'Empowering Ecosystem': Splice Celebrates Artists Earning $25M On Its Music Creation And Collaboration Platform

Earlier this month, music production and collaboration service Splice announced that artists who distributed samples through its platform earned over $25 million. CEO Steve Martocci spoke with Benzinga regarding this milestone and plans to further expand the business.

Software Meets Music

Splice is a marketplace for music samples that also enables creators the ability to piece together, share, and collaborate over tracks.

GroupMe founder Martocci, alongside CTO Matt Aimonetti, started the company to help democratize the music-making process. Martocci said his lifelong passion was music and computers.

"For me, I made music, but -- really -- code was my canvas," he said. "That’s where my art really shined."

After founding GroupMe, Martocci decided to hone in and leverage his coding skills to extend the ecosystem of software to music.

“We’re in this beautiful time where this revolution has occurred and the laptop is the world’s primary instrument. So, the ability to create and finish music, without needing to buy thousands of dollars of studio gear, and -- you know -- get[ting] a record contract and that kind of stuff has really given rise to the producer, software based musician,” Martocci said.

‘Cure For Writer's Block’

Martocci and the team at Splice developed a collaboration software that later evolved to include a sounds library.

“Our product -- Splice Sounds -- that’s a library of millions of samples of loops you can use in your tracks, royalty free. That’s where we’ve paid the $25 million to our sound creators for their sample loops,” he said.

The current Splice product portfolio includes the following features:

• Sounds: an area where users can preview and download sounds
• Plugins: a library of sound effects, vocal manipulation tools and synthesizers
• Studio: a cloud-based solution to sound storage and artist collaboration
• Community: a medium for connecting to and discovering musicians around the world

“I love all the things that we do, but one of my favorite compliments we get is when people say we’re the cure for writer’s block.”

Martocci told Benzinga the ability to browse the library and solve writer’s block is a blow to the company’s biggest competition -- people giving up due to a lack of inspiration.

A prime example of Splice aiding artists in not giving up was featured by Variety. Los Angeles-based singer, producer, and songwriter Karra, whose sample packs were downloaded over 1 million times, was able to make a career as an artist using Splice.

"It’s provided financial stability," Karra told Variety.

Karra added that Splice, unlike her work with individuals like Armin Van Buuren and Steve Aoki, enabled consistency in her lifestyle.

"Being that I write songs every day, I never know where my next check is coming from. But with Splice, it’s so nice to have a quarterly payout. That’s a really significant amount of money -- life-changing money, in my instance," she said.

What’s Next?

Martocci told Benzinga that increasing inclusivity and expanding on existing music making solutions was at the forefront of all ongoing improvement efforts.

In terms of next steps, “we talk about music a lot, but we get used a lot in video,” Martocci said, pointing to Splice sounds being featured in "The Mandalorian."

“I think the market in music is much bigger than anyone realizes -- we have a tremendous amount more to do -- you know -- all the different parts of the creative process.”