We round up the expanding universe of comprehensive music sound subscription libraries for electronic music producers.
As a music producer, staying ahead of the curve requires access to high-quality sounds. While it’s still possible to buy sample packs, many of us instead subscribe to an ever-growing array of sound services. Often, as we’ll see, these services also feature other useful tools to complement the subscription.
This guide delves into the best music production subscriptions available today, helping you find the perfect solution to elevate your music-making experience. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting your journey, these services offer something for everyone. For reasons of objectivity, we’ve put them in age order, with the oldest first.
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Splice
Splice was founded in 2013 by Steve Martocci and Matt Aimonetti. With their first-mover advantage, they almost certainly have the largest user base today. At their launch, subscriptions for samples were practically unheard of. Fast-forward to 2024, and the competition has grown rapidly.
Splice Key Features
Splice Sounds: Its main and original offering, Splice Sounds, is a vast library of royalty-free samples, loops, and presets that users can browse, preview, and download. If you want to listen to sounds in the song’s context, they recently released Splice Bridge. It works like a plugin – add it to your DAW, and any sounds you preview in the Splice desktop app will playback in the key and tempo of your project. Before Splice Bridge, this was always far more of a hassle.
The catalog is enormous, too—you’d struggle to get through it all. While it feels there is more focus on trap, hip hop, and EDM, it’s also true that their electronic music offerings have greatly improved in recent years. In the mix, you’ll find exclusive Artist Packs too from artists such as Guy Gerber, George Clinton, Mark Knight (Toolroom), KSHMR, and Claude Von Stroke.
Splice Studio: This allows users to save and back up their music projects to the cloud, making it easier to collaborate with other musicians. Projects can be synced across multiple devices, and users can revert to previous versions of their projects.
Splice Create: Maybe it’s just us, but this feels like ‘Tinder for samples’. And it’s great. Simply create a stack (of samples), and you swap them out and try different ones in context, in real-time. It’s a brilliant way to solve the search issue and make sample discovery interactive and musical. Plus, they have just announced you can use Splice Create with your own loops as a starting point—another great user-friendly initiative.
Splice Skills: This offers tutorials, courses, and other educational content as part of your subscription to Splice Sounds. Lessons include how to use various software, music theory, mixing, mastering, and more.
Rent-to-Own Program: Splice’s rent-to-own program for popular music production plugins and software. Users can pay a monthly fee to use the software and eventually own it outright after a certain period. You’ll find heavy hitters there, like Serum, Kilohearts, XLN Audio, and Arturia, to name a few.
Subscription Costs: To access the sounds (and extra features like their Astra synth plugin), users pay a subscription fee starting at $12.99 and going up to $39.99 for a certain number of monthly credits. Unused credits roll over to the following month (or year if you’re on an annual plan), and the sounds are yours to use forever after downloading.
Pros
- Huge, regularly updated library
- Now has Splice Bridge & Splice Create
- Includes Rent-to-own plugins
Cons
- The desktop app is a bit glitchy/slow at times
- It can be hard to find what you’re looking for. Lots of page diving, but Splice Create helps
- Offerings for underground electronic music producers could be improved
🥁 The final word: It might be the oldest, but Splice continues to update its enormous library and regularly updates its user features, such as Splice Create. It is a great starting point for anyone serious about making music, even for electronic music producers.
Loopcloud
Loopmasters launched way back in 2003 when samples had to be purchased in packs on CD. Wild right? CDs! In 2007, the company made its samples available for download, and in 2017, it went subscription with Loopcloud. Although technically older than Splice, Loopmasters came to the sub game later and so has been playing catch up ever since. It may not have as many subscribers but Loopcloud does come up trumps over Splice in a few categories, namely price and DAW integration.
Loopcloud Key Features
Loopcloud Sounds: Loopcloud boasts over four million sounds in its service, which is nothing to sneeze at. This includes samples and packs from its own Loopmasters label plus others like Industrial Strength, Apollo Sound, and UNDRGRND Sounds showcasing excellent content for electronic music. Additionally, Loopcloud can analyze and auto-tag the library you have on your computer, expanding your search possibilities.
Loopcloud Plugins: As with Splice, Loopcloud offers a few different plugins for DAW integration of samples. The real draw is the Loopcloud Sounds Plugin, which not only lets you search for plugins and audition them from within your DAW, you can also change key, cut, stretch and loop plus apply effects – all before you’ve even purchased the sound. A subscription also includes Loopcloud DRUM, a drum sequencer, and Loopcloud PLAY, a sample-based synthesizer.
