My thoughts on musician share sites:

SoundCloud is the best I’ve found so far- because you can upload a full WAV file as opposed to being limited to a compressed/compromised MP3- and the player works! As opposed to ReverbNation with it’s 8 MB MP3 limit and player that hasn’t been working right for the past few months (That’s unacceptable for a music site!).

MySpace is now back up and music-friendly and computer friendly (per Windows 7 in my case)- but so far not as cool as the old version- that everyone cliquishly abandoned for Facebook. I boycott FB- because when I shared my political views there I was sensored! It’s a horrible site for numerous reasons, which I will not go into. Another site that sensors according to an unknown agenda is Yahoo. BTW if you have computer trouble with any site, try the Chrome browser. Although Internet Explorer’s recent update may have made that unecessary, (hopefully! Because Google is another dubious company in my experience).

Anyway, so far, I prefer SoundCloud from a music artist’s perspective/it’s more music artist orientated. In fact I think that’s all it is, maybe even too much, with no forums, message boards or commenting except for their strange commenting system per a song.

And no forums/message boards at any other music share sites either (that I’ve found), well, except Last.fm, but the problem there, last I tried, is their music share system is horrible. ReverbNation has the best music share system IMO, but, as mentioned, the player hasn’t been working right! I may try creating my own sites: One, for my content, and maybe another as something to compete with these lame share sites. It’s a market! The problem is no one’s doing it right, and most are just their relying on people to “upgrade” so they can cash in, which makes me wonder what drives Audacity?

Know of a cool music share site? Post it in a reply here, and a review would be appreciated. Or sites to avoid and why.

I’m in total agreement with you on Facebook but not for its music sharing or censorship issues. That site’s GUI still confounds me with its nested options and settings and not knowing just exactly what Friend Me and Friend Request implies to folks I don’t know well or even heard of.

The only music sharing site that comes to mind is Grooveshark which is similar to LastFM and does allow commenting on uploaded music which I haven’t tried, yet. I use it to listen to full length high quality sound versions of songs I sample and buy on CD through Amazon. Amazon’s 30 second heavily compressed mp3 samples aren’t going to tell me whether a 6 minute Electronica/Big Beat song I’ve never heard of is just repetitive drum machine/synth crap. I also use it to compare improved mastering of reissued CD’s from older versions I already have.

What’s wrong with YouTube?

YouTube? For music quality? First of all you have to figure out how to make a video with high quality audio. ok say you do that–then you upload it to youtube and what happens? does it stay HQ or do they compress–im pretty sure they compress (they conveniently don’t share that info/last I checked)–unless maybe you pay/or have some special youtube deal?? they do give recommendations on how to configure your audio/if you do/and all their recommendations suggest teeny weeny compression–last I checked.

BTW Myspace is still NOT GOOD for musicians/and local connectivity/but you can connect with big business and big stars there—ridiculous! The internet is becoming a big corporate sell-out.

Music Artist FREE Share Sites 2014 (My year in review)

Currently I’ve deleted all my music share accounts except Soundcloud. That is the short of the long but that does not herald Soundcloud as the be all end all, no, no way. If I had a site (I created) that would be the best.

I’ve yet to find a rewarding site, a fun interactive community of sharing and what not. Instead we have advanced technologies that are being utilized to make us think somethings happening when in reality we are more isolated and disconnected than ever! Too many wanting to be (or thinking they’re) Elvis or some current idol and in turn being exploited by their own ruthless individualism, business as usual; and baiting you to “upgrade” (pay) along the way at most of these sites, while scaling back any community.

Forums or communities on these sites (e.g., ‘gathering places’; posting places, message boards) seem to have disappeared (as well as live linking abilities, embedding, etc.). All commenting and posting is now being solely directed at an artists page or creation, where there is no room for much of a comment and they’re conveiniently lost as new ones are added (or the song moves along, per Soundcloud), and of course they are for one topic, the artist’s work, and that’s fine in and of itself but that is the extent of ‘interactivity’ on these sites now, other than private messaging (from my experience).

And the other big problem now is the possibility that these sites are implimenting computer programs to simulate some of these interactions. To create the illusion that someone listened, liked or friended; fanned, or followed; or even commented. The Facebook syndrome, ‘friend’ worship, ‘status’, ‘recognition’ vanity, BS illusion. No doubt these computer geeks are infiltrating what should be genuine interactivity on these sites and other places on the internet.

