KVR Audio

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:38 pm

I'm interested in learning about how the good folks of KVR feel about SoundCloud today. I remember a lot of people didn't like when they changed the design, and I'm curious now if people are using it as much as they did before, if there are better/different services, etc.

Take the poll below and I'll share the results in a week!

http://www.polljunkie.com/poll/qczoed/h ... soundcloud

Mushy Mushy · Post by **Mushy Mushy** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:46 pm

Hardly touch it now.
The new app sucks!!!!

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 7:14 pm

I once had a paid account...canceled it when they changed the design. SC used to be a great way for musicians to interact socially around pieces and specific points in pieces - no longer. SC once had a wonderful, unique approach...after they grew they changed to be like other music hosting services - boring, with only brief, superficial social interaction.

jeffb01 · Post by **jeffb01** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:18 pm

just curious what alternatives there are (for people who don't like it)...

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:27 pm

Mushy Mushy wrote:The new app sucks!!!!

+ 1,000,000

With some - older? - browsers it doesn't even work anymore properly!

Always when something is working perfectly, they make an update and things are getting worse. It was the same with MySpace!

Shabdahbriah · Post by **Shabdahbriah** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:36 pm

Tricky-Loops wrote:
Mushy Mushy wrote:The new app sucks!!!!
+ 1,000,000

With some - older? - browsers it doesn't even work anymore properly!

Always when something is working perfectly, they make an update and things are getting worse. It was the same with MySpace!

Agree. Both went to shit with their "improvements".

Is Bandcamp viable?

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:50 pm

+1,000,000,001

Went furious after their upload lost a huge file of mine. F****g spoiled a great app and a great company by removing the record button and introducing a huge number of bugs in the process, screwing up file uploads and such.

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:01 pm

Interesting that a total of just 9% of the poll respondents fall into the Dissatisfied/Very Dissatisfied category, yet 100% of the posters in this thread (presumably) fall into one of those two categories.

Overall, I'm satisfied with SC. I had the free plan for years, used the standard paid plan for one year, then went back to the free plan. It's not perfect, but it's free/cheap and IMO it's a hell of lot better than ReverbNation, SoundClick, MySpace, etc. for just posting and sharing music, basic networking, etc.

justin3am · Post by **justin3am** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:16 pm

I still like Soundcloud a lot. I can keep up with music from my online friends (the ones who post to Soundcloud anyway) and I hear a lot of new stuff based on the likes and re-posts of people I know.

I don't really think about the site or it's design much as long as it works. The player works fine for me in Safari, Chrome and Firefox when I use it on forums.

As far as I'm concerned, it's easier for me to upload music in a way that people have easy access to it when using soundcloud than if I uploaded to my FTP (which I also do). No one really listens to the direct links I post (at least based on my site statistics).

Soundcloud is convenient for me. Just my opinion. I guess that is not the case for everyone.

No_Use · Post by **No_Use** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:26 pm

For me Soundcloud died a little when they removed the option to make the 'sets' page the landing page.
With this I could present my content to visitors the way and order I wanted, now I'm forced to 'chronological' (upload date) listing, bah.

Ok, now there's spotlight, but it's not the same imo (and not available for free accounts as the former landing page option was).

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:39 pm

No_Use wrote: With this I could present my content to visitors the way and order I wanted, now I'm forced to 'chronological' (upload date) listing, bah.

I almost mentioned this in my earlier post. It's one of the few things about SC that bugs me. I want to keep my songs in the order that I want, and I often like to change that order. For me, that generally means my latest song first, followed by my favorite/best/most representative songs. So, each time I upload a new track, I would like to have the ability to rearrange them accordingly. Oh well, it's a free service, so it's not a deal-breaker for me.

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 1:13 pm

I still like it better than other sites I've tried, but now it caters to the people who just upload their tunes and listen to tunes - not much different than other sites. Used to be a social network site for musicians. That's what died with the changes...not a minor thing.

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:00 pm

I've had an account a few years but haven't really used it much until I started participating in OSC here at KVR.
The original idea is great but they have taken some terrible design decisions. Worst being that the social features are unusable at mobile platforms. seriously, how can they have missed commenting? Well you can view comments made on your track but even then you don't see the whole comment if it's longer than a line or two. Who the heck did QA for that...?

The obvious alternative seems to be hearthis.at but I haven't registered so don't know if it's good or not. Any users from here?

fese · Post by **fese** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:07 pm

mehum wrote:I've had an account a few years but haven't really used it much until I started participating in OSC here at KVR.
The original idea is great but they have taken some terrible design decisions. Worst being that the social features are unusable at mobile platforms. seriously, how can they have missed commenting? Well you can view comments made on your track but even then you don't see the whole comment if it's longer than a line or two. Who the heck did QA for

You can view the comments in the app?? Where? On the iOS app I didn't find anything, they pretty much removed all account-related options. The old iPad app was bad and buggy, the new one is pretty unusable for us "content providers". Not even more options for "pro" users.
Never heard of hearthis, but as long as OSC is on soundcloud, there's no real alternative...

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:30 pm

fese wrote:
mehum wrote:I've had an account a few years but haven't really used it much until I started participating in OSC here at KVR.
The original idea is great but they have taken some terrible design decisions. Worst being that the social features are unusable at mobile platforms. seriously, how can they have missed commenting? Well you can view comments made on your track but even then you don't see the whole comment if it's longer than a line or two. Who the heck did QA for
You can view the comments in the app?? Where? On the iOS app I didn't find anything, they pretty much removed all account-related options. The old iPad app was bad and buggy, the new one is pretty unusable for us "content providers". Not even more options for "pro" users.
Never heard of hearthis, but as long as OSC is on soundcloud, there's no real alternative...

I'm on Android but I find it strange if the apps are different...
Theres two menus in the Android app, one fancy with the options Stream, Explore etc, the other, located beside the search icon, has the options "Who to follow", "Activity", "Record" and "Settings".
Choosing Activity brings up a list of activities. Since I don't subscript to anything I guess it only shows activity on my tracks, eg "fese commented on mehum - Discord...". Clicking THIS activity brings up all comments on the track in question. But more than two lines and you won't see the end of the comment...

Yeah, I know hearthis is currently (...) not an option for OSC, but at least it could be an option for other users frustrated with the way Soundcloud currently works. I might start using it for other stuff...

How do you use & feel about SoundCloud? (Poll inside)