KVR Audio

woggle · Post by **woggle** » Thu Jul 13, 2017 1:28 pm

Soundcloud was more useful to me when they had groups. I found it much easier to find music I liked through groups and also much easier to find listeners who liked what I did. I dropped my pro account recently as I don't think putting music online on services like soundcloud (or hearthis etc) has much value. It doesn't generate any revenue in my experience (that comes through actual social connections) so making any sort of serious effort seems a waste of time. Without groups there is no community and without a community there seems little value.

SirkusPi · Post by **SirkusPi** » Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:52 pm

Good new article from Tech Crunch about Soundcloud's problems and rapidly diminishing future, including how Soundcloud screwed up by moving away from being a host for independent artists and, ridiculously, tried to compete as yet another Spotify clone. Sadly, as the article concludes, Soundcloud is still headed down the wrong path. As the author notes, in order to survive:

SoundCloud must get much more aggressive about identifying its differentiated value — independent musicians — and drop any business like Go+ where it can’t keep up. It would need to deepen its relationship with creators and offer more tools to get them paid, like the booming monthly subscription patronage platform Patreon. Unfortunately, SoundCloud PR tells me “There are currently no plans to make changes to our existing subscription offerings.”

So long, Soundcloud. You were a good idea initially, but it's quite unfortunate how, in the pursuit of legitimizing posted DJ mixes and somehow becoming the tenth or twentieth or whatever we're up to now streaming service, you went down this major-label-licensing rabbit hole.

highkoo · Post by **highkoo** » Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:41 pm

woggle wrote: It doesn't generate any revenue

Yea... See, that is kind of what went wrong.
Soundcloud was not started as a consumer based thing. It was not about revenue streams, at all. It was advertised as a place for "unsigned" artists to share what they were working on, with each other, as much as with anyone else. That focus has shifted slowly but drastically over the years.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:42 am

People writing everywhere that Soundcloud has only enough money for 50 days. People suspect that Soundcloud will be closed but IMO this will not occur.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 6:04 am

4damind wrote:People writing everywhere that Soundcloud has only enough money for 50 days. People suspect that Soundcloud will be closed but IMO this will not occur.

I have to say, I agree. There are many threads about this across many forums, and they are still in biz.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 8:50 am

aMUSEd wrote:wtf I just went to the site of someone I've been following for ages and suddenly all I can hear are 'previews"? It's always been the full versions before. Is this some ploy to gouge me for more money on top of my Pro account?

So looks like this is to do with the Go thing, now tracks that were previously available in full are now only available as previews. So does this mean for other people they can only hear previews of my tracks too? I don't see how there are any advantages to this, I thought the whole point of Soundcloud was to showcase your music to other people? I don't want them to just hear previews. Spotify it is not - what possible point is there to this Go?

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:07 am

aMUSEd wrote:
aMUSEd wrote:wtf I just went to the site of someone I've been following for ages and suddenly all I can hear are 'previews"? It's always been the full versions before. Is this some ploy to gouge me for more money on top of my Pro account?
So looks like this is to do with the Go thing, now tracks that were previously available in full are now only available as previews. So does this mean for other people they can only hear previews of my tracks too? I don't see how there are any advantages to this, I thought the whole point of Soundcloud was to showcase your music to other people? I don't want them to just hear previews. Spotify it is not - what possible point is there to this Go?

The preview things only happens when you have joined Soundcloud Premier which you can only be invited to by Soundcloud itself. I refused my invitation as I mainly use SC for my patchpool demos and also I don't believe in all that streaming business, I much prefer Bandcamp.

Firebird · Post by **Firebird** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:09 am

4damind wrote:People writing everywhere that Soundcloud has only enough money for 50 days. People suspect that Soundcloud will be closed but IMO this will not occur.

I agree, it wont happen.

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:10 am

The invitation looks like this:

sc-invite.jpg

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:12 am

Firebird wrote:
4damind wrote:People writing everywhere that Soundcloud has only enough money for 50 days. People suspect that Soundcloud will be closed but IMO this will not occur.
I agree, it wont happen.

If the current owners take the rest of their money and run, I'm sure another company will take over, there is still an estimated 70.000.000 users worldwide, I guess some cash can be wrung out of those.

drwx · Post by **drwx** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:35 am

What happened to Soundcloud is the same that happened to Berlin. People were doing extraordinary things just for the sake of it, then the easy money flew in : the start-up investors, the marketing guys, the "creative" business vultures, the real-state developers, apple gimmicks, facebook, yoga, latte machiatto ... I'm not blaming you for taking it

but it's time to come back to the roots, screw Tech Crunch and Ted Talks, we don't need you, we are better running out of cash than soulless, we love you, bring back the platform for the artists and let us pay for it.

Rappo Clappo · Post by **Rappo Clappo** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:57 am

It all depends on growth. They can beg for money what they want.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:59 pm

OK so I can see one reason Soundcloud may be losing money - I was looking into what you get if you do actually take out a GO+ account but it's almost impossible to actually browse the Soundcloud site to find music beyond what they recommend, stuff I already know about or am already following, and their useless 'charts'. Really badly designed.

Obsolete236871 · Post by **Obsolete236871** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:56 pm

aMUSEd wrote:wtf I just went to the site of someone I've been following for ages and suddenly all I can hear are 'previews"? It's always been the full versions before. Is this some ploy to gouge me for more money on top of my Pro account?

No, it isn't! The preview thing has been implemented some time ago. That's one of the changes that SC introduced when they found an agreement with the major labels. Artists who are signed to labels / record publishers can put their songs in preview mode and many do so now (or rather their labels do), because they don't want to lose potential revenue to free listeners. They want to give the listener an "incentive" to get a pro-account, because the labels / artists don't earn anything from free listeners.

So that is only relevant for commercial artists, but not to the thousands of bedroom musicians and underground artists with no commercial structure behind them, who use Soundcloud for the purpose of making their work accessible. It really depends on what you use SC for, but it's of course not some random guy at SC who decides whether a track is being put in preview mode. It's the labels.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 4:01 pm

aMUSEd wrote:Really badly designed.

Dude I can't even browse my own freaking account, let alone anyone else's. It sends you to places you don't want to go, and plays things you don't want to hear. Sounds like a solid experience!

I mean, I've seen some bad UX since starting off in web development in '93/'94, but SC ranks right up there with the worst of 'em. IMO, of course. Every time I use that thing, even the mobile app on iPad or iPhone, I always end up yelling at the screen, which is quite a feat given that I already know what I'm in for when I go there!

Other than a very convenient de facto Dropbox For Audio, I don't see the point of all the complexity and over engineering. Just make it a Dropbox For Audio with free accounts limited to say 100MB/128kbps, and $30/yr accounts for 1GB/320kbps (or AAC equivalent). Serious folk will pay a modest amount for quality streaming. Oh, and your encoding process sucks donkey kong. Might want to address that while you're at it.

Soundcloud is running out of cash