KVR Audio

xabkr · Post by **xabkr** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 2:45 am

Hi fellows.
So far, this is the best forum I have joined. I hope someone can lead me in the right direction.
I am a hobbyist musician. I write music for joy and friends. I do not advertise or seek to promote my tracks in any way. What I wish to do is to have a website where I can load my tracks with a simple user interface so I can share it with my friends. I do not care about complex features or other fancy bells and whistles that many services offer. I want to have full control of my site. I already have a domain name and a hosting provider. I do not want a subscription based product.

What I want from the site is to be able to group tracks into albums. So it looks like this: A main page with album covers. You click on the cover, it shows you tracks with track names and a built in player, so you can listen within that page.

Is there something like this available pre made, or it has to be custom built by someone?

Good advice would be highly appreciated,
Thank you!

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 3:21 am

xabkr wrote:Hi fellows.
So far, this is the best forum I have joined. I hope someone can lead me in the right direction.
I am a hobbyist musician. I write music for joy and friends. I do not advertise or seek to promote my tracks in any way. What I wish to do is to have a website where I can load my tracks with a simple user interface so I can share it with my friends. I do not care about complex features or other fancy bells and whistles that many services offer. I want to have full control of my site. I already have a domain name and a hosting provider. I do not want a subscription based product.

What I want from the site is to be able to group tracks into albums. So it looks like this: A main page with album covers. You click on the cover, it shows you tracks with track names and a built in player, so you can listen within that page.

Is there something like this available pre made, or it has to be custom built by someone?

Good advice would be highly appreciated,
Thank you!

SoundCloud has all of this ready to go, and it's free. For you to host your own would be a considerable amount of work, plus domain and web-hosting fees. SoundCloud isn't perfect, but they make it very easy to upload your tracks, group them into albums or playlists, and then share the link publicly or privately (via e-mail, chat or however you want). You can even add album cover or individual song cover images and other notes to each track. Listeners can also comment on each track and share it with others (if you want to allow that).

Your page would appear similar to mine: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife (I have a paid account, so I have the "Spotlight" and a few other features you don't need, but they're otherwise the same layout.)

Before you pay for your own domain and web-hosting, you might want to at least give them a try. You could have your first song up within 10 minutes.

Steve

xabkr · Post by **xabkr** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 3:43 am

Steve thank you,
I know about soundcloud.
I am not interested in something like that. I already have a domain and I have my hosting that I use for something else, so I just happen to have a few extra gigs of storage that I can use for my music. I still want to go my way not a "service provider" way (free or not)
I do not believe my prerequisites are complex: Single color page with centered squares (pictures) that would represent album covers. Inside list of tracks with names that are playable within that page.

The easiest for me, for example would be something like this. I open my FTP client. Create folder named "1" which would be first album. Place JPEG file named "cover1" which would be the clickable image of the cover. Then upload tracks to the folder like "1Songname.mp3";
"2Songname.mp3".... For the second album I would create a folder "2" in the root and so on.

Thank you for your time.

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:16 am

xabkr wrote:Steve thank you,
I know about soundcloud.
I am not interested in something like that. I already have a domain and I have my hosting that I use for something else, so I just happen to have a few extra gigs of storage that I can use for my music. I still want to go my way not a "service provider" way (free or not)
I do not believe my prerequisites are complex: Single color page with centered squares (pictures) that would represent album covers. Inside list of tracks with names that are playable within that page.

The easiest for me, for example would be something like this. I open my FTP client. Create folder named "1" which would be first album. Place JPEG file named "cover1" which would be the clickable image of the cover. Then upload tracks to the folder like "1Songname.mp3";
"2Songname.mp3".... For the second album I would create a folder "2" in the root and so on.

Thank you for your time.

Ah, okay. Do you want a page that will automatically index the files you upload via FTP? Or do you just want a page that will allow you to import the audio and image files you've uploaded and let it lay them out based upon a pre-defined template? You might be able to find a free (or low-cost) WordPress site for the second question, but you'd be looking at editing HTML code for the first question.

