about soundcloud

I was just vibing on the artwork for this funky track when a full screen ad popped up. turn off automatic updating quick!

imho: if ur songs aren't for sale anywhere you should put an option to download... so frustrating when a song you like is trapped on the cloud. i know you can rip but the way i used to do it no longer works and now i have to look up a new way to do it? and what will happen when you take it down?

http://anything2mp3.com/ works for me

thx mate

Yeah but ripping it will only give you the song in 128 :(

tru

on soundcloud all roads lead to bad 'trap' music

128 > 0

also tru

http://mp3fiber.com lets you rip at 320. I use it a lot.

youtube-dl works for Soundcloud.

What's the bitrate of the soundcloud original?

It's 128 as far as I can tell (so ripping it at 320 doesn't mean shit if the original source is 128, what you get is just a worse version, just bigger)

(btw you don't need anything special for soundcloud, the developer tools in Firefox will tell you the URL of the mp3 file being played)

It's 128 as far as I can tell

so even if you upload a wav, it converts it to 128 for playback? never really thought about that.

i've ripped a few things by opening Audacity and recording a wav as it plays on SC, no idea if that's any better than these other methods.

"Please be aware that we transcode all tracks to 128 kbps mp3 for streaming playback. However when you make your track downloadable, this allows your listeners to download your track in the exact format that you uploaded, without any transcoding."

(Performers will often given permission to stream something but not to make it available for download btw.)

Well unless there's a premium version that streams WAV, yeah, I have only ever seen 128k mp3 (just like bandcamp, bands upload lossless but the streaming is only 128).

From their help page:

Please be aware that we transcode all tracks to 128 kbps mp3 for streaming playback. However when you make your track downloadable, this allows your listeners to download your track in the exact format that you uploaded, without any transcoding.

As for recording the stream, it can only be as good as the stream itself.

what he said

I can confirm that the downloads are at other than 128. I downloaded a hundred aphex twin tracks and the bitrate was all over the place.

Makes sense. I do like the ability to make tracks available for streaming but not dl, fwiw.

"As for recording the stream, it can only be as good as the stream itself.

― moans and feedback (Dinsdale), Monday, January 18, 2016 2:52 PM Bookmark Flag Post"

Not to mention, you know, the song.

Doomed?

http://www.factmag.com/2016/02/11/soundcloud-financial-report-44m-losses/

It would be sad to see Soundcloud close, but afaict they still give away most of their services for free so I can see how it would be difficult to make money that way

i hope they don't tank

an acquaintance of mine recently moved to berlin to work for them, hope he doesn't get canned. feel like they'll survive though

Yeah, I do wonder how SC makes money sometimes.

they charge you if you upload more than 3 tracks i think? i know bc i used to upload my radio sets to it and then switched to mixcloud when i hit the pay limit. otherwise no idea how they make money. ads?

They've never charged me.

3 hours actually

http://payments.help.soundcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/2159342-learn-about-our-pro-plans

While SoundCloud brought in €15.37m ($17.35m) in 2014, it lost a total of €39.14m ($44.19m). Employee wages during that period also increased 42.5% to €17.9m, meaning that the average wage per employee for that year totalled €79,980.

sweet raises

i wonder if they could be profitable at this point by having only subscription plans for uploaders (or lower the time limit for free plans), but be totally ad-free (and also stop dealing with the majors, so that people wouldn't have to worry about getting mixes taken down). that would be my ideal, but i know that a lot of people wouldn't feel the same way.

Yeah, just charge everyone a nominal fee to have a page.

an acquaintance of mine

is it the same acquaintance who's been posting about this story on twitter all afternoon?

It does seem like kind of an impossible business model for Soundcloud -- but I also wonder about Bandcamp, and frankly, I'd be MUCH more sorry to see that go, as it offers a real alternative to iTunes and physical media outlets as far as whole albums and getting to know a (new) artist's catalog.

There was a story earlier this year, or maybe late last year, about how streaming services were all essentially doomed, because it's too easy to stream for free via Youtube et al. I think Facebook was looking at starting their own streaming service, but only because they could see the writing on the wall, and thought it was better to get in now while some money was still available.

Bandcamp feels more a proper shop that happens to let you stream the music rather than a streaming platform (and I think there's now a limit to how many times you can stream an album, so it's clearly a check-out-then-buy kind of deal, they're not supposed to be as an alternative to youtube/spotify imo).

"feels more like"

Without giving anything away -- this is friend of a friend level stuff, I grant -- Bandcamp is not only doing just fine but thriving more than a lot of people may guess.

good news! :)

I think there's now a limit to how many times you can stream an album,

this is set by the artist btw (it's optional)

Well good -- imo they're the best on the net for new music, and it's not really even close.

bandcamp needs a redesign, its kinda ugly imo

yeah bandcamp is the way to go

xp oh ok I didn't know that

Bandcamp feels more a proper shop that happens to let you stream the music rather than a streaming platform

agreed, which is both good and bad. Bandcamp is probably more important in the long run, but if you're starting from an audience of zero and you put something up on BC, chances are it's just going to rot out there. on SC there's a much better chance of people finding it (through followers/likes/reposts etc).

Yeah, just charge everyone a nominal fee to have a page.

Either this or allow a few ads, which I could probably live with, I guess?

Re: those juicy looking 80k wages - typically in NW-Europe the 'salary costs' in the company books are the costs to the employer, not the (gross) wage of the employee. Social and other charges are high and in practice the rule of thumb is that only half of the cost to the employer ends up with the employee.

chances are it's just going to rot out there

^^^ my songs on SC have got way more views than my BC albums. Releasing stuff on BC sometimes feels like hurling things into the void.

xxxp It might not be on par with soundcloud's (which I'm not very familiar with) but there is a follow feature on bandcamp too, you can follow users and see what they buy, and stream it directly from their profile page.

is it the same acquaintance who's been posting about this story on twitter all afternoon?

nah just checked his twitter feed. only tweets today were about gravity waves and a conference on free monads (go figure)

^^^ my songs on SC have got way more views than my BC albums. Releasing stuff on BC sometimes feels like hurling things into the void.

Definitely this. There's not even a comparison for me.

same. the people i see do really well on BC are the ones that have a loyal following and also commit to only making the music available there (not posting anything in full on Soundcloud, and going through digital distro to iTunes/Spotify/etc, at least not for awhile after release).

bandcamp is for rawk, soundcloud is for beats