SoundCloud replacements

[jacqueslacouth]

God I miss the MP3.com of the 90s. I found so much really good stuff there from amazing unsigned acts. Had a look at the current version of that domain and it "sort" of looks like a thing but I'm not so sure.

[jancivil]

I don't bother with anything but Youtube. They quit providing the 192kbps on your HD [1080p] video but it's still a better sound than soundcloud [or bandcamp which I have for the rare buyer potential]. hearthis, I don't recall clearly, maybe it's a better than 128kbps crappy codec/soundcloud result but...

[chaosWyrM]

The music groups at FB are overcrowded. Nobody can be able to hear the masses of posts. You will be like a cup of water in the ocean...

sooooo.....exactly like the old soundcloud groups then?

Yeah, but the soundcloud groups were better imo. You could go to a group and just press play to listen to a batch of tunes in the same genre. On FB you have to click for each tune you want to listen to. Not as convenient.

eh...i think you are picking quite a bit of nits. weve already established that there is no good replacement for how soundcloud used to work. were discussing the best alternatives. its already been conceded that none of them are that good. the closest thing to sc groups now is fb groups...however much they arent as good. no point hand wringing about the old days...theyre gone.

[jancivil]

FB, when it had a way to easily post mp3s wasn't good
it's never been good because it's not built for it.

SC Groups could be fascinating. I never made much of it, I'm just not real friendly but I've been privy to some unbelievable things which don't exist otherwise, thru who I know partly thru there. And partly and sometimes wholly thru FB

FB besides the posting music (may as well post a youtube IMO) has been the best for me as far as meeting people, because people could hear of me from around and just look me up there.

[rachmiel]

Why did SoundCloud close down the groups? Did they give a convincing reason?

[SampleScience]

The music groups at FB are overcrowded. Nobody can be able to hear the masses of posts. You will be like a cup of water in the ocean...

sooooo.....exactly like the old soundcloud groups then?

Yeah, but the soundcloud groups were better imo. You could go to a group and just press play to listen to a batch of tunes in the same genre. On FB you have to click for each tune you want to listen to. Not as convenient.

eh...i think you are picking quite a bit of nits. weve already established that there is no good replacement for how soundcloud used to work. were discussing the best alternatives. its already been conceded that none of them are that good. the closest thing to sc groups now is fb groups...however much they arent as good. no point hand wringing about the old days...theyre gone.

I agree with you. I wish Orfium would take the place Soundcloud once had, but unfortunately they don't drive nearly as much traffic as SC did (and is still doing). Also, we're just discussing and I'm not judging your comments, we're just trying to figuring this out together.

[chaosWyrM]

Why did SoundCloud close down the groups? Did they give a convincing reason?

no.

there has been much ado about the increasingly bad decisions soundcloud has been making the past few years. they have made it clear that they will drive the platform into the ground trying to force it into a streaming service no one wants or needs, and take it further and further away from the hosting/sharing platform it was designed to be that made it so hugely popular.

it would be kind of like if starbucks decided it wasnt a coffee shop anymore but a deli, and tried to make their shitty food the main product they sell....while at the same time making the actual coffee worse and worse every few months.

no one goes into starbucks for one of those "bagels" they push. they get it because they are there getting coffee anyway and its easier than going to another place......well, same thing.

soundcloud is pushing the crappy add-on features and limiting/removing the reason people are there in the first place.

[OreoSplitter]

I tried making a facebook video but it compressed the hell out of it (even on HD) including the audio yet I've seen videos from big named artists that sounded perfectly clear. Made in adobe premiere. Sounded identical to source wav, was even fine on youtube but could never get facebook to work.

Facebook groups are pretty dead anyways. Have to subscribe with your personal account, can't use band page.

[rachmiel]

Are video sharing sites a decent way to go for musicians wanting to get an audience for their work? It seems odd, I don't make music to accompany visuals, the drama is (hopefully) in the music itself. But if video sites mean listeners, it's worth a try. And I know someone who could make gorgeous visuals for the music if that would bring in more listeners.

What are the best video sites for this purpose: YouTube, BitChute, FB (if I can get high-quality compression from it)?