Also, search engines being manipulated to create results desired by who ever paid the most. No doubt this is Google’s profit secret (try the alternative: “duck, duck, go”, Bing, etc.). And here’s proof, search: sacred lost, my band, currently at Soundcloud (of this writing, Jan 23, 2015), and when I last checked it does not come up with Google (or is pages buried). What comes up are what I assume the more ‘popular’ things with sacred and lost in them but not sacred lost (together in that order) which at this writing is exclusive to me. Now try Bing, when I do I’m at the top, which is what I would want if I was looking for me.

So what have we then? We have an explosion of people wanting to be heard and near no way of discovering them. Go to any site and search by genre and only the top of the top come up. And genres are another problem, no one seems to even know what genre they are, and there is little creativity or expansion of genres in and of themselves (we need genres redefined, but who or what is going to do that?). There is Pop, which is strange because, what is Pop? Most people on a music artist share site are not Pop. If I was “Pop”, I wouldn’t even waste me bloody time on the /BEEP/ing internet, I’d hire someone to do that bit of /BEEP/.

So that’s it, well part of it, for me anyway, with the current state of musician share web sites.

Now per 2015? Just yesterday I received an email that Soundcloud is chopping a bit of me songs away, that I’ve reached me limit and they’re going to cut me tail off (and a possible unneeded organ). Oww! So I hit the search engine, Google, Bing? 'ell I dunno and luckily hit the right words and found another site that won’t cut me off or limit this and that, Yourlisten.com, so I’ll see how that goes…/UPDATE: Yourlisten proved to be unreliable (a FAIL). More on this down the timeline of this thread.

Enough of this wanking, back to pretending I’m Elvis. “A hunka hunka burnin’ love…ah. I said a hunka hunka…”

Thanks for sharing your thoughts BDB. SoundCloud was the best that I found too, which is why we decided to put an Audacity group there, but yes I agree that it is rather lacking in terms of “community”. I’ll be interested to hear how it goes with Yourlisten.com. Currently they are quite small (Alexa global rating is 37,979th most popular site, compared to audacityteam.org in 17,865th place), but it looks quite interesting. Whoever gets the formula right is going to make huge amounts of money, which I guess is the motive of all such sites.

The good news, if you search Google for your band with the name in “quotes”, it does come up on the first page.

Something I have not seen, just having joined this forum. There is not a legal section except to point out that Soundcloud will not let you share some songs if they are covers and the software detects the title as a possibly copyright infringement.

Point being, I think Audacity can be used as well or easier than any other DAW. 1’s and 0’s are the same, whether it is Audacity, Cubase, Protools, whatever. So, when someone does create some original music, what do they do to get it out to the public to sell?

Granted, I am not a big fan of Facebook but soundcloud is going to appeal primarily to other musicians. Most of the people that I know who are generically on FB do NOT know about soundcloud.

Which is fine if you are only appealing to other broke musicians. What do you call a bass player without a girlfriend? Homeless. :smiley:

I think musician share sites are fine and certainly a good place to hone the craft. But with a caveat. Musicians are particular and picky. Just because a guy or a band gets applause from other picky musicians does not mean they will be a big hit selling albums.

Which is also okay if you are okay with whatever success you have. A friend of my wife and me is Ray Wylie Hubbard. Most have not heard of his name but they have heard of his song, “Redneck Mother,” as recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker.

Hubbard records his own stuff and sells cd’s at his gigs, his wife running the merch table.

Response to ronws:

“…soundcloud is going to appeal primarily to other musicians.”

Yes I agree and that’s a big problem/the old Myspace was best, where most were there just to be there and at the same time you had band options (Youtube imbedding, etc.). FB probably excels here now with a semi-captive audience of “friends” and friends of friends etc. and band options/pages whatever (or from the last time I was on the fascist book anyway, ca. 2010).

