Splice Sounds Review: Is the Subscription Worth It [2024 Guide]

One of the most important assets for any music producer is access to high-quality, royalty-free samples. Splice offers millions of one-shots, drum loops, instrumental loops, and sound effects. Over the years, it’s developed into a complete online community for producers and engineers, offering educational resources, cloud collaboration, and more. In this Splice review, we’ll help you decide whether the service is for you.

Splice Sounds Review

Splice is best known as a sample library. There are literally millions of samples in the database, all of which are royalty-free and can be used by anyone, anytime. Well-known musicians, producers, and sound designers often contribute sample packs to the ever-growing Splice library. Any samples you purchase via Sounds credits are yours to keep, even if you decide to cancel your plan.

In addition to sounds, Splice offers MIDI packs as well as presets for a variety of virtual instruments. Splice even has proprietary virtual instruments available at no additional cost if you choose a higher-tier plan.

Another interesting Splice feature is their Rent-to-Own plugin program. The website hosts lots of industry-leading software; pay a low monthly price, use it without restriction, and it’s yours to keep once you’ve paid it off. Plugins include Serum by Xfer, Pigments 3 by Arturia, RX 9 by iZotope, and even the Studio One Professional DAW by PreSonus.

As far as the Splice community goes, there is a dedicated Skills section of the site which contains 150+ music production lessons and tutorials. There’s also an area for users to upload their own tracks.

Finally, Splice Studio allows you to upload personal DAW projects to the cloud and collaborate with other users you’ve shared the project with. And even at the lowest tier, Splice includes a nifty Bridge plugin which syncs Splice to your DAW and lets you audition samples from the library which match the tempo and key of your DAW session.

Splice Pricing/Plans: How Much is Splice?

Splice is enticing, sure, but the main question you’re probably wondering is, “How much does splice cost?” They offer a few different subscription plans dependent on what you need from the app and website. 

• Free Trial – 14 Days
• Sounds+: $9.99/month, $99.99/year: Includes Bridge, 100 sample credits per month, access to sounds, MIDI, and presets, and the Desktop & Mobile app
• Creator: $19.99/month, $199.99/year: Includes everything in Sounds+ with 200 total credits, access to Skills tutorials, and access to Splice’s own Astra synthesizer and Beatmaker plugins
• Creator+: $29.99/month, $299.99/year: Includes everything in Creator with 500 total credits

Sounds.com vs Splice

SOUNDS by Native Instruments is comparable to Splice. It, too, offers a massive collection of high-quality, royalty-free samples for music production. Unlike Splice, Sounds.com focuses strictly on its sample library, excluding additional tools like plugins and tutorials.

Sounds isn’t necessarily any better or worse than Splice; it’s just different. If you only want samples and don’t need the extra frills Splice provides, Sounds.com is a better value overall. That’s 50 more credits than Splice at the lowest tier; 300 more at the middle tier; and 500 more at the top tier.

Sounds.com Pricing

• $9.99/month – 150 credits
• $19.99/month – 500 credits
• $29.99/month – 1000 credits

Splice Sounds Review: Is It Worth It?

Splice is, no doubt, a great resource for producers. The desktop app, which lets you sift through your downloads, is tidy and easy to use; the same can be said for the website.

Personally, I used Splice for a couple of years and found it to be very inspiring, and the samples were always high-quality (not an ad, by the way). Ultimately, I’d recommend looking into Splice’s offerings yourself, as well as at some competitors like Sounds.com. One might really stand out as better for your needs.

At any rate, you can sample the free trials these services have and do some hands-on research, which is most definitely worth it.

• SEE ALSO: Arcade 2.0 by Output Review: Better Than Splice?

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