair exposure to everyone regardless of their experience and time on the platform. For those that wish to sort listings based on the number of reviews the seller has garnered, that is also possible too.

"Gemtracks is growing every day, and we currently have more than 10 people working our company," Jesse said in a statement. "Our next goal is to expand Gemtracks beyond a marketplace, but also a marketing tool for accomplished musicians to promote and sell their songs. More details about these will probably be released at the end of the year. Until then, Gemtracks is still the best place to find original beats, loops and sample tracks."

For those that are new to the music industry, or even not a musician yet and just fans, there are many free resources on the website that they can check out, including a daily updated blog, a tool to find similar songs, and a database of gears used by famous DJs and producers.