Steve PMHLooking for good-quality, professional-grade music and sound editing tools without shelling out the big bucks was like hunting for a unicorn. Most of the plug-ins I was considering were way out of my budget, and I didn’t want to take the risk of downloading a crack copy off the internet.
Then I discovered the rent-to-own option from both Splice and LANDR.
👉 Check the Plans of Splice
The Benefits of Rent-to-Own Plugin Services
The rent-to-own model allows you to pay a monthly subscription fee for using the plugin instead of paying the full amount upfront. The advantage of it over standard subscription services is that you can eventually own the plugin.
Like the way rent-to-own works in the real estate market, once your cumulative monthly fees have met the plugin’s purchase price, you can get the full license for the software and own the plugin.
I like this approach because it allows me to try out the plugin for a while to see if it is one that I will be using long-term. Sometimes, the 30-day free trial isn’t enough time to get the full experience, and I don’t want to be stuck purchasing it if I need more time to try it out. If I don’t like or want it anymore, I can cancel and stop paying the monthly fee at any time.
If I like the software and plan to use it for the long-term, I don’t have to pay upfront for it, but divide the costs over all the months I use it, without any added interest costs or fees.
Best Rent-to-Own Plugin Services
Splice and LANDR are two of the biggest and most popular platforms for royalty-free sounds and music samples. Both platforms offer rent-to-own options, too.
Splice
Splice, a music-creation and editing program, has the largest selection of sound samples, offering millions of sounds, loops, and presets. Their catalog is very organized, and it’s relatively simple to browse through to find what you’re seeking. Search by artist, genre, instrument, popularity.
It’s easy to download the sounds you want and just drag and drop them into your audio file. All of their sounds are royalty-free so that you can use them without any restrictions. It is an excellent resource for anyone in the music business, from professional to novice, or social media clips.
You can try their plugins free for three days before making the decision to rent or purchase them. Not all of their plugins are available for rent-to-own, but many of them are, including:
- Serum by Xfer Records (synthesizer and wavetable) – create your own sounds with this synthesizer tool. It includes 144 wavetables, and 450 presets that are divided by category. Serum has a real-time visual wavetable and a terrific interface for waveforms and sound design.
- RC Retro Color by XLN Audio (FX, distortion) – can add noise or distortion to your audio tracks to mimic sounds from vinyl records to VHS tapes. It has six FX modules, a flux engine, and a magnitude slider to control the intensity. RC Retro has preset settings for guitars, keys, drums, bass, and full mixes.
- Pigments 3 by Arturia (synthesizer, wavetable, analog, modulation) – includes tens of filters to help you produce warm sounds and includes FX types such as EQ, reverb, overdrive, phasers, overdrive, and more. It has a color-coded interface which makes it easy to use.
- Analog Lab V by Arturia (synthesizer, keyboards, live) – includes a massive collection of presets from dozens of instruments. Its streamlined interface is easy to use, and its catalog of presets is well-organized and categorized. Mix, match, and layer your sounds with more than ten FX types.
- FX Collection by Arturia (reverb, compressor, filter, delay) – includes 15 FX effects with three reverbs, three filters, three delays, three compressors, and three preamps. It offers a high-resolution interface and look-ahead tracking.
- VocalSynth 2 by iZotope (vocals, vocoder, multi-effect, autotune) – offers advanced vocal processing with five modules from vintage to modern. It has hundreds of presets, seven stompbox-type effects, and MIDI mode, auto mode, and sidechain mode. It includes Biovox, an effect that mimics human vocals, giving you control to adjust the vocal texture.
- RX 8 Standard by iZotope (repair, restoration, remix) – clean up sounds and remove background noises. It includes an audio edition, music rebalance, breath control, guitar de-noise, voice de-noise, and more.
- Ozone 9 by iZotope (mastering, limiter, EQ) – balance your music with Ozone 9. It includes master rebalance, low-end focus, track referencing, Codec preview, match EQ, vintage EQ, Imager, and more.