Loopcloud Extras: Something that Loopcloud offers at no additional charge is Cloud Storage. There are different amounts for each subscription price (see below), but essentially Cloud Storage gives you a place to store the samples that you download. This is useful in case your hard drive ever crashes, but it’s also convenient to have additional storage space.
Subscription Costs: There are three price levels. Artist costs £5.99/month or £59.99/year, Studio is £9.99 or £99.99 while Professional is £17.99 or £179.99. The Artist level gets you 100 points a month to spend on samples, with Studio granting 300 and Professional 600. It’s not necessarily one point per sample, with length and quality determining how many points are required to download, but they are still generous amounts. Finally, Cloud Storage arrives in the form of 5GB, 50GB, and 250GB, respectively.
Pros
- Great value for the amount of samples available
- Loopcloud Sounds plugin is amazing
- A huge selection of electronic music, including subgenres
Cons
- Not as many samples as Splice
- No presets or MIDI patches
- No rent-to-own plugins
🥁 The final word: Loopcloud is an affordable alternative to Splice that excels in a few key categories: price, cloud storage, and DAW integration. For electronic musicians, it should be the number one choice.
Tracklib
Tracklib is undoubtedly one of our favorite sound subscription services. While all the companies in this list share similar features, Tracklib is the only one that gives you access to original samples and clears the samples for you. Are you tired of looking for famous, popular, and well-loved tracks to sample and how to clear them? That’s where Tracklib comes in. Let’s take a better look.
Tracklib Key Features
Tracklib Songs: This is a catalog of songs across various genres, providing pre-cleared tracks that can be used in new compositions. It also simplifies the often complex music licensing process, making it accessible and affordable for producers. Users can search for tracks, download stems, and obtain necessary licenses directly through the platform ensuring that original artists receive fair compensation for their work. And no matter the genre there’s plenty of top-shelf stuff available. You’ll find artists like Bob James and Isaac Hayes, Ike and Tina Turner, and labels such as Acid Jazz, Mute, and sought-after library labels. There’s even an extensive Bollywood section with 1970s cuts by RD Burman. Yes you read that right – you can legally use all these household names via Tracklib.
Tracklib Sounds: Released earlier this year, Tracklib Sounds is more akin to the others in this list—with sample packs, one-shots, and loops now available. This certainly strengthens Tracklibs hand as they’ve bolstered their USP (original music), with royalty free production content. You’ll find very similar content to the others in this list with Tracklib Sounds. However, with it being new, it feels currently there’s more to come for Tracklib Sounds.
Subscription Costs: Prices range from $8.99 to $19.99 a month depending on usage, and like Splice they use a credit-based system. Your subscription fee covers you for both Tracklib Sounds and Tracklib Songs.
Pros
- A unique sampling shop for original music
- Easy-to-use interface
- Contracts are handled by Tracklib
Cons
- It’s a smaller catalog than the others in this list
- It’s a slower process to update original music catalogs than sample packs
- Only a 3-day free trial
- Can’t search sounds by genre
🥁 The final word: Anyone semi-serious about sampling professionally should use Tracklib.
FL Cloud
Released in October 2023, FL Cloud’s ultimate selling point is that it is the only subscription available directly in a DAW—and not just any DAW—FL Studio. This makes it a big deal for FL Studio users in particular. While all the others on our list are third-party applications, the team behind FL Studio decided to combine sounds, instruments, and services into one service and directly into a DAW. If convenience is your thing, there’s nothing currently like it.
FL Cloud Key Features
FL Cloud Sounds: This has a layout that is familiar to the others, except you can drag and drop from the built-in browser straight into your session. It’s a real workflow flex. The library is updated daily and includes exclusive Artists Packs from 9th Wonder and Hit-Boy. Unlike their competitors, FL Cloud Sounds is not credit-based. Instead, paid-for subscriptions give you unlimited access to nearly one million sounds, covering all genres, too.
FL Cloud Plugins: The most recent update to FL Cloud (which is part of the update introducing FL Studio 2024) introduces plugins. Even the free plan gives you ten extra plugins (in addition to those available in FL Studio). But the paid plans provide you with 18 or 69 extra plugins. Brands include UVI, Native Instruments, Minimal Audio, Baby Audio, and more. The collection keeps growing, and if you cancel the subscription, you can open them each five times for up to 24 hours with their Project Rescue feature. It’s important to note that plugins are not rent-to-own, which might be a positive for some producers.
FL Cloud Mastering: FL Cloud also has a built-in mastering tool, powered by AI. You can master your music in seconds and choose from genre-based presets with some easy-to-use customization. Even total newcomers can master their music to a professional level while also tailoring the final results. And if you’re not happy, you can keep tweaking the settings till you are. Or use the mastering plugins available with FL Cloud plugins – such as iZotope Ozone.
