KVR Audio

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:44 pm

I'm just wondering that everyone loves SoundCloud and it's becoming the new MySpace...

Because I don't like it. The players with the song display look like dog muck and the permanently up-popping comments make the listening no pleasure, too.

I have to close my eyes to enjoy the music - otherwise I'm always looking at this...well...dog muck song display (what I mean is the wave form of the song)...and this superficial, less convincing comments like "Oh, good", "Wow, nice intro", "Cool sound", "My dog sounds similar", "It's like trance" etc.

What do you think about it? Do you love SoundCloud? Do you hate it? What is good on SoundCloud, what isn't? Can you convince me to make a SoundCloud account?

Vintage73 · Post by **Vintage73** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:06 pm

I like being able to see the sound visually with a cursor telling me where it is in the music. It helps me also with my own production by being able to see other's waveforms.

I don't know if you can on the embedded player here, but I believe you can turn off the comments within SoundCloud itself.

The sound quality might not be the best, but it's free (for the most part).

I like their player MUCH better than, say, SoundClick's. Theirs is just irritating!

It could be a little easier searching for what you want (two-word descriptors become two separate terms searched separately), but overall I think SoundCloud is a rewarding experience.

And I like it a hell of a lot better than the Quicktime player for mp3 files (not even a time display? REALLY?).

No_Use · Post by **No_Use** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:31 pm

Agreed about the comments.
But after a while I figured out that you can turn the comments off by clicking on the 'bubble' on the right of the waveform. That made it a bit better.

seismic1 · Post by **seismic1** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:33 pm

I can forgive the sound quality of the player (128Kbps). It's good enough to listen to, and downloadable tracks are usually of much higher quality.

It can be so rewarding just digging around in there, unearthing hidden gems.

I think the waveform display can be enlightening and the comments can often be helpful.

I pay for an account, so in my opinion, SoundCloud is providing some value.

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:42 am

Soundcloud is killing the competition as far as musicians are concerned. I use Soundcloud for connecting with other musicians. It's especially great for collaboration. For example, I'm collaborating with a guy from Madrid Spain (I'm in New York) in a tune. He has put very detailed comments at precise (to the second) points in the tune so that we can work on it to a great degree of precision. I am going to remove one 1/4-note-long arpeggiation I played, and re-do two chords in a lead line. Very precise, and we use totally different software.

Soundcloud has connected me with over 3,500 followers in less than a year, and I didn't have to do anything but post my tunes, listen to others, and comment. I'm only following about 100 plus people.

hebb · Post by **hebb** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:00 am

It became the new myspace long time ago (even though I wouldn't word it like that myself - myspace was sh!t).

And yes, I like soundcloud a lot. I've been using it since the beta version and remember being a big fan since the beginning. What I don't like is the users who follow you for no reason (you probably know what I'm talking about).

I think it's time the player gets an update.

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:20 am

Yeah, a lot of people expect you to follow them just because they follow you, like "friending." Also, a lot of clueless musicians put all their tunes up then never comment on anything. That's OK if you're just using SC as a backend or something, but they don't get that SC is different. It's about connecting with musicians (and especially if you're a pro, with fans).

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:16 am

I was just using SoundCloud for hosting once I became sick of SoundClick. I'm now using existing space on GoDaddy (more space, no bandwidth restrictions), mostly. I've yet to write a pretty player like SoundClick's though...

spaceman · Post by **spaceman** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:34 am

For me, the social side of SoundCloud is as crap as any other social network.

For one, people just try to get as many follows as possible because it strokes their ego. Narcissism ahoi! So following more often than not doesn't mean they actually want to listen to your music. The last few months (year) I constantly get new follows, who then surprisingly disappear again once you follow them back. Usually arsehole DJs with an ego the size of a small planet.

Then there's the notification stream.. who on earth can keep track of a stream of notifications covering hundreds of people? Even tens of people. There's no easy overview, no way to filter, etc. so most notifications just get lost.

SoundCloud for me is an easy way to store and share music, sharing as in 'having a URL you can send to people'. The social aspect is meaningless bollocks to me.

thomekk · Post by **thomekk** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:21 am

I like the wave-display.
What Gonga said concerning the use of the comment-function for collabs makes sense. Despite of that I'm not sure about the comment-function all over the place. It's like putting post-its on paintings, no no.

I wish there was a cloudless software audio-player though which had the ability offline as soundcloud has: To show a wave-form and having the option to place exact comments on a time-line to see where the lyrics are or where something has to be worked out etc. I'm really missing this to work with music which is not finished.

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:56 am

I LOVE Soundcloud. I think the free account is most generous. I've also met some great people there and did some fun collaborations. They asked me to be an ambassador in Austin, which would have been great, but I was just starting to get sick and couldn't take them up on it. I also don't know anywhere in the world where you can get private messages of encouragement from big names in the biz. So far, I've been in contact with George Acosta and Tritonal, two of my favorite 'big names'. Where else would this happen? That's one thing I like about KVR too, the dev's like Urs and others who come on here and interact with us regular folks.
(now, if I ever get a PM from Tiesto or Van Buuren you'll have to scrape me off the floor with a spatula)

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:59 am

thomekk wrote:I like the wave-display.
What Gonga said concerning the use of the comment-function for collabs makes sense. Despite of that I'm not sure about the comment-function all over the place. It's like putting post-its on paintings, no no.

I wish there was a cloudless software audio-player though which had the ability offline as soundcloud has: To show a wave-form and having the option to place exact comments on a time-line to see where the lyrics are or where something has to be worked out etc. I'm really missing this to work with music which is not finished.

I've never thought about this because I set my markers and regions in my DAW. But it would be a nice feature.

Is it possible to accept only comments that are important for collaborations? Can you block the other - useless - comments (like "Oh, nice", "Super", "Sounds fresh", "Like ice cream..." etc.)? Because if everyone makes comments on the timeline, it looks really confusing. That's my main critic point.

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:07 pm

4lb Kitty wrote:I like being able to see the sound visually with a cursor telling me where it is in the music. It helps me also with my own production by being able to see other's waveforms.

You're right, for musicians, this is an advantage - you better can see how the song has been constructed. But for ordinary listeners I think it's somewhat confusing. They are starring at the wave form and the comments and cannot really enjoy the music itself because the comments are popping up all the time.

mcnoone · Post by **mcnoone** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:16 pm

I don't log-on enough to really hear a lot.
I only choose the favorites of what I like to hear, or if someone follows me, I do the same.
I just use it for my soundset demos, and that's it really.
It's good though...I'm always finding the world music stuff interesting, and funky fusion things, but I dislike the club music ones a lot.

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:20 pm

Gonga wrote:Soundcloud is killing the competition as far as musicians are concerned. I use Soundcloud for connecting with other musicians. It's especially great for collaboration. For example, I'm collaborating with a guy from Madrid Spain (I'm in New York) in a tune. He has put very detailed comments at precise (to the second) points in the tune so that we can work on it to a great degree of precision. I am going to remove one 1/4-note-long arpeggiation I played, and re-do two chords in a lead line. Very precise, and we use totally different software.

Soundcloud has connected me with over 3,500 followers in less than a year, and I didn't have to do anything but post my tunes, listen to others, and comment. I'm only following about 100 plus people.

Is it possible to exchange parts of songs (stems etc.) with SoundCloud? Is there also a detailed search function? For example, if I've made a tune and I need a vocalist, can I search one via SoundCloud? And can I chat with her/him on SoundCloud?

Do you really like SoundCloud?