Tracklib: The Future Of Legal Music Sampling?

Tracklib, a digital service for clearing samples, recently announced a $12.2-million funding round, with investors including the Sony Innovation Fund, WndrCo, and former NBA player and music producer Baron Davis.

Stockholm-based Tracklib was founded in order to provide music producers and artists with pre-cleared, high-calibre original music for sampling.

Tracklib also recently announced partnerships with producer Frank Dukes, as well as Bob James and Isaac Hayes.

Tracklib’s CEO Pӓr Almqvist spoke to Headliner about the company’s ethos, aims and its plans for its recent round of funding.

Where did the idea for Tracklib stem from?

Tracklib was founded on two insights: Firstly, most producers want to be able to use other people’s music in their own creations but are unable to do so, as legal sampling of original music is inaccessible to most music creators because of the cost and complexity involved.

Secondly, it would be amazing if music producers could access the actual building blocks of music – the individual tracks (known as multitracks or stems), and no-one had done anything meaningful with multitracks and stems. So ‘stem’ is actually a keyword to our story!

What are the benefits of the company’s services and what issues does it simplify?

Tracklib makes legal sampling of original music fast, easy and affordable to every music creator in the world. Traditional sample clearance is a process that involves lots of time and effort, lawyers and many thousands of dollars – without a guarantee that a sample can even be properly cleared in the end. This is what Tracklib changes on a global scale.

What has the feedback been like so far?

The feedback we have received has been nothing short of amazing. We’re humbled by the positive response from artists, producers and songwriters as well as rights holders – music labels and publishers – that have all embraced the revolution in the music-making that Tracklib helps power.

Many of the world’s most established artists and producers rely on Tracklib as an inspiring source of original music, as well as a large number of budding producers that are just starting to make music.

How did these recent investors come to be involved?

Investors see great potential in Tracklib because we are building a completely new market in the global music industry – a big piece of essential music licensing infrastructure that benefits everyone involved.

Besides the commercial upside to both Tracklib's customers and rights holders that supply music to our catalogue, there is also significant cultural and creative value generated as we help unearth previously undiscovered music, power music discovery and usage in a new way, and change the way music can be created.

How do you plan to use this new funding?

The capital raised in the recent round of funding will be used to both expand our already vast music catalogue, and to reach more people across the world. We will also invest more into the features available on our platform, making it even easier and more fun to both discover and license music.

How do you hope to raise the company’s profile further?

To raise our profile and increase awareness, we have initiated larger partnerships – with both artists and producers, as well as with music products and services – that will bring additional value to our user base.

We’ve also created several new formats that we’re now expanding on – for example placement competitions where upcoming producers get a chance to get a placement with an established artist.