FL Cloud Distribution: Using FL Cloud, you can release your track directly through the DAW to over 50 streaming platforms. It’s powered by DistroKid.
Subscription Costs: It’s also price competitive, with a free plan and two paid plans at $6.25 for PLUS and $12.50 for PRO (when paid annually). With FL Studio 2024 the PRO annual plan is on an intro offer of $8.33 for a limited time only. With a 30-day free trial, you can try all the features for free.
Pros
- The only sounds subscription available directly in a DAW
- Now involves plugins that are not rent-to-own
- Price
Cons
- Only for FL Studio users (but can be used with an FL Studio free trial)
- A little laggy, but it has improved with FL Studio 2024
- Distribution can’t be combined with a previous DistroKid account
🥁 The final word: FL Cloud is an ambitious step for FL Studio – a DAW that has always done things a little differently. It’s more than enough for FL Studio users to ditch other subscriptions; for other DAW users, it might be enough to consider a new place to make music.
Beatport Studio
The youngest subscription service on the list, Beatport Studio also launched in late 2023. However, it’s anything but an untested endeavor, uniting three veteran companies under one banner: Beatport, Plugin Boutique, and Loopmasters. Offering a monthly subscription of 10 plugins plus curated samples from Loopcloud, Beatport Studio aims to give the dance music producer everything they could need – including a DAW.
Beatport Studio Key Features
Loopcloud Sounds: As this list is primarily focussed on sample and sound subs, let’s look at the sample section first. A Beatport Studio subscription gives you 100 samples a month pulled from a curated list of a half-million Loopcloud samples. Loopcloud is the subscription service of Loopmasters so you know the sounds are quality. (See above for more on Loopmasters/Loopcloud.) The samples are yours to keep even if you quit the service.
Plugin Boutique Plugins: Along with the samples, Beatport Studio turns you loose in a selection of Plugin Boutique plugins and gives you access to 10 of them a month. There are 90-plus VSTs on offer from names like Baby Audio, UJAM, and Applied Acoustic Systems including instruments, effects, utilities and more. Download them and use them. When the month is up, select them again or try a new set of plugins. Thanks to Frozen State Mode, which freezes plugins you’re no longer subscribed to, you can continue to use the software’s functions – you just can’t make any changes.
DAWs: Along with plugins, Beatport Studio includes two DAWs for use, Bitwig Studio 8-Track and Cubase LE. While not full versions, they are complete DAWs in and of themselves and they can give you a feel for what a full DAW can do – as well as allow you to produce music. Beginners who have yet to purchase a DAW will like this, as will veterans looking to branch out to a new digital audio workstation.
Subscription Costs: Beatport Studio is available in two forms, monthly and yearly. The monthly subscription costs $11.99 whilst the yearly is $119.99. Both include the same access to sounds, plugins and DAWs plus 5% Virtual Cash every month to spend at Plugin Boutique.
Pros
- Decent sample amount
- Relatively affordable
- Good for beginners
Cons
- Plugin selection currently lacks big names
- DAW availability is limited
- Veteran or prolific producers may feel limited by the strict number of plugins/samples
🥁 The final word: A treasure trove of sounds and plugins that will appeal to the beginner, the producer on a budget, or anyone just looking for a little inspiration.
Notable others
If you got this far, you’re likely serious about making the right choice. So here are a few extra options to consider:
Roland Cloud is interesting as it gives you access to some of the most legendary instruments ever made in their digital recreations. The collection is expectedly vast given its unique heritage and does come with sounds, too. Despite the many emulations available for Roland products, our advice is to head straight to the source if you’re after anything to do with the Japanese manufacturing heroes. Find out more.
Landr started life, breaking through as an innovator for online AI mastering. It might be hard to imagine as things have come so far so quickly, but AI mastering created a huge stir when it was first unveiled with Landr right at the forefront. It’s now much much more than that as Landr Studio offers everything you need to “create, master and distribute your music.” We’ve not used Landr Studio to give a qualified insight, but it appears to be a serious proposition that should be considered. Find out more.
Output Arcde ripped up the rulebook when they released Arcade around 2018. It’s a playable sampler and instrument plugin regularly updated with new sounds and paid for on a subscription. As just an instrument, it’s in a different lane from the multi-feature others in this list. But it’s a lot of fun to use. It sounds great and looks great, and it has been used on countless hits to date.
Last but not least, there is Noiz. The company has a subscription plan for samples, instruments, and preset packs. Like Landr, we can’t offer too much assurance as we’ve not used them, but Noiz has been around some time now, so they have got to be doing something right. Find out more.
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