A Train Entertainment is joining Adaptr’s 3,600+ new publisher partners, including Kobalt, Warner Chappell, and BMG, and will enable Adaptr to provide high-quality, fully licensed tracks to developers and entrepreneurs whose tech products involve music. With a catalog spanning everything from compositions recorded by Q-Tip to Krishna Das, from Huey Lewis and Rod Stewart to Wilco and Kanye West, A Train will gain new opportunities for revenue, while expanding the music available to apps and games powered by Adaptr.
“When most people think about music for apps, they think pop. But there’s value for our customers having access to a bunch of different types of music,” explains Bryn Boughton, VP of Music at Adaptr. “It's not just about the hot 100. While our customers do appreciate access to major label artists, we’re seeing that yoga, meditation, speech therapy apps and dance apps all need a wider range of music from genres like hip hop, global music, ambient, and jazz.”
A Train’s catalog will now be available on Adaptr’s click-through music API platform, which allows startups to integrate popular music into their products in an instant. Created for developers and entrepreneurs looking to build any app that needs music including fitness, dance, gaming, or social app. Adaptr can save companies the significant expense and delay of pursuing direct deals while taking care of usage reporting and royalty administration, one crucial, complex step that’s often neglected when planning for licensed music use. That means publishing partners can rest assured they will receive appropriate and prompt payment for usage. `
For savvy publishers like A Train, this reliability and access to new markets and partners are significant. A Train Entertainment has been in the music business for 35 years, and its publishing division currently has a catalog of 250,000 songs. It has thrived due to its willingness to explore new formats and revenue streams; it got in early with a collection of digital masters when Apple started the iTunes store, working directly with iTunes instead of going through an aggregator. Its open-minded approach to new technology and opportunities is coupled with a passion for finding the right market fit for its multifaceted, diverse catalog. “I look for markets that are eager for specific genres of music, where there is room for an independent publisher and interest in something unique or culturally significant,” says Al Evers, CEO of A Train Entertainment.
“Publishing is a nickel, dime, and penny business. We saw early on that being in only one business wasn’t enough. We had to look for many bites of the apple,” Evers notes. “Adaptr is another attractive part of that spectrum. They have the target audience we can’t access through other vehicles.”