When Splice launched, back in 2014, it was primarily concerned with cloud-based collaboration and backup. The centrepiece of this was its Studio service, which was compatible with Ableton Live, Logic Pro X, FL Studio, Garageband, and Studio One.
Times change, though; in 2015, the company unveiled Splice Sounds, a subscription-based sample service, followed by the Rent-To-Own scheme for music software in 2016 and the AI-driven Similar Sounds feature three years later.
All of which means that the Studio element of Splice is no longer the company’s main priority. In fact, it’s now been confirmed that it’s in the process of being shut down.
Writing on the Splice blog, company CEO Kakul Srivastava says: “Although the potential of Studio to help music creators collaborate was core to our founding ideology, this feature hasn’t been a focus for us since 2017. Simply put, we haven’t been able to provide the quality of experience of which we can be proud. In fact, keeping it functional has actually slowed us down from delivering more value, faster. We also know our users have many great alternatives for file sharing available to them.”
As of now, you’re no longer able to add stems, bounces and collaborators, and you’re no longer able to add new Studio projects on the Splice website. The Community tab, meanwhile, is being redirected to the Splice Discord community.
The next significant date is 7 April, when Splice will turn off the ability to add new Studio projects in its desktop app. Then, on 31 May, the Studio item on the website and Projects tab in the desktop app will be removed, so sessions and revisions will no longer automatically sync and Studio projects will no longer be available.
Despite this pivot, Splice says that it remains committed to finding new and more powerful ways for musicians to collaborate and will share more details on this in the future.
