Drumbase: designing a beat marketplace and brand for producers and artists

Overview

Drumbase is a marketplace for beats and custom music production. Artists come to buy or license beats, lyrics, compositions and sound kits, or to hire producers for services such as mixing and mastering; producers come to sell, run auctions and answer custom offers. The model is close to platforms like BeatStars. [1]

I designed the platform and the brand through my studio, Beew, as lead designer: more than 100 pages over six months in 2025, for desktop and mobile, in light and dark mode. Drumbase has not launched yet.

The challenge

A beat marketplace serves two audiences with opposite needs. Artists want to find the right sound quickly; producers want to list, price and promote their work and manage offers. On top of that, every product type is sold under different terms.

• Different licences: beats, lyrics, compositions and sound kits each have their own legal terms and details.
• Many ways to buy: instant licences, packages, auctions and custom offers all had to feel clear and safe.
• Relevance: someone looking for energetic beats should not be shown slow ones.
• Scale: 100+ pages, a seller dashboard and a brand built from scratch.

Goals

• Give each product type an upload flow that matches its licence.
• Personalise the feed from the first visit, based on what people choose in onboarding.
• Make offers, negotiations and auctions as easy to follow as a checkout.
• Give producers a dashboard that shows sales, listings and offers at a glance.
• Create a brand that feels at home in music culture.

Approach

1. One upload flow per product type

Beats, services, compositions and sound kits are uploaded through separate step-by-step flows, so each asks only for what its licence needs: BPM, key and genre for a beat, packages and delivery times for a service.

2. Personalise from the first minute

Onboarding asks what kind of beats, styles, services and sounds someone is looking for, and the feed and the rest of the site follow those answers. A listener looking for energetic trap is not shown slow beats.

3. Make negotiation as clear as checkout

Every offer shows the listing price, the offer, its status and the time left to respond, and the same card is used by buyers and sellers, in the dashboard and on mobile.

4. A brand built for music

The Drumbase mark combines a “b” with drum-pad dots, and a deep purple carries through the logo, the app icon and the interface.

The solution

Homepage and discovery

Search covers beats, albums, lyrics and artists, and categories split the catalogue into beats, services, compositions and sound kits. A persistent player lets people keep listening while they browse.

Onboarding and account

Onboarding asks four quick questions with skippable steps: the kind of beats, the style, the services and the sounds someone needs. Account, privacy and notification settings share one clean layout.

Producer profiles and product pages

Producer profiles gather beats, services and stats under a bold header. Product pages show packages side by side, with what is included, delivery time and revisions, so buyers can compare before they pay.

Offers, negotiations and messages

Auctions and custom offers run through one negotiation view. Each card shows the price, the offer, whether it is pending, accepted or rejected, and a countdown to respond; buyers and producers can also talk in direct messages.

Seller dashboard

The seller dashboard brings sales, earnings, listings and product performance together. The same views work on mobile, so producers can check offers and listings on the go.

Upload flows for every product type

Creating a beat asks for BPM, key, genre and vocals and lets producers add collaborators with a revenue share. Creating a service is about packages and delivery. Both end with promotion options, and producers choose a membership plan that fits how much they sell.

Brand identity

Alongside the product, we designed the complete Drumbase brand: a logo that turns a “b” into a drum pad, a deep purple palette and an app icon that carries it.

Results

• More than 100 pages for desktop and mobile, in light and dark mode, delivered in six months.
• Separate upload flows and product pages for beats, services, compositions and sound kits, each matching its licence.
• A feed and site that adapt to each listener's onboarding choices, so people see the tempo and style they came for.
• Auctions, custom offers and negotiations in one consistent view, plus a seller dashboard.
• A complete brand identity, ready for launch.

Key takeaways

• In a marketplace, the licence shapes the product page; design those first.
• A few onboarding questions are enough to make a large catalogue feel personal.
• When buyers and sellers see the same offer card, negotiations need far less explaining.
• Designing the brand and the product together keeps them speaking the same language.