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Splice Sees Record Activity During Quarantine, Nearly 50% Surge to 1.1 Million Sound Downloads Daily

The online marketplace is also launching an initiative to aid musicians affected by COVID-19.

splice
Splice

Splice, the popular online music production marketplace that offers royalty-free samples and presets, has seen record-breaking activity since the start of the nationwide COVID-19 quarantine — and is using that momentum to give back to musicians in need.

There have been over 1.1 million sound downloads a day on Splice since the week of March 23, which is almost a 50% increase from pre-quarantine downloads, the company reveals. In response, Splice has created the “Splice Stimulus” initiative, committing millions of dollars to increase paid artist content and programming on the platform to aid musicians whose revenue stream has been greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

For the initiative, Splice partnered with booking resource Jammcard to release an exclusive collection of samples. Together, the two companies have pledged to pay over $200,000 to their artists in royalties over the next two years, with $30,000 of that devoted to the next 60 days. The Jammcard collection consists of a sample pack from Philip Cornish, the musical director for Kanye West’s Sunday Service concert series.

This collaboration follows Murda Beatz‘s “Quarantine Pack, Vol. 1” drumkit, which was made available March 25 and has since been downloaded over one million times, with a portion of its proceeds going to COVID-19 relief.

Splice has also revamped its own programming, launching SpliceTV on March 30 to offer daily content via the streaming platform Twitch. SpliceTV has reached over 35,000 unique viewers through tutorials and Q&As with musicians and producers such as Karra, Ian Kirkpatrick, Jason Evigan and The Audibles (the latter made it onto a track on Justin Bieber’s most recent album, “Changes”).

Helping ensure that artists are properly compensated for their work is nothing new for Splice. In February, the company revealed that it had paid over $25 million to its music creators while prioritizing female producers. In doing so, Splice CEO Steve Martocci said he wanted to “open up the ecosystem” that is usually saturated with the same big names.

“What’s cool about Splice is every time you’re using it, you’re putting money into the pockets of the musicians who made those sounds,” Martocci told Variety in February. “And to get compensated like this actually can transform peoples’ lives.”