Beatport
Encyclopedia
Beatport is an online music store
specializing in electronic dance
music and culture. Beatport is a privately held company owned and operated by Beatport LLC and based in Denver, Colorado.
In January 2005, a revised Beatport 2.0 was released, with a catalog over 100,000 tracks supplied by 2,700 signed labels. Beatport was also made accessible through a scaled-down GUI embedded within DJ software; Traktor DJ Studio by Native Instruments
.
On August 7, 2006, Beatport released Beatport 3.0 Fully Loaded, the third version of its store, which featured improvements to navigation, customized content subscription via My Beatport, and new payment options.
In February 2007, Beatport launched the Beatport Player, a viral marketing web widget to play back relevant Artist, Label, Genre, and Chart content. Built using Adobe Flash
and HTML, the player gives users the ability to create custom, dynamic playlists from Beatport's entire catalog of song previews to be embedded into nearly any HTML website.
In August 2007, Beatport launched a community-oriented music site, Beatportal, whose stated mission is "...to provide music lovers with up-to-date information about the world of electronic music".
On March 18, 2008, Beatport introduced the Beatport Music Awards. Each year Beatport users can vote for the best electronic music artists. The BMAs are broken down into 19 categories, including Best Artist categories from each genre, Best Remix, and Best Single. The nominees for the BMAs are based solely on unit sales at Beatport.
Beatport's latest version, The New Beatport, was released on January 21, 2009.
Launched April 9, 2010, Beatport's free iPhone app allows users to browse, listen, and add music to their shopping cart from the Beatport catalog.
On March 21st, 2011, Beatport donated all proceeds to relief of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
.
On July 14th, 2011, Beatport launched their new HTML 5 website with some new features like Waveform Display, Key Display.
, Chill Out
, Deep House
, DJ Tools, Drum & Bass, Dubstep
, Electro House, Electronica
, Hard Dance
, Hardcore / Hard Techno
, Hip-Hop, House
, Indie Dance / Nu Disco, Minimal
, Progressive House, Psy-Trance
, Tech House
, Techno
, and Trance
.
In July 2008, Beatport created a distinct genre category for the Indie Dance and Nu Disco sub-genres, both of which were previously recognized as Electronica.
In June 2010 the following number of tracks were available in each genre:
24000 breaks, 67000 chill out, 45000 deep house, 12000 dj tools, 25000 drum and bass, 11000 dubstep, 66000 electro house, 61000 electronica, 15000 hard dance, 12000 hard techno, 78000 hip hop, 134000 house, 20000 indie dance, 38000 minimal, 112000 progressive house, 18000 psy trance, 88000 tech house, 97000 techno, 75000 trance.
, AIFF
, and WAV
formats.
MP3 tracks are encoded at 320 kbit/s using the LAME
encoder and contain metadata
of Artist Name, Track Name, Release Name, Release Date, and Musical Genre. In late December 2008, Beatport began using ID3v2.4
to include Album Artwork
with newly encoded MP3 content.
MP4 tracks are encoded using a Variable Bit Rate encoder at 192 kbit/s (Between 170-205 kbit/s.)
Tracks delivered in WAV format contain uncompressed audio containing two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample to maintain original CD audio quality.
Originally, all tracks available for purchase from the site were accompanied by 2 minute track previews encoded at 48 kbit/s. In late December 2008, Beatport doubled the bit rate of newly encoded track previews to 96 kbit/s. These track previews are used both in the Beatport storefront as well as in the customizable Beatport flash players.
Starting shortly after the redesign in 2011, Beatport introduced a beta of buying tracks as lossless AIFF with Album Artwork.
. There are no restrictions on the number of devices to which a purchased song can be transferred nor the number of times any individual song can be burned to CD.
and Twitter
.
2007
2008
2009
2010
Online music store
An online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...
specializing in electronic dance
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
music and culture. Beatport is a privately held company owned and operated by Beatport LLC and based in Denver, Colorado.
History
Beatport released the first iteration of its web store, Beatport 1.0, on January 7, 2004 with 79 Electronic Music Labels in its catalog.In January 2005, a revised Beatport 2.0 was released, with a catalog over 100,000 tracks supplied by 2,700 signed labels. Beatport was also made accessible through a scaled-down GUI embedded within DJ software; Traktor DJ Studio by Native Instruments
Native Instruments
Native Instruments is a technology company that develops software and hardware for music production and DJing. The company has originally been identified mostly with software instruments, but has also expanded to various other music equipment segments in recent years.Current products of Native...
.
On August 7, 2006, Beatport released Beatport 3.0 Fully Loaded, the third version of its store, which featured improvements to navigation, customized content subscription via My Beatport, and new payment options.
In February 2007, Beatport launched the Beatport Player, a viral marketing web widget to play back relevant Artist, Label, Genre, and Chart content. Built using Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
and HTML, the player gives users the ability to create custom, dynamic playlists from Beatport's entire catalog of song previews to be embedded into nearly any HTML website.
In August 2007, Beatport launched a community-oriented music site, Beatportal, whose stated mission is "...to provide music lovers with up-to-date information about the world of electronic music".
On March 18, 2008, Beatport introduced the Beatport Music Awards. Each year Beatport users can vote for the best electronic music artists. The BMAs are broken down into 19 categories, including Best Artist categories from each genre, Best Remix, and Best Single. The nominees for the BMAs are based solely on unit sales at Beatport.
Beatport's latest version, The New Beatport, was released on January 21, 2009.
Launched April 9, 2010, Beatport's free iPhone app allows users to browse, listen, and add music to their shopping cart from the Beatport catalog.
On March 21st, 2011, Beatport donated all proceeds to relief of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
.