Steve

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:16 am

xabkr wrote:Steve thank you,
I know about soundcloud.
I am not interested in something like that. I already have a domain and I have my hosting that I use for something else, so I just happen to have a few extra gigs of storage that I can use for my music. I still want to go my way not a "service provider" way (free or not)
I do not believe my prerequisites are complex: Single color page with centered squares (pictures) that would represent album covers. Inside list of tracks with names that are playable within that page.

The easiest for me, for example would be something like this. I open my FTP client. Create folder named "1" which would be first album. Place JPEG file named "cover1" which would be the clickable image of the cover. Then upload tracks to the folder like "1Songname.mp3";
"2Songname.mp3".... For the second album I would create a folder "2" in the root and so on.

Thank you for your time.

Your requirements are not all that complex, but, as with most web development, the devil is in the details. The more that you expect to be easy for your "family and friends" the more work that you will have to put into it. Most of us here just won't bother with all of that. You haven't really provided good motivation for why you are avoiding service providers, so I'm not sure why that's important to you. Your free "gigs" isn't really a good reason TBH. Bandcamp allows almost 300 MB per song on their free accounts with no actual limit on the total amount of music AFAIK.

I have similar goals for my own music, and I create a lot of it, gigabytes, in fact. I use a combination of free services because, frankly, it's just much less work than doing it myself. To be clear, I could do it myself if I wanted to work that hard. I use Bandcamp to host albums and blogger and facebook to host pages. You can easily link to your Bandcamp page, and other providers, from your own domain if you do not want to use bandcamp to host your domain. I regularly do this across all of the various free providers that I use for different purposes.

shidostrife · Post by **shidostrife** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:46 am

Try musicglue. Yes, it's service, but it works exactly like what you want. You could also use your own domain, and then you could reserve your extra gigs for something else instead.

Look here:
https://www.musicglue.com/shidostrife/shop

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:49 am

ghettosynth wrote:
xabkr wrote:Steve thank you,
I know about soundcloud.
I am not interested in something like that. I already have a domain and I have my hosting that I use for something else, so I just happen to have a few extra gigs of storage that I can use for my music. I still want to go my way not a "service provider" way (free or not)
I do not believe my prerequisites are complex: Single color page with centered squares (pictures) that would represent album covers. Inside list of tracks with names that are playable within that page.

The easiest for me, for example would be something like this. I open my FTP client. Create folder named "1" which would be first album. Place JPEG file named "cover1" which would be the clickable image of the cover. Then upload tracks to the folder like "1Songname.mp3";
"2Songname.mp3".... For the second album I would create a folder "2" in the root and so on.

Thank you for your time.
Your requirements are not all that complex, but, as with most web development, the devil is in the details. The more that you expect to be easy for your "family and friends" the more work that you will have to put into it. Most of us here just won't bother with all of that. You haven't really provided good motivation for why you are avoiding service providers, so I'm not sure why that's important to you. Your free "gigs" isn't really a good reason TBH. Bandcamp allows almost 300 MB per song on their free accounts with no actual limit on the total amount of music AFAIK.

I have similar goals for my own music, and I create a lot of it, gigabytes, in fact. I use a combination of free services because, frankly, it's just much less work than doing it myself. To be clear, I could do it myself if I wanted to work that hard. I use Bandcamp to host albums and blogger and facebook to host pages. You can easily link to your Bandcamp page, and other providers, from your own domain if you do not want to use bandcamp to host your domain. I regularly do this across all of the various free providers that I use for different purposes.

The OP could use Bandcamp, but Bandcamp limits free plays to 3 (by default), though you can override that if you want. The main reason I didn't mention BC is because it's geared toward selling the tracks. Most of the text on each page is automatically generated based upon the sale price you set for a track. If you give away the track, I'm not even sure what the page would display. Also, if you wanted to give away the tracks, you'd have to set the price to "0" and then check (or un-check) two boxes to confirm your decision and to not ask for e-mail addresses for free tracks. You also only get 200 "downloads" for free each month from Bandcamp. If you go over that, they automatically switch your payment options for the track, and it's no longer free. I have a Bandcamp account, and I like it for selling music. I'm just not sure it's a good platform if you're letting people listen to your songs for free.

