Frequently Asked Questions

Selekt is built for commercial use, and unlike most sample sites it gives you documentation to back it up. Every sample comes from a named public-domain or Creative Commons source (CC0 or CC-BY), is screened against 150M+ commercial recordings by audio fingerprinting, and ships with a cryptographically signed license certificate you can verify yourself with no account — showing the source, the exact license, the screening result, and a tamper-evident audit chain. That is stronger evidence than a plain "royalty-free" label, which only asserts a status. It is screening evidence, not a blanket legal guarantee — no source can honestly promise zero risk — so for high-stakes releases you keep the certificate and confirm rights, but for beats, instrumentals, sync drafts, and indie releases it is designed to keep you out of sample-clearance trouble. See exactly how it works at selektaudio.com/trust.

They're built for it. Every sample comes from public-domain recordings or Creative Commons sources (CC0 and CC-BY) and is screened against 150M+ commercial recordings by audio fingerprinting before it enters the library — so you can use them in beats, songs, films, games, and any other project. Some CC-BY samples ask that you credit the original artist; your download certificate spells out exactly what's needed. Screening is strong evidence, not a blanket legal guarantee, so you're always free to verify before release.

"Cleared" describes what we did to a sample, not a blanket legal promise. Every sample is sourced from public-domain or Creative Commons material (CC0 and CC-BY) and screened by audio fingerprinting against a database of 150M+ commercial recordings — the same core technology behind Shazam, Deezer SongCatcher, Genius, and Musixmatch. If it doesn't match a known copyrighted recording, it passes and ships with a certificate documenting the source, license, and screening result. That's strong evidence you can file with a distributor or sync library — not a legal guarantee. For CC-BY samples, credit the original artist (your certificate shows exactly how).

Check your download certificate — it tells you exactly what's required for each sample. Samples under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license require you to credit the original artist. Your certificate includes the artist name, source, and license type so you know exactly who to credit and how. Public domain and CC0 samples have no credit requirement, but your certificate will confirm this.

Yes. You can sell beats, songs, or any derivative work you make with Selekt Audio samples — there are no added restrictions from Selekt on reselling or distributing your finished work. Just keep any artist credit your certificate lists for CC-BY samples.

Every sample goes through a verification pipeline before it enters the library. The first step is source provenance — we ingest only from named upstream archives (Library of Congress, Citizen DJ, Freesound CC0/CC-BY, Musopen, Internet Archive pre-1926) and verify the license terms at ingest. The result is a license certificate (PDF) that ships with every download, showing source, license type, and any attribution required. For samples coming from less-authoritative places (e.g. some Internet Archive uploads), we additionally run an acoustic fingerprint scan — the raw waveform is converted into a spectrogram, dominant frequency peaks are extracted into a compact digital fingerprint, and that fingerprint is matched against an industry-standard database of over 150 million commercially released recordings (the same core technology used by Shazam, Deezer SongCatcher, Genius, and Musixmatch). If a fingerprint matches a known copyrighted work above our confidence threshold, the track is rejected before any further processing. When the screening runs, the result is recorded on the certificate. Separately, our copyright-check tool in the Workshop lets you run any audio — including a finished mix — through the same screening database on demand, producing a signed audit log useful for distributor or sync-library reference. Selekt provides screening evidence, not legal clearance opinions; you remain responsible for confirming rights before commercial use.

Yes — and it's a core part of what Selekt offers. Every sample's clearance record is published as a cryptographically signed certificate anyone can verify with no Selekt account. Open a sample's certificate at selektaudio.com/cert/<id> or its signed audit receipt at selektaudio.com/audit/<id> and re-check the signature right in your browser; paste a certificate or scan ID into the public verifier at selektaudio.com/verify; or watch a real record verify automatically at selektaudio.com/proof. Because the proof is cryptographic, you don't have to trust us — your own device confirms the record is authentic and unaltered. (It confirms the record's integrity and what was screened — strong evidence, not a legal clearance opinion.)

Yes. Each clearance record is signed with an Ed25519 digital signature and hash-chained with SHA-256 to the record before it, so the history is append-only and tamper-evident — you can verify every signature against our published public key (selektaudio.com/audit-public-key.pem) in your browser or offline. It is content provenance in the same spirit as C2PA / Content Credentials, applied to sample clearance: Selekt publishes an external, independently verifiable audit chain rather than implementing the C2PA standard itself. Full explanation and a C2PA comparison at selektaudio.com/provenance.

Yes. Public domain samples are non-exclusive, meaning any number of producers can use the same source material. Your unique arrangement, processing, and creativity is what makes your beat original.

Use the Explore page to browse and filter the full library. You can filter by genre, BPM, key, mood, instruments, era, and more. Use the search bar for quick keyword searches, or combine multiple filters to narrow down exactly the sound you're looking for.

Each sample page gives you everything you need in one place. At the top you'll see the track info, BPM, key, genre, and era. Below that is the waveform player where you can play the full track. You'll also find separated stems (vocals, drums, bass, other), detected sections (intro, verse, chorus, break), instrument and mood tags, license details, and a download button.

Stems are the individual layers of a track — vocals, drums, bass, and other instruments — separated out so you can use just the parts you want. Every sample on Selekt Audio comes with stems ready to download.

Custom Mix lets you blend stems together right on the site. Solo the drums and bass, mute the vocals, adjust levels — preview your own mix before downloading. It's a quick way to audition combinations, but for serious production, pull the individual stems into your DAW.

The Clip tool lets you select a specific region of a sample's waveform and download just that portion as a WAV file. Click "Clip Region," drag across the waveform to set your start and end points, preview it, then download. You can also save clips to your crates for later.

Selekt Studio is a free desktop app that organizes your downloaded samples automatically. It sorts files by genre, BPM, and key — and lets you drag samples straight into your DAW from the app. No more digging through folders.

Every time you download a sample, you can generate a certificate — a PDF that proves the sample is cleared for use. It includes the license type, source, artist, and any credit requirements. Keep it with your project files so you always have proof of clearance.

Samples and stems are available as high-quality WAV files.

Yes — create a free account and you can browse, stream, and download samples. A Pro tier is in development with additional features like advanced stem separation and priority access to new drops.

Pro is in development. Planned benefits include access to the full stem separation suite, priority access to weekly drops, marketplace selling privileges, and challenge entry.

Credits power the tools that run fresh processing on your own audio — splitting an upload into stems, cleaning it up, or running a copyright check on a file you bring. Everything that uses our catalog stays free: browsing, listening, downloading, and shaping catalog material in tools like Drum Kit and Stem Lab never costs a credit. You can see the full free-vs-credit breakdown at selektaudio.com/credits.

1 credit = $1. A tool that costs 50¢ to run uses half a credit, and we always show you the exact amount plus your remaining balance — for example, "0.5 credits ($0.50)." You can buy credit packs (larger packs include bonus credits), and the Early Access plan includes a monthly credit allowance.

Everything in our catalog arrives ready to use — we've already separated each track into its parts and prepared it for every tool. A file you upload is just raw audio, so before a tool can work with it we have to prepare it: break it into the pieces and formats that the tools need, so it works and can be mixed and matched with the catalog. That preparation runs fresh for every file you bring, and it's what credits pay for. The catalog is already done, so using it is always free.

No. Browsing, listening, and downloading from the catalog never cost credits. Credits are only for the tools that process your own uploads.

Challenges are community beat-making competitions. A source sample is provided, and producers submit their "flip" — a beat or track made using that sample. The community votes on submissions and winners are featured on the leaderboard.

The Marketplace lets Pro members sell their original beats and sample packs to other producers. All marketplace listings are reviewed before going live.