Having started taking music lessons at the tender age of seven, Jesse Neo has travelled far in his musical journey. Exciting, fulfilling and magical, the quest for excellence has been far and wide for the 23-year-old British- Australian songwriter known for his catchy electronic dance music. He is currently based in Los Angeles.
With over 100 original songs under his belt by the time he was 18- year-old, this talented music technologist decided to take the next step forward by aligning the creative arts with the digital world in a bid to change how the music industry works with the launch of his startup, Gemtracks.
One of the reasons that made Jesse launch the new platform was due to the constant paperwork he had to fill and the meetings he had to attend with his publisher before music could be released.
“If there was a platform that could allow songwriters and composers to sell their music without having to go through endless legal paperwork and meeting, that could be a real gamechanger,” Jesse reflected. “So as soon as my contract with the company I was working with was over, I decided to take things in my own hands and listed all my music on Gemtracks.”
The selling point for Gemtracks is that the tracks can only be sold once. Once sold, the buyer gets the full copyright of the song, enabling them to sell as many copies of the final song as they want without having to pay royalties to the original producer. All the legal work and operations in the background are all done automatically without any human intervene.
“After listing all my unsold backing tracks on Gemtracks, I waited a few weeks, and I was suddenly making around $600 a day!” Jesse recalled. “Then one day while I was in the studio, my friend, Milana Leybovich, suggested I turned Gemtracks into a public marketplace for anyone to sell beats and offer their services.”
So that was what Jesse did. What started as a place to host unused beats, eventually grew into a public marketplace that received praises from several media outlets, including ABC and NBC.
To this day, many famous producers and artists that have worked with major labels such as Disney, Sony and Universal, have joined Gemtracks. Some of them include IYFFE, Lucas Gold, Beowülf, and Taylor Carroll, to name a few.
It doesn’t stop here though, Gemtracks also has a marketplace for freelance musicians to offer their skills, regardless if you are an instrumentalist, a producer or an engineer. There is also a directory of music recording studios.
And for those that are new to the industry, there is a huge collection of educational resources that would benefit those new to the industry. These include a frequently updated blog, videos, a free eBook and a forum to allow newbies to get advice from expert musicians.
So if you are an indie artist looking to buy beats, make sure you head over to Gemtracks now.
