How Splice Breaks Down the Beat

Music producer Oladipo Omishore, better known as Dot Da Genius, is constantly creating what he calls “vibes or little moments” for his artists—a melody, a beat drop, a riff—that he saves for later. It used to be that he had to wait until he was in the studio to share them with his musicians. Now he can do it from his living room in New Jersey using Splice, a cloud-based service that allows musicians to collaborate even if they are thousands of miles apart. “We can keep the creative momentum going,” says Omishore, who has worked with rapper Kid Cudi and singer Jhené Aiko.

More than 100,000 artists are using Splice’s technology to privately store audio tracks on the cloud so they or other designated users can retrieve them later. The service, which launched to the public in September after a yearlong trial, is compatible with popular music editing software, such as Ableton Live, FL Studio, or Apple’s Logic Pro X and GarageBand. Each saved track is given a unique number, so a Splice user can call up an earlier version or keep tabs on how a collaborator has tweaked it. “Music has been democratized,” says Splice co-founder Steve Martocci. “You can, with a laptop, create incredible things anywhere.”