On July 14th, 2011, Beatport launched their new HTML 5 website with some new features like Waveform Display, Key Display.
Music catalog
At launch, Beatport offered tracks from 79 electronic music labels to customers worldwide. The current Beatport catalog is made up of more than 700,000 tracks, 160,000 releases, and 24,000 artist charts from over 120,000 artists and remixers.Dance music genres
Music on Beatport is categorized into 19 genre classifications which include BreaksBreakbeat
In 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...
, Chill Out
Chill out
Chill out may mean:*Chill out music, a laid-back style of music*Chill Out, an album by KLF*Chill Out *Chill Out, an album by John Lee Hooker...
, Deep House
Deep house
Deep house is a subgenre of house music that fuses elements of Chicago house into the 1980s jazz-funk and touches of soul music. In the early compositions , influences of jazz music were most frequently brought out by using more complex chords than simple triads which are held for many bars and...
, DJ Tools, Drum & Bass, Dubstep
Dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in south London, England. Its overall sound has been described as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals"....
, Electro House, Electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
, Hard Dance
Hard dance
Hard Dance is an umbrella term that refers to a group of Hard electronic dance genres which aren't hard enough to be classified as hardcore. The term usually includes genres such as Hard House, Hard NRG, Hard Trance, and Hardstyle...
, Hardcore / Hard Techno
Hard dance
Hard Dance is an umbrella term that refers to a group of Hard electronic dance genres which aren't hard enough to be classified as hardcore. The term usually includes genres such as Hard House, Hard NRG, Hard Trance, and Hardstyle...
, Hip-Hop, House
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
, Indie Dance / Nu Disco, Minimal
Minimal
Minimal can mean:* In mathematics, see Minimal element.* In music, see Minimalist music.* In electronic music, see Minimal techno.* In art see Minimalism.* In computing, see Computing minimalism.* Names:...
, Progressive House, Psy-Trance
Psychedelic trance
Psychedelic trance, psytrance or just psy is a form of electronic music characterized by hypnotic arrangements of synthetic rhythms and complex layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. It appeared in the mainstream in 1995 as with reporting of the trend of Goa trance. The genre offers variety...
, Tech House
Tech house
Tech house is a subgenre of house music that mixes elements of minimal techno into simple, 4-to-4 beats found in soulful deep house. The genre came to prominence in the late-1990s atmosphere of American clubs as soul influenced Detroit-style techno that also borrowed elements from house before...
, Techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, and Trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
.
In July 2008, Beatport created a distinct genre category for the Indie Dance and Nu Disco sub-genres, both of which were previously recognized as Electronica.
In June 2010 the following number of tracks were available in each genre:
24000 breaks, 67000 chill out, 45000 deep house, 12000 dj tools, 25000 drum and bass, 11000 dubstep, 66000 electro house, 61000 electronica, 15000 hard dance, 12000 hard techno, 78000 hip hop, 134000 house, 20000 indie dance, 38000 minimal, 112000 progressive house, 18000 psy trance, 88000 tech house, 97000 techno, 75000 trance.
File formats
At launch Beatport supported the purchase and download of tracks in MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, AIFF
AIFF
Audio Interchange File Format is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices...
, and WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
formats.
MP3 tracks are encoded at 320 kbit/s using the LAME
LAME
LAME is a free software codec used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format.-History:The name LAME is a recursive acronym for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". Around mid-1998, Mike Cheng created LAME 1.0 as a set of modifications against the "8Hz-MP3" encoder source code...
encoder and contain metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
of Artist Name, Track Name, Release Name, Release Date, and Musical Genre. In late December 2008, Beatport began using ID3v2.4
ID3
ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself....
to include Album Artwork
Album cover
An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...
with newly encoded MP3 content.
MP4 tracks are encoded using a Variable Bit Rate encoder at 192 kbit/s (Between 170-205 kbit/s.)
Tracks delivered in WAV format contain uncompressed audio containing two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample to maintain original CD audio quality.
Originally, all tracks available for purchase from the site were accompanied by 2 minute track previews encoded at 48 kbit/s. In late December 2008, Beatport doubled the bit rate of newly encoded track previews to 96 kbit/s. These track previews are used both in the Beatport storefront as well as in the customizable Beatport flash players.
Starting shortly after the redesign in 2011, Beatport introduced a beta of buying tracks as lossless AIFF with Album Artwork.
Digital rights management
All tracks on Beatport are provided free of DRMDigital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
. There are no restrictions on the number of devices to which a purchased song can be transferred nor the number of times any individual song can be burned to CD.
Customer care
Beatport provides customer support through their online support portal. Customer care tickets are mainly handled via email but support is also available via Get SatisfactionGet Satisfaction
Get Satisfaction is a customer community software platform for technical support based in San Francisco, California, United States. It was founded on January 31, 2007 by several people, including Lane Becker, Amy Muller, Thor Muller, and Jonathan Grubb. It publicly launched in September 2007. The...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
.
Law Suit
In December 2010 a motion was filed in US Distric Court by Regas Christou, Christou is demanding a jury trial against Beatport, Club Beta, and New York based DJ Management Agency “AM Only”. This 43 page filing claims that Beatport, co-owned by Brad Roulier, Club Beta (owned by Roulier) and AM Only have used unfair business practices to monopolize the Denver Nightlife Market.Awards
2006- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Retailer
- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer
2007
- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Retailer
- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer
2008
- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer
2009
- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer
2010
- International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) - Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer
See also
- Beatport Music Awards
- Juno RecordsJuno RecordsJuno Records is a UK-based online dance music retail store, selling vinyl records, CDs, music downloads and music accessories, founded by Richard Atherton and Sharon Boyd. The website was created in 1996 as an information-only site called The Dance Music Resource Pages, listing new dance music...