From Legacy Systems to Next-Gen Platforms—Why Top Music Businesses Trust Us

Backgroud

In the dynamic world of music distribution, legacy and third-party systems often become bottlenecks as companies scale. One of our customers, an independent music distribution company with a catalog of over 500,000 tracks, had grown increasingly reliant on a mix of external platforms including FUGA, IDOL (Labelcamp), SR1, Reprtoir, and Payment Hub.

While these tools helped them get started and supported their early growth, they began to feel the limitations of working across multiple disconnected systems. The need for better control, deeper integration, and long-term scalability led them to start exploring the idea of building a solution of their own.

From Dependency to Ownership: A Shift Toward Long-Term Tech Strategy

After many years in the business, the costs of using third-party tools began to rise significantly. The team often had to adapt their workflows to fit within the constraints of these systems, which led to reduced control and flexibility. During a conversation with the founders at a major Music Tech conference, it became clear that the time had come to take ownership of their technology stack and prepare the platform for the next stage of growth.

Another key reason to build a custom system is to own the intellectual property. Depending on external platforms means renting capabilities without building lasting value. Owning your core technology gives you control, flexibility, and a competitive edge. It also strengthens your foundation as you scale or seek investment, making the business more resilient and better prepared for the future.

Enter Tarka Labs

Our journey in the music tech space began when we partnered with TuneCore to revamp their royalty reporting, payouts, and music distribution systems. Since then, Tarka Labs has grown into a trusted technology partner in the music industry, working with major companies and actively participating in key events such as Music Biz and Music Techtonics. We met this customer at one of these music tech events, which marked the beginning of a long and successful partnership.

The Discovery Workshop: Turning Vision into a Blueprint

Our first step with understanding the pain point was a Discovery Workshop. This is a focused and collaborative process that brings together domain experts, product managers, and engineers to deeply understand the business, existing systems, and operational constraints.

In the age of generative AI, writing code is no longer the hard part. Knowing what to write code for is where the real challenge lies. - Tarka Labs

Through this workshop, we mapped out Customer's technology ecosystem and pain points. We identified integration gaps and uncovered opportunities to streamline and strengthen their systems. Below are the third-party system they were using:

Legacy Tech Landscape

1. Distribution System (Labelcamp/FUGA):

   • Hosted the music catalog

   • Handled DDEX-compliant metadata and file delivery

   • Managed analytics and batch SFTP transfers

2. Reporting System (SR1/Reprtoir):

   • Ingested royalty reports from platforms like Spotify, Apple Music

   • Required metadata from the distribution system to match payouts with the correct rightsholders

   • Depended on catalog ingestion via DDEX

3. Payment System (Payment Hub):

   • Received output from SR1 to process royalty payments

   • Managed taxation, payouts, and financial analytics

Strategy: Replace, One Macro-Service at a Time

We treated each legacy component as a macro service that could be replaced individually. This approach enabled:

• A controlled rollout without disrupting day-to-day business

• Accurate time and cost estimates through detailed breakdowns

• Parallel development streams to speed up delivery

Through the discovery workshop, we assessed all systems in depth and estimated the effort required to rebuild each one. Key findings included:

• Building an enhanced version of Labelcamp as a replacement system would take twelve to fifteen months with a team of four engineers.

• Building the reporting system would take six months with the same team.

• The reporting system created the most friction and involved significant manual work.

• The payment system was deprioritized due to legal and tax complexities.

We aligned with the customer to start by replacing the reporting system first. It offered the most immediate value, reduced operational overhead, and set a strong foundation for the broader transformation.

Defining the Path Forward

After deciding to build the reporting system, we ran a focused 10-day workshop to dive deep into every part of the system. Each day covered a specific area, helping us understand the problem thoroughly and finalize the scope. Since this was a fixed-scope project, the goal was to ensure clarity early on so estimates could be made with confidence. In fixed-bid work, accurate estimation starts with depth, but success depends on the BA staying sharp and making sure each sprint focuses on what truly matters.

As we say at Tarka Labs, give an open-ended ticket to a developer and you are going to shoot yourself in the foot. Clarity in planning helped us move faster and avoid ambiguity. From the discovery deep dive workshop, we arrived at:

• A phased roadmap for the reporting system migration

• T-shirt size estimates for each component

• A clear team allocation plan with developers, product managers, and analysts

• Well-defined and scoped user stories to ensure developer readiness

We’ve laid the foundation for a modern, scalable, and high-performance Reporting System designed to:

• Ingest massive royalty datasets

• Reconcile payouts using DDEX catalog metadata

• Generate accurate, auditable reports for artists and labels

This system is being architected to meet the evolving needs of music distribution and royalty transparency.

Final Note

If you are building or modernizing in the music tech space, Tarka Labs speaks your language, from DDEX specifications to artist payouts. We are not just engineers. We are your strategic technology partners in the rhythm of innovation. Reach out to explore how we can help you build the next chapter of your platform.