HearThis.at is another site similar to SoundCloud and Bandcamp, but with a rather cluttered interface.

I know most of this is outside of what the OP wanted, but as @ghettosynth suggested, the easier you want things for your listeners/site visitors, the more work you have to do yourself. And while I do know of a couple of "all-in-one" Web hosts that have pre-made templates and turnkey solutions for selling music, they require you pay them a monthly fee. Obviously, that doesn't help the OP, either.

Steve

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:00 am

shidostrife wrote:Try musicglue. Yes, it's service, but it works exactly like what you want. You could also use your own domain, and then you could reserve your extra gigs for something else instead.

Look here:
https://www.musicglue.com/shidostrife/shop

I think that his point is that he wants his domain to point to his existing site, not to an service provider site. Almost all of the sites allow you to embed their player in some form.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:17 am

planetearth wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:
xabkr wrote:Steve thank you,
I know about soundcloud.
I am not interested in something like that. I already have a domain and I have my hosting that I use for something else, so I just happen to have a few extra gigs of storage that I can use for my music. I still want to go my way not a "service provider" way (free or not)
I do not believe my prerequisites are complex: Single color page with centered squares (pictures) that would represent album covers. Inside list of tracks with names that are playable within that page.

The easiest for me, for example would be something like this. I open my FTP client. Create folder named "1" which would be first album. Place JPEG file named "cover1" which would be the clickable image of the cover. Then upload tracks to the folder like "1Songname.mp3";
"2Songname.mp3".... For the second album I would create a folder "2" in the root and so on.

Thank you for your time.
Your requirements are not all that complex, but, as with most web development, the devil is in the details. The more that you expect to be easy for your "family and friends" the more work that you will have to put into it. Most of us here just won't bother with all of that. You haven't really provided good motivation for why you are avoiding service providers, so I'm not sure why that's important to you. Your free "gigs" isn't really a good reason TBH. Bandcamp allows almost 300 MB per song on their free accounts with no actual limit on the total amount of music AFAIK.

I have similar goals for my own music, and I create a lot of it, gigabytes, in fact. I use a combination of free services because, frankly, it's just much less work than doing it myself. To be clear, I could do it myself if I wanted to work that hard. I use Bandcamp to host albums and blogger and facebook to host pages. You can easily link to your Bandcamp page, and other providers, from your own domain if you do not want to use bandcamp to host your domain. I regularly do this across all of the various free providers that I use for different purposes.
The OP could use Bandcamp, but Bandcamp limits free plays to 3 (by default), though you can override that if you want. The main reason I didn't mention BC is because it's geared toward selling the tracks. Most of the text on each page is automatically generated based upon the sale price you set for a track. If you give away the track, I'm not even sure what the page would display. Also, if you wanted to give away the tracks, you'd have to set the price to "0" and then check (or un-check) two boxes to confirm your decision and to not ask for e-mail addresses for free tracks. You also only get 200 "downloads" for free each month from Bandcamp. If you go over that, they automatically switch your payment options for the track, and it's no longer free. I have a Bandcamp account, and I like it for selling music. I'm just not sure it's a good platform if you're letting people listen to your songs for free.

HearThis.at is another site similar to SoundCloud and Bandcamp, but with a rather cluttered interface.

I know most of this is outside of what the OP wanted, but as @ghettosynth suggested, the easier you want things for your listeners/site visitors, the more work you have to do yourself. And while I do know of a couple of "all-in-one" Web hosts that have pre-made templates and turnkey solutions for selling music, they require you pay them a monthly fee. Obviously, that doesn't help the OP, either.

Steve

I agree, but, I think that the limitations are probably reasonable for most people with the OPs needs.

I also use hearthis.at and soundloud for hosting some tracks and mixcloud works great for hosting long ambient jams. There is also archive.org for some things as well.

