Tracklib Review: Best Music Sample Service or Waste of Money?
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Written by Ramsey Brown.
If you are a producer, you know how time consuming it can be to craft your own music and sounds from scratch. This (among other reasons) is exactly why sampling has become so prevalent in music production. However, if you choose to use a sample or integrate other’s sounds into your own recording — it can be even more of a hassle to get those sounds cleared for legitimate use.
Creating music is very much a collaborative and joint process. Inspiration is often found through artists who came before us and existing music is constantly altered in a way that makes it sound brand new to the listener.
Did you know that every week the Billboard Top 100 chart contains at least 20 songs with samples? In fact, it’s typical for songs containing samples to out-chart the original song itself. It’s no secret that the ability to use a sample is the shortcut to a hit record. Most successful artists and producers will tell you that they’ve used samples consistently throughout their music career.
So, if integrating others' music into your own is a standard norm within the music industry, what makes the process of obtaining the proper clearance to use the sample so difficult? Well, it’s largely due to the complex nature of music copyright laws.
Sampling is an art form that has been widely suppressed due to the radical rules which fall under music licensing. In order to properly and legally sample another musician’s work into your own original work, the sampling artist must obtain a “sample clearance” from the appropriate owner(s) of the original recording.
However, obtaining this clearance is not as easy as it may seem. There are many different political, legal, and financial hoops one must jump through before getting permission to utilize a sample.
If only there was a service that could alleviate this time consuming frustration of clearing records so that artists could maximize their workflow….
Well, there is! Artists, get ready to meet your new creative companion — Tracklib.
What is Tracklib?
Tracklib is a music sampling service where musicians are able to discover, collect, download, and license samples to release — all in one place. The website has over 100,000 songs and multi-tracks available for legal use, with even more added every week.
But this isn’t the typical music sampling site that you may be used to. Tracklib provides original music from current artists like Isaac Hayes to classic musicians such as Mozart. Their library is full of real tracks spanning over hundreds of genres from thousands of artists — not just loops or sample packs.
Tracklib unlocks full creative potential for artists, producers, songwriters. By giving users the ability to download full songs already cleared for legal use, creators can find that perfect sound, a great loop, or chop it up into pieces.
This service makes sampling and sample clearance fast, easy, legal and affordable for every music producer in the world. It’s no wonder that it’s used by some of the most prominent artists in the music industry today. Mary J. Blige, Lil Wayne, J. Cole, Vince Staples and others have used Tracklib to elevate their sound — and you can too!
How Tracklib Works
Tracklib is a subscription-based, music sampling service with a library of songs with purchasable licenses. Users can easily search for and download tracks for $1.99 each, that they can then import into their DAW to use and sample within their own original music creations.
The company negotiates deals with copyright holders for a collection of their songs. Each song they negotiate a license for, gets put into a price category ranging from $50 to $1500 per license.
If you plan to release the song, a percentage of your revenue will be shared back with Tracklib and the copyright holders. This percentage is determined by how much of the original song you sample and can range anywhere from 2% to 50%.
After you have acquired the license, you will then have to properly register your song with the music rights societies. But the website has a step-by-step guide that walks you through the exact process of doing this.
Tracklib: Features and Specs
Tracklib comes with a lot of features and specs as a music sampling service. That's what makes it one of the best on the market today. Let's take a look at some of the significant features of the subscription sampling service and what it has to offer below:
Search & Filter
In Tracklib’s extensive music library, you can dig in and search, filter, browse and discover many different tracks. Browse by Genre, Region, Label or Artist. If you want to dig deep, use our filters to narrow your search by Release Date, Song Key, BPM, Genre or Region of the World.
Build Your Library
Tracklib allows users to build a library and download audio files for one credit. You can download a track you’ve previously purchased as many times as you want, even if you stop your subscription. You can easily press the star icon to favorite your track or loop for quick access, or the plus sign to add them to your personal collections.
Loop Player
Tracklib comes with a very unique and remarkable feature of loop playing. The loop player makes it super simple to find perfect loops in any song in our catalog. Just click the loop symbol in the music player to activate loop mode, and your loop will start. You can loop by 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars and any loop can be downloaded to instantly drop into your DAW so you can chop it up as you please.
