Listening to music on SoundCloud Go is like listening on YouTube; unless you know what you're looking for, the best you can hope for is to fall down an autoplay rabbit hole of music you actually like.
Wahlforss isn't worried about competing with Spotify, at least for now. He's more focused on the million people who already use SoundCloud every month, and the 12 million so-called "creators"the musicians and DJs and remixers and cover artists that people listen to every month. Wahlforss loves the idea that those creators can live next to the Beyonces and Biebers of the world.
It all sounds so logical, really. Which begs the question: What took so long? SoundCloud's been working on deals with labels for more than three years, Wahlforss says. The company has spent all that time trying to sell labels on the idea that they should embrace the endless derivative content that comes from their music, that what users really want is to have both the original and the spin-offs in one place.
SoundCloud Go differs from other services in one crucial way: it gives artists and labels track-by-track control over who can access what. Let's say you're Drake Love your taste in shoes, can we go to a Raptors game later? Got a fire new mixtape? Put it out free for a day or two, then bring it back behind the paywall. Creators can change everything on the fly to suit whatever goals they have.
It has some big advantages. There's that huge audience, for one thing. And SoundCloud has always has the social element that other services crave. Apple Music Connect can't touch the conversation, the remixes, the community that happens on SoundCloud.
Simply put, they are very online. Graham Jonson is proof of that shift. The Portland, Oregon-based musician began uploading his self-produced beats and instrumental songs to SoundCloud as the one-man band quickly, quickly when he was only 13 years old. He hoped to find an audience for his music on the free streaming service that was experiencing something of a cultural moment at the time.
But by the time he was 16, things had changed dramatically. Some of his songs were being heard by millions of listeners, drawn to the music of quickly, quickly not by radio DJs but by word of mouth and the crowdsourced algorithmic power of the Internet. Now in his early twenties, Jonson is following a slightly more traditional path.
In this case, it might as well be. But the real standout elements on the album are its meticulous arrangements and the lush production. Jonson is aware that not long ago, his story would have been virtually impossible. But while the means may have changed, he says the end goal is the same for young musicians; they just want to find an audience. Read excerpts from the interview below or play the audio at the top this page.
How old were you when you first released [your music] onto the Internet? I think I just deleted the track. They are completely gone. But yeah, I think I was about JW: What was the initial reaction? GJ: Initially, there was no reaction whatsoever. It took me probably four or so years to start getting any type of traction online. JW: By the time you were 16 or 17, your songs were getting millions of listeners. Some of them are up into the tens of millions at this point.
Were you surprised by that? GJ: I was. I still am, to be honest. I think in my mind, ever since I was a kid, I only had one plan and it was to be a musician. Does that screw with your head? This reason for this is that of the several codecs used, the majority of them are set to take in a 48 kHz file, so this minimizes the amount of sample rate conversion that will take place.
That said, sample rate conversion has become extremely transparent, and in my tests neither the upload nor playback sample rates had an appreciable effect on encoder performance or playback quality. The one caveat here is that if you enable downloads on SoundCloud, the file you upload is the one your fans get when they download. However, this results in transcoding from one lossy format to another, which never sounds particularly good.
In short, if you want the best streaming quality possible, upload a bit WAV at Since these days downloading a local copy is probably not as common as it once was, this may be a moot point.
First and foremost, SoundCloud may well update the codecs they use in the future just as they have in the past. When that happens they will re-encode all uploaded music to take advantage of the new codec s. Second, while you can control the width, sample rate, etc.
Of course, this is true of the vast majority of playback mediums. It bears repeating here though because even on SoundCloud alone, the playback experience can vary depending on subscription level and playback device.
Hopefully, this has armed you not only with some of the tools to improve encoder performance when uploading to SoundCloud but also the wisdom to know when, when not, and how strongly to wield them. Good luck, and happy mastering! Get top stories of the week and special discount offers right in your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time. Explore the future of mastering:. Ozone 9. Learn More.
Shop Deals. Never Miss an Article! That qualifier aside, here are a few things you can do to minimize the differences between the source and the encode: Narrow the high-end Using a tool like the Imager in Ozone 9 , try narrowing frequencies above about 8 kHz.
Narrow mid and low frequencies If you want, and your master can handle it, try narrowing the mid and low bands as well. Go under the hood with these additional mastering articles:.
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