At any rate, maybe something like this will work. AFAIK, it's a $20 one time fee, don't quote me on that. It's based on bootstrap so it has that modern look. There are probably others like this and I imagine if you look hard enough you could probably find something that's free. Again, I wouldn't bother, personally.

https://themeforest.net/item/musik-musi ... _back=true

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 6:14 am

Make a simple webpage with a text editor. You can even embed an mp3 player or soundcloud. Take minutes.

Richard deHove · Post by **Richard deHove** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:54 am

I'd use a default wordpress install. Make a nice header graphic and then load the music as youtube clips. Keep wordpress up to date and use a security plugin like Wordfence. There's nothing like having your own site.

xabkr · Post by **xabkr** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 1:40 pm

This forum rules! Thank you for suggestions and explanations.
Richard deHove, AnX are the closest to what I want to have. I do not do social medias or blogging, so all the extra stuff is just not something I need. In attachment there is a perfect example of what I need. Maybe also "About" page link, so I can credit people who helped me with recording. I am complete noob at html.... Can anybody suggest the easiest and hopefully cheapest (one time setup charge on my webspace?) to get where I want to get.

I thank you in advance,
Michael.

main.jpg

albumview.jpg

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 2:21 pm

xabkr wrote:This forum rules! Thank you for suggestions and explanations.
Richard deHove, AnX are the closest to what I want to have. I do not do social medias or blogging, so all the extra stuff is just not something I need. In attachment there is a perfect example of what I need. Maybe also "About" page link, so I can credit people who helped me with recording.

What? Anx just told you to use html and an editor, I thought that was obvious. Seriously? LOL! I assumed, since you said that you already have a domain and a site that you had done this already for some other aspects of your site, no?

You should read more carefully the other posts and try to understand why this isn't quite as easy as you imagine. OTOH, Anx is right if you just want some links and a page, it should take about five minutes...but....wait...now you want it to look like some template that you imagine? Well, that might take five minutes more, look up "div" and "css," even better, bootstrap.

I am complete noob at html.... Can anybody suggest the easiest and hopefully cheapest (one time setup charge on my webspace?) to get where I want to get.

My suspicion here is that you don't know what you don't know. I gave you an excellent suggestion with a fairly simple $20 bootstrap template that looks very similar to what you want, but you will probably have to study HTML for anywhere from a week to six months to use it (time depends on your abilities), or, you could just pay someone else to set it up for you.

The latter is most likely the right choice for you.

surferman · Post by **surferman** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 2:31 pm

I have a personal website where I post old recordings of our old band's music that I've "remastered". I could make it look nicer or fancier but it's mainly for me and the two band mates and about 5 old friends who we've known since then. http://kirkpitts.com/pooptheband/
scroll down for the player. You can make it look nicer if one wishes.

The site is a wordpress site (free) with a Theme ( cheap)
I used Themify's http://themify.me/addons add on plugins for Wordpress for the audio player. You can easily create separate players if you wish. $39 bucks and updates for a year but they continue working afterward.
Very easy to use.

xabkr · Post by **xabkr** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 3:23 pm

ghettosynth, Thank you for your time. You are right and wrong

I have read your post and looked at bootstrap templates.
You are right that I do not know what I do not know.

I have a website (not related to music) that was built by my friend long time ago.
I showed him layout, gave him graphics and how I want it to work and he put it together for me. He is a very busy guy, so I am trying to find a way not to bother him for this. Quote: " but you will probably have to study HTML for anywhere from a week to six months to use it"

--Ideally, yes But I just do not have this time and this is a one time deal. If done as I see it, it should last for good 10 years without maintenance with only updates is me uploading new album covers and tracks. So each new album would be placed in the page grid automatically by me creating a folder and placing cover picture and tracks in that folder.

Now that I posted example picture of the layout.... maybe somebody can suggest where to go to make this inexpensive way, considering that I have a domain and hosting space already.
This is how I see it. Somebody who knows how to do this, should not take more than 1 - 1 1/2 hours to make, considering I provide graphics. Where to find someone reliable who can do this at fair price?

Thank you.

Music web page for friends and family question