- KORG Collection 2 (vintage, synthesizer) – offers timeless and classic sounds from the 1970s through the 2000s. It includes TRITON, M1, Wavestation, MS-20, Polysix, Mono/Poly, Arp Odyssey, and MDE-X.
- Many other popular and highly-rated rent-to-own plugins.
Pros:
- Can use either the Splice desktop app or run it through your internet browser.
- An extensive selection of sound and loop samples across different genres, artists, and instruments.
- The catalog of sounds is organized, and you can browse the selections easily.
- Can download individual sounds, loops, or MIDI patterns instead of a full pack and preview each sound before purchasing it.
- The sounds you downloaded are yours to keep even after you cancel.
- Can open different Desktop Audio Workstations (DAW) files, such as GarageBand, Logic Pro, or Ableton Live.
- Offers a large selection of plugins and DAWs.
- Can download preset settings for specific plugins.
Cons:
- The desktop app doesn’t work as well as it could.
- The desktop app has a very limited DAW integration.
LANDR
LANDR only has a few plugins, and you can try them out for free for three days. With their rent-to-own option, you can pay a monthly fee to use the plugin, cancel at any time, or own it once you’ve paid its purchase price in monthly rental fees.
While LANDR has a large selection of sound samples, it focuses on some genres more than others. If you’re looking for Hip-Hop, Soul, or Disco, you’ll find many samples on LANDR.
If you know what type of sample you’re looking for, you can search by type or by instrument. The main library of sounds, though, can be overwhelming to browse through.
Currently, their rent-to-own plugins are:
- Lethal – a versatile synthesizer plugin with over 10,000 sounds, samples, and presets, is available in all expansions.
- Auto-Tune Access – a synthesizer plugin that corrects pitches and adds vocal effects. It’s easy to use, and you can identify your song’s key with its auto-key feature. It has multiple tuning options, from natural pitch fixes to extreme effects, and can use it live in real-time without any delays.
- Span – a free tool that works with any DAW; it shows you the spectrum frequency of your audio track. It’s very helpful when you’re mixing the audio.
- Boogex – a free guitar amplifier that also includes a stereo reverb and EQ.
Pros:
- High-quality and large selection of sounds.
- Simple to create a collection of favorite sounds.
- Easy to search for samples by instrument.
- Can work on collaborative projects.
- Its artificial intelligence and technology recommend other sounds based on the samples you’ve already selected.
- Doesn’t require an App.
Cons:
- Its sounds library isn’t as robust as Splice and doesn’t have all genres.
- Its library could be more organized and sorted better.
Buyer’s Guide: The Main Criteria for Choosing a Music-Editing and Collaboration Platform
Sound editing software has saturated the market, and it can be overwhelming to choose the best platform for your needs. Here are some tips to help you identify the best one for you.
- Does it backup your work? Nothing is worse than losing hours of painstaking work. Splice, for example, will backup every project on the cloud so you’ll never lose your work, even if your computer crashes.
- Do you need to collaborate with other producers? If your project is a group effort, look for a platform that makes it easy to share your files.
- What sounds does it include? Look for a platform with a library of sounds in the genre you’ll be working with. Splice, for example, has millions of samples that should cover you under all circumstances.
- Is the sound library easy to browse? With thousands of sounds—or more—you want to make sure you can find what you need. The platform’s library should be well-categorized and have an excellent filter and search tool.
- Is it in your budget? Pricing is always a consideration. Although there are free tools, sometimes you get what you pay for. With the subscription model and rent-to-own options for some plug-ins, some tools that might not have previously fit your budget may now be accessible.
To Conclude
Slice and LANDR are both top sound software with extensive samples and invaluable plugins. Still, the option I would settle on will depend on whether I wanted to have an easier interface to learn like LANDR or if I needed a large library of sounds like Splice. Either way, I’m not disappointed with either of these options.
I think the approach of Rent to Own plugin services is the perfect solution for the non-professional, like me, who wants good-quality sounds and tools but can’t afford to pay for it all upfront. This model gives me access to the software I want, for as long as I need, at a price I can afford.
👉 Check the Plans of Splice