[SampleScience]

Are video sharing sites a decent way to go for musicians wanting to get an audience for their work? It seems odd, I don't make music to accompany visuals, the drama is (hopefully) in the music itself. But if video sites mean listeners, it's worth a try. And I know someone who could make gorgeous visuals for the music if that would bring in more listeners.

What are the best video sites for this purpose: YouTube, BitChute, FB (if I can get high-quality compression from it)?

FB & YouTube. You can put your album artwork and it'll be fine imo. FB will push you more because they currently try to compete with YouTube for videos. It's an opportunity to be heard.

[OreoSplitter]

Not like I'm some expert but I would avoid facebook video ads like the plaque if that thought is rolling around in your head. The video ads always default to playing silent and I think it's after 3 seconds it's consodered as watched, like WTF! Anyways I read an article that 90% if all videos watched on facebook are without sound. Considering we make music, doesn't make sense. Now videos for your own facebook site, honestly might as well send facebook people over to youtube. I hate facebook like you have to pay for your posts to reach your fans yet how many or which of them get it, you don't know. Yeah that's all advertising stuff but it just shows how craptastic they are at building your fanbase and exploiting you for it. Better off take your facebook fans to your own website where you get their email.

to me, FB is for people looking at pictures with feel good quotes. Youtube for anything decent.

[rachmiel]

Clearly I'm very ignorant of how this works, so please have patience with what must seem like silly questions!

If I decide to start a rachMiel YouTube channel and put my tracks up on it, would they be more engaging (i.e. get more listeners) if they were accompanied by cool visuals? Or do YouTube music listeners really only care about the music, not the visuals?

[chaosWyrM]

Clearly I'm very ignorant of how this works, so please have patience with what must seem like silly questions!

If I decide to start a rachMiel YouTube channel and put my tracks up on it, would they be more engaging (i.e. get more listeners) if they were accompanied by cool visuals? Or do YouTube music listeners really only care about the music, not the visuals?

visuals help but arent necessary at all. take into consideration google play music pushes youtube videos pretty aggressively...and its a music app people arent even looking at past the selection screen. i think the majority of people listening to music via youtube (and thats a pretty substantial number i think) arent 'watching' it at all.

i also think most music on youtube doesnt have real visuals anyway...just album art...or some image of some kind.

bandcamp will make youtube videos for you...and just use the artwork you specify.

[thomekk]

If I decide to start a rachMiel YouTube channel and put my tracks up on it, would they be more engaging (i.e. get more listeners) if they were accompanied by cool visuals? Or do YouTube music listeners really only care about the music, not the visuals?

Hey Rachmiel,

good question!
I see myself confrontated with a similar situation. I think it's a good idea if you have someone with the skills to do some visuals for your stuff to just do it and put it on Youtube (would be curious!).

To be honest: I really can't answer your question as I still don't know it for myself. But I guess (being in the same boat) it's the game to have more audience with some moving pics going on instead of pure audio (as there is so much everywhere). Music has become meaningless nowadays (lots of reasons; one seems to be the allaround-disposability..). But not a reason not to try to show the virtue good compositions still have of course

[jancivil]

Clearly I'm very ignorant of how this works, so please have patience with what must seem like silly questions!

If I decide to start a rachMiel YouTube channel and put my tracks up on it, would they be more engaging (i.e. get more listeners) if they were accompanied by cool visuals? Or do YouTube music listeners really only care about the music, not the visuals?

I made some form of moving picture for ~90% of mine. I enjoyed doing it at the time but it was a lot of work (one modi operandi is less work, use iTunes classical visualizer but for it to capture properly means multicores and a lot of RAM). I don't know what people do, I use Youtube as my main listening to music platform but I'd definitely prefer not to look at videos which don't match the music well, and unless it's a live performance I tend to quit looking at the screen pretty quick these days.

The AAC or whatever they compress to (last I checked it was AAC; there was some noise about html5 or something but I didn't follow it.) sounds better than most things online. I was exporting 1080p [V] or higher to get the 192kbps they used to provide. They quit. I began noticing it on certain things, definition lost, not like bad quality but things I know are there but they're not there now. Vs Soundcloud which I quit bothering with around 3 yrs ago because of the degraded quality, noticed it significantly in some bass, cymbals can be dodgy...