But yes, I would say SC (and the like) is mostly musicians (broke or not) that are almost solely interested in being heard and not interested in hearing others. Which IMO these sites should be designed more where they encourage the listening of others. Charts seem best with accurate and fair voting, unswayed by anything. Simple voting to which a song goes up or down. The problem is these sites can not be trusted to keep things fair (or make things fair), or accurate but instead will exploit anyone’s desire to be number one by accepting payment (a.k.a., payola) or swaying things because of some other unknown ulterior motive or agenda. I would rather a site be totally free (while being fair and unbiased) and have advertisements than exploit and or manipulate it’s members at every turn.

“…records his own stuff and sells cd’s at his gigs…”

There’s the leap! From laptop virtual baloney to the real ‘redneck mother’ world! Although I think the Beatles had it best when they were able to quit touring and just be creative and sell records… and bobble heads.

Also, regardless of the shortcomings of many of these musician share sites they are a good reference to where someone can easily find and listen to you. Either by a link shared, or simply telling them where you’re at.

Yourlisten.com (YL) Review, Jan. 30, 2015 (YL, a free and unlimited musician share site): /UPDATE: This site has since made my FAIL list. Read more at other entry down this thread/

So far YL has pluses and minuses from my experience. I use a public computer when needing internet access, for numerous reasons, mainly economic… (As the dollar drops and the cost of living rises thanks to our criminal overlords, ‘the feds,’ here in the not so good anymore USA.). So these public computers are windows 7 and seemingly updated as needed, which, from what I know, windows 7 properly updated should not be limited… but it is. So when I have an edit problem or something that seems to not work, I resort to Microsoft’s IE’s rival, Google’s Chrome (an option on these computers) and it usually works (what’s up with that MS?). So other than that, per YL, with my setup, so far…

YL Minus: the player at YL works but when I switch pages within the site it stops, I guess I could open a duplicate tab, have to remember that… shouldn’t have to though.

YL (big) Plus: On my personal YL page I can drag my songs in any order I desire (unlike SC’s free version)

YL Minus: There is a playlist feature (allowing one playlist) but I can not name it or arrange entries in it, they are just ordered as I enter them and found on a header tab labeled, “Playlist.” Oh well… Here SC is better with their playlist(s) feature being nameable, orderable, tagable, etc…

YL (big) Plus: Unlimited number of song uploads (quantity) per account, accepting most formats. With a high 350 MB’s per song limit, if I remember right.

YL Minus: the song title limit is about 60 characters, including spaces, which although long, I found too short, albeit slightly.

YL Minus: My band name is basically missing and user name is the only name showing, which can have no spaces. So I guess that outcome depends on availability and whether or not your name is one or more words. Otherwise you can include your band name proper in each song title, albeit limited.

Also, I think there are advertisements on YL (SC?) although so far they have been marginalized and unobtrusive. Things always change though, will see.

Oh, and like the norm now, no community other than the usual ability to comment about a song (and or artist, one or the other or both, don’t remember). But better IMO is YL with a traditional commenting layout as opposed to SC’s buried in the song’s waveform method. It’s irrelevant anyway, per SC, investing in comments, tags, etc. per a song when it will be removed as you add new one’s (if you exceed your free-limit that is).

Remember it’s not 1984! Or is it? Listen to whatreallyhappened.com radio/stream/free MP3 downloads.

Your Listen (.com/free share site) Update, Feb. 5, 2015 (…thumbs down for this site):

This is a musician/podcaster share site that comes up in a search when looking for “unlimited uploads,” “free musician share site.” So I did and joined this site a few weeks ago and today have just deleted all my content therein and deleted my account, at least I didn’t have to write them an email to disconnect as I did with ourstage.com (another quirky disappointing musician share site experience for me).

So, what’s the deal? Well this time I went in willing to overlook minor quirks and money games as long as I could have my page the way I wanted it (to a point, I understand)! A website/webpage of my own (-with ads-? Okay, as long as not intrusive, and they weren’t.). So I started to add my songs/content and then yesterday, after about ten or fifteen songs invested, I started to notice songs disappearing, appearing as duplicates, and randomly shuffled in positions (from where I had originally ordered them). After this happening again today I deleted my account. This is an unreliable site and I did not want to waste anymore of my time with it, the end.

So the search continues… to just find ‘Twenty acres and a mule’ somewhere in cyberland, somewhere I can call home (and yes, free-). Ha! -will keep you updated. Maybe the NSA can open up a free share site(!) I hear they have plenty of room(…).

A letter to Dr. Luv (Dr. Luv & friends) from