{"id":12292,"date":"2022-02-04T14:52:28","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T22:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/?p=12292"},"modified":"2025-09-02T19:22:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T02:22:31","slug":"better-is-always-better-than-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/better-is-always-better-than-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Is Always Better Than More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"509\" src=\"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-11.02.51-AM-1-1024x509.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-11.02.51-AM-1-1024x509.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-11.02.51-AM-1-300x149.png 300w, https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-11.02.51-AM-1-768x382.png 768w, https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-11.02.51-AM-1-1536x764.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screen-Shot-2022-02-04-at-11.02.51-AM-1-2048x1019.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Track Club, Marmoset&#8217;s new music licensing subscription app with 100% customizable music, will launch on March <\/em>1, 2<em>022. Each week, we&#8217;ll publish a new essay with key insights from Marmoset and Track Club CEO and Founder, Ryan Wines on the thinking behind Track Club, and what makes it stand out from the crowd.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This first installment explores why Track Club is proud to launch with a small-batch catalog, and why, in a world of enormous music licensing catalogs, Track Club is choosing quality over quantity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>In a marketplace where music licensing companies boast an unfathomable number of tracks, it may seem crazy to launch a new alternative, based on the belief that <strong>less is more<\/strong>. But that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re doing with <a href=\"https:\/\/trackclub.com\/\">Track Club<\/a>, powered by Marmoset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apparently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/2020\/06\/25\/tech-focus-production-music-part-2-music-libraries-offer-lots-of-choices-for-sports\/\">APM Music<\/a> has nearly 1 million tracks. Other companies, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.audionetwork.com\/\">Audio Network<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/2020\/06\/25\/tech-focus-production-music-part-2-music-libraries-offer-lots-of-choices-for-sports\/\">Megatrax<\/a>, both boast more than 200,000 tracks. Newer entries to the marketplace seem to have somewhere around 40k to 50k tracks, right out of the gate. By the way, who names these places anyways?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using basic math, if you divide 50k tracks by the average size of a traditional studio album (10-12 songs), that\u2019s the equivalent of having around 5000 vinyl records. That\u2019s almost double the physical records my friends, Michael and Maya Gersten of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/specksrecords\">Speck\u2019s Records &amp; Tapes<\/a>, have available in their record store on any given day. It\u2019s a smaller-sized shop, but you get the idea. Bottom line, it\u2019s a ton of music!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael and Maya could choose to run a giant-sized record store if they wanted. But they too believe <strong>less is more.<\/strong> And it\u2019s working. Visit them sometime at 8216 N Denver Ave, Portland, Oregon to see for yourself. The magic is real at Speck\u2019s Records &amp; Tapes..&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"410\" src=\"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/specks.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/specks.jpeg 512w, https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/specks-300x240.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><figcaption><em>Michael, Maya, Miles and Mo Gersten at Speck\u2019s Records &amp; Tapes in Portland, Oregon<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why do most music companies seem to think bigger is better?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Talk with APM customers and you\u2019ll hear the same thing over and over. They\u2019ll tell you the catalog is full of very average, so-so quality production music. Hundreds of thousands of mostly uninspiring production tracks. You know the music I speak of.&nbsp; But if you listen closely, APM customers will<em> <\/em><strong><em>also<\/em><\/strong> tell you that if you know where to dig, and if you dig long enough, you\u2019ll find some real gems.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My question is this: who wants to spend hours of their precious time digging through thousands of losers, just to find one gem?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At both <a href=\"http:\/\/marmosetmusic.com\/\">Marmoset<\/a>, and our soon-to-launch subscription brand, <a href=\"http:\/\/trackclub.com\/\">Track Club<\/a>, we spend significant internal time and resources twice a year doing something we call \u201cThe 10% Curation Event.\u201d In this, we carefully evaluate the performance of every song in our catalog, removing the worst performing 10%. That\u2019s right &#8212; we strategically <strong>reduce<\/strong> the size of our catalog twice a year, purely to make it a better experience for our clients. (It\u2019s a lot of work too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why? Because it\u2019s the right thing to do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trackclub.com\/\">Track Club<\/a>, we\u2019ve designed the app to feature a <strong><em>better<\/em><\/strong><strong> <\/strong>catalog of music, not the biggest one. In fact, we invite you to take the challenge yourself: strap on your headphones and spend 5 minutes on Track Club&#8230; and then go spend 5 minutes with the competition. It shouldn\u2019t take too long.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If that isn\u2019t good enough for you, know this: Track Club is the first ever music licensing app on the planet that features 100% customizable songs. If there\u2019s a song you like, but perhaps the drums are a bit too loud, or the guitar is too distracting &#8212; you can edit the song yourself, all in the app.&nbsp; You can easily mute, solo, or adjust the volume of the instruments and vocals in the song, until it meets your exact vision for your project. Or if you prefer to do the editing with your own preferred software or app on your own computer or console, you can easily download all the stems too. The choice is yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our thesis is this: a meticulously curated, perpetually refined, small-batch catalog of the highest quality, that you can easily customize (in the app) to meet the specific needs of your project, is always better than any \u201cmega\u201d catalog out there.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Better is <strong>always<\/strong> better than more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RW<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ryan Wines is the leader of <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/marmosetmusic.com\/\"><em>Marmoset<\/em><\/a><em>: a global music agency based in Portland, Oregon &#8212; soon launching <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.trackclub.com\/\"><em>Track Club<\/em><\/a><em> &#8212; the only meticulously curated, small-batch catalog that\u2019s 100% customizable.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Track Club, Marmoset&#8217;s new music licensing subscription app with 100% customizable music, will launch on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":12303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3771],"tags":[3782],"class_list":["post-12292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marmoset","category-new-features","tag-featured","has-excerpt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BETTER-IS-ALWAYS-BETTER-IG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marmosetmusic.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}