BandLab’s 30 Million-Strong User Base Unlocks New Waves of Musical Creativity
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BandLab, the mobile-first recording, editing, and sharing platform, has quietly but surely built a passionate, active user base. It now boasts more than 30 million users, a 150% jump since 2019. Today, these users create more than 10 million new tracks per month.
This proliferation of song making activity on a mobile app points to a larger shift worldwide: the line between music maker and music listener is fading, and a greater number of “upstream” creators are diving into production. Since the launch of major streaming services, music industry eyes have been focused on engaging a wider global music audience by optimizing a commercial model for digital music listening. The industry has paid little notice to how accessible music making has become, especially with the maturation of mobile composition and production. Music makers worldwide, however, have already embraced the innovation and started creating. Many had been shut out from existing music recording and production paradigms--until now.
“We’ve seen activity grow naturally,” says BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok. “Last year, it exploded and it hasn’t slowed down. Even as circumstances changed in places around the world, creativity has remained a part of people’s lives.”
BandLab lets music makers record, edit, and post tracks. Users can grab some of many free custom sound and sample sets to add or play with as they go, and they can apply any number of effects to their creations. Unique to BandLab is the ability for users to work seamlessly on any device, all synched via the cloud, and to invite others to collaborate in real time with them. They can then choose to make the results public and get feedback and support from fans and fellow creators.
“Big numbers on BandLab are great, but what’s really exciting is the active usage of the product. Music making means you need to be active, not just passively scrolling a feed,” Kuok explains. “The scale of the usage around the world shows the democratization of music creation. We sit so far upstream, as close as you can get to intent to action. That’s why our users trend young and relatively more gender balanced than audio sharing platforms and studio tech traditionally have been. It’s extremely inspiring.”
The new shift and interest in audio makes this wave of creativity all the more intriguing. “YouTube made everyone understand they needed to be a video creator,” muses Kuok. “As audio continues to evolve and grow in importance, everyone needs to become a music creator.”
About BandLab
Founded in 2016, BandLab is part of music technology group BandLab Technologies, and is the flagship digital product in the organisation’s portfolio of music experience brands. BandLab’s best-in-class mobile music creation tools empower aspiring and professional creators everywhere to make music and share their creative process at an unprecedented level. Free to join, BandLab’s approachable software is based in the cloud and universally available on all platforms, making it the most accessible, collaboration-friendly music production platform anywhere. Users can self-release tracks and retain complete control of their music rights, giving artists full autonomy and allowing them to keep 100% of their earnings from monetizing their music. It reported its first million users in April 2017 and now has over 30 million registered users world wide.
The BandLab product family also includes BandLab for Education, an award-winning music creation platform with classroom management tools used by schools in over 40 countries worldwide, and Cakewalk by BandLab, a professional-level digital recording studio for career musicians and producers. Millions of musicians worldwide—including GRAMMY® and Emmy®-winning producers, composers, sound designers, and engineers—use Cakewalk products daily to produce audio for the professional music, film, broadcast, and video game industries.