Everything Musicians Need To Know About LANDR

If you’re a musician, an artist, or a music producer, you’re sure to have read or heard about LANDR from your friends or colleagues.

This creative platform makes mastering, distributing, and promoting your musical work quick and hassle-free.

What it does is it makes releasing music into the world super easy so you can focus on making more music.

This AI-powered and cloud-based platform was originally designed to simplify the mastering process so you can use it even if you don’t have a music engineering background.

Thanks to its automated mastering services, you can easily produce music exactly the way you want it to sound. 

After its successful launch, LANDR Audio has expanded to include distribution and promotion services.

It also gives access to a music samples library, plug-ins, and virtual studio technology or VSTs. It even supports a marketplace for musicians and other artists.

Many artists, including Tiga, Nas, and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead gave positive feedback to this production tool. 

What is LANDR?

LANDR, or LANDR Audio (as it is known now) is an engine created by MixGenius back in 2014 to perform standard mastering processes.

The company’s engineers and researchers went through countless hours understanding the workflow of mastering engineers and analyzing tracks after mastering themm to create this AI-powered platform. 

The result of all that hard work was an engine that performed all the standard processes in mastering.

This includes equalization, audio saturation and excitement, limiting and maximizing, as well as dynamic compression.

It offers everything a DIY musician would need to have a chance of getting into the professional music market.

Over the years, MixGenius has added and is continuing to add services to the platform to make making music more accessible to aspiring artists, musicians, and producers.

It even offers a collection of educational materials that musicians can watch to help them improve their skills in music production.

Below are the current services that the platform offers:

AI-Assisted Mastering

Before any piece of music can be released for distribution, it has to undergo a post-production process called mastering.

Traditionally, this means having a mastering engineer come in and clean up and normalize the track.

The result of this process is a consistent and uniform recording that is good for copying. 

The AI engine of LANDR recreates the process of creating release-ready masters that can pass any digital or physical distribution standards.

The user just needs to upload the finished tracks. The engine analyzes these and creates a mastering chain that bests suits the genre and style of each track. 

The user can choose to use the engine’s automatic settings or customize the process using a variety of features and settings.

The user can also do the master in batches or select a specific file format to come up with a consistent sound for multiple track releases. The LANDR engine offers a variety of output formats.

Distribution Services

LANDR is connected to 70 digital service providers and aggregators. This means you can upload and sell your music on over 150 digital streaming stores and platforms.

Users of this service can release and monetize their work on Apple Music, Spotify, or even TikTok. 

What’s more is that LANDR is considered a preferred partner of Spotify and Apple Music since 2020, giving your work more leverage.

This also benefits your fans because it makes streaming and downloading all of your work quite convenient.

They don’t have to hunt for your projects because they are already on the most popular stores and platforms.

Audio Samples Library

LANDR has a curated library that hosts more than a million samples. It is updated with new content regularly.

It gives musicians access to quality one-shots, loops, breaks, and chords that can help the artist complete any existing projects, build tracks, or even inspire musical concepts. 

The library features an AI-assisted tool for sample recommendation. This selector helps musicians search and find the perfect sounds much faster.

Once you do a search on the samples library, the Selector tool goes through the database to suggest sounds that are similar to what you looked for and that you might find useful. 

It also has a Creator feature. This audio interface lets users play samples and create tracks that can be shared on TikTok.

And in 2021, a proprietary plug-in was launched by MixGenius. This new feature allows users to preview the samples using their digital audio workstation of choice.

Access to VSTs and Plug-ins

LANDR hosts a few virtual studios and DAWS plug-ins that users can access for free or for a fee.

You can subscribe to the service to rent the VSTs or pay a fee over a set period to eventually own one. 

Marketplace for Musicians

LANDR offers a service marketplace that allows music professionals and newbie creators to make profiles, upload music, and reach out to artists and other industry professionals.

This makes selling and buying music-related services very easy. 

The engine even offers collaboration tools like video conferencing and Sessions to let users share their projects.

There is even a collaborative workspace where users can meet to work on a project together.

Who is LANDR for?

LANDR is for anyone who wants to make and sell music. It is for anyone who works or wants to work in the music industry.

The platform is used by artists, musicians, engineers, producers, DJs, and record labels. It has a global community of over 1.8 million creators worldwide.

It even has ties to major music labels like Atlantic Records, Disney, and Warner Music Group.

Musicians like Calen Groh, MachineDrum, and the creative team of Gwen Steffani trust this engine.

So, if you are interested in working within this industry and collaborating with such musical giants, then LANDR is worth checking out.

What are the Pros of using LANDR?

The platform poses several benefits to music creators:

• First off, it makes mastering easy even for those without formal training.
  
• The desktop app simplifies the music-making process. Making music is made easier with all the tools that LANDR offers. 
  
• Plus, you get access to an extensive music library that can help you start and complete any project.
  
• And if you need additional services, the workspace it hosts makes it convenient to collaborate with other creators. 
  
• The connectivity to digital streaming platforms, channels, and stores makes it convenient for users who wish to sell their work.
  
• Plus, LANDR doesn't charge commissions you get 100% of your earnings from the sales.

What are the Cons of using LANDR?

While the platform offers a lot of benefits, there are some downsides to using it as well:

• Primarily, learning how to use the platform can take some time to master.
  
  While it is easier than most other tools out there, it can still be a while to get the hang of it.
  
• There is also the issue of ambiguous pricing.
  
  The matrix offered by LANDR can cause confusion especially if you do not like looking into things closely.
  
• Plus, the marketing team constantly pushes users to avail themselves of their mastering services, which kind of defeats the purpose of using a mastering engineer (con for engineers).
  
• Finally, there are some aspects that this platform lacks. Some users comment that there is no publishing administration.
  
• Others mention that it does not provide for seamless licensing of cover songs.

How Much Does LANDR Cost?

The annual fee for an all-access subscription is $149.00. It can be billed upfront or divided into monthly payments of $19.99. This All-in-one subscription play unlocks access to all thirty plus music production tools including the LANDR Studio. It comes with these tools and services:

• Unlimited distribution
• Access to plug-ins and different VSTs
• LANDR FC Suite
• VocAlign Project 5
• Online collaboration tools
• DAW streaming
• 1200 Samples credits
• 36 WAV masters
• Unlimited MP3 masters

Plus it also comes with $2000 worth of products and tools at your fingertips. That includes:

• Ableton
• Arturia
• Baby Audio
• IK Multimedia
• Live 11 Lite
• MixBox SE
• Rev PLATE-140
• TAIP
• UJAM
• Usynth Core

There are also annual and monthly plans for the following add-on services:

• Mastering
• Samples
• Chromatic
• Sessions
• Distribution

Does LANDR Copyright Your Music?

Some newbie music artists are wary of using LANDR because they are concerned about copyright issues. You don’t have to think about that.

All your assets belong to you. LANDR doesn’t claim copyrights to your outputs. So, all of your songs, settings, configurations, contents, and files solely belong to you.

Yes, the terms to be able to use the platform provide the company limited rights to your work but they will not share your assets with anyone. Everything remains private unless it’s you who share them.

Can I Use LANDR Samples to Create My Projects?

Yes, you can use and modify any of the samples that you get from the LANDR library in your projects, whether they are for personal or commercial purposes, as long as you stick to the provisions of the Samples license.

You cannot, however, download the samples and sell or redistribute them as standalone sounds or as pack demos.

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