Beatport acquires Loopmasters, Loopcloud and Plugin Boutique

What does the transaction mean for producers and DJs?

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Beatport acquires Loopmasters

Renowned music marketplace Beatport has announced its acquisition of UK-based music production platform Loopmasters and its subsidiaries: Loopcloud and Plugin Boutique.

Beatport is no stranger to selling sample packs to its 36 million annual visitors, having done so since 2010. Its Beatport Sounds platform was bought by Loopmasters in 2019, marking a new strategic partnership between the two brands. Since then, Loopmasters’ catalogue has been integrated on the Beatport website, giving producers and DJs quick access to new sounds. Beatport’s acquisition of Loopmasters, and therefore Loopcloud and Plugin Boutique, is said to be a “logical conclusion” by both companies.

Matt Pelling, owner of Loopmasters, and Gareth Halsall, general manager at Plugin Boutique, have both signed multi-year contracts and will continue their leadership of Loopmasters. Pelling founded Loopmasters in 2003, functioning as a valuable online resource for music composers and producers looking for new, inspiring samples. Plugin Boutique has been a similar resource, catering specifically to producers purchasing plug-ins from a vast range of software developers.

As we’ve seen, this market has expanded exponentially as music production has become more accessible. Freeware DAWs are readily available and less costly hardware is needed to start creating and mixing music. With this in mind, Beatport and Loopmasters are looking to accelerate the full integration of Loopcloud and Plugin Boutique into Beatport’s retail properties.

Robb McDaniels, CEO of Beatport, said “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”.

What does the acquisition mean?

The partnership is unlikely to mark much of a change to the appearance of the Beatport site as a whole, with portals to Plugin Boutique and Loopcloud already included on the main page. However, it is a recognition of the ever-blurring line between DJ and producer. With DJ brands such as Denon DJ, VirtualDJ and Pioneer DJ’s rekordbox incorporating Beatport LINK into their software, the ability to stream music during a DJ set is now easily achievable.

What this could mean in the future is an introduction of streamable loops and samples into DJ software and hardware. DJs needing tools like acapellas, drum loops and sound effects could one day easily access them using Beatport LINK.

One thing’s for sure: Loopmasters and Plugin Boutique will now provide Beatport with a suite of services for DJs and producers that makes the platform a one-stop-shop for many producers and DJs. No doubt it will become a service that will be hard for companies such as Splice to compete with.

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