Subscription Options
There are 3 different subscription options and choices with different features and different kinds of access rights for you. They're all decently priced, and you can choose whichever you feel is right for your music production needs.
Plans & Pricing
Tracklib has different pricing options starting as low as $5.99 per month. They also offer a free trial, so you can get the hang of the service before actually committing to a monthly subscription. Let’s look at various price options and what each includes below:
Essential Plan
If you're just starting off with music sampling, you’ll probably want to go for the essential plan. This plan is very affordable at only $5.99 per month or $59.90 when paying yearly.
With the essential plan, you’ll be getting all the benefits of Tracklib mentioned above. This plan only allows you to download 5 tracks per month, but is more than enough for production newbies. Additionally, you will receive +2 featured tracks per month.
Standard Plan
The most popular plan of Tracklib's subscriptions is the Standard Plan. This plan is meant for the mid-level musicians who know what they're doing with track samples. The price is still quite reasonable at only $13.99 per month.
If we talk about the benefits of this package, you're going to get all that you're getting in the essential plan plus a raised download limit. With the Standard Plan, you'll be able to download 15 tracks per month along with two featured tracks of your choice.
Professional Plan
Their top-tiered plan is geared for dedicated, music production professionals. So, if you are a seasoned musician who pumps out a lot of multi-layer tracks per month, the Professional Plan may be right for you.
The price of the Professional plan is $29.99 per month. With this particular plan, you're going to be able to download 35 tracks per month, along with the two additional featured tracks that you can download every single month. This is the go-to plan for full-time, serious musicians.
Pros and Cons of Tracklib
Are you thinking about getting your own subscription for Tracklib? Well, it will surely improve and streamline your music production process. But before you make that purchase, you need to take a look at some of the significant pros and cons that come with the Tracklib music sampling service subscription.
PROS:
Easy to Use - The overall look and user experience of this service and the looping options along with the searching feature all are pretty easy and user-friendly, which is excellent about Tracklib.
In-depth Searching Tool - The searching tools are crucial in music sampling sites, and that's where most sites lack. In the case of Tracklib, the searching tool is very in-depth, which makes it so unique and such a great contender for the top music sampling service.
Affordable Pricing - The pricing of sampling services is usually by the song in most cases. But when we talk about Tracklib, you can subscribe to any of their plans and get access to several original song sample downloads, which is pretty great for struggling musicians.
Huge Music Library - Another perfect thing about Tracklib is how many songs you can find on there. From Billboard 100 toppers to incredible pieces of music from the past few centuries, you're going to be able to find what you're looking for quite easily.
CONS:
No Unlimited Downloads - One potential problem that could be said about Tracklib is that none of the subscriptions allow you to download an unlimited number of samples. Even the most significant limit allows only 35 plus 2 featured tracks to be used per month.
Alternative Music Sampling Sites to Tracklib
Tracklib is an excellent service without a doubt. But if you don't feel like it is for you, and you're looking for an alternative with similar features, we've got you covered. Here are some of the leading music sampling service alternatives to Tracklib you should know about.
1. Splice
Splice is a paid service that offers music editing, creation, looping, mixing, and sampling. However, the samples are royalty-free and not original. But if that's what you're looking for, Splice is an excellent alternative to Tracklib.
2. Cymatics
Cymatics is known as one of the biggest sample producers in the music industry as of now. So you can download their different genre music packs for varying prices. But the samples are still not parts of the original tracks.
3. Landr
Landr is a cloud-based music creation and production platform that allows you to sample music and use it to make some of the best songs and tracks you want without having to face any licensing or copyright issues. It is a complete package if you want to start and wrap up your music production.
Wrapping Up
Tracklib is a fantastic website that makes the process of finding and clearing music samples so much easier than ever before. You'll find that the service is affordable, easy to use, and comes with an extensive library of songs for legal use. By elevating your production abilities and allowing your creativity to flourish — it will prove to be a stepping stone in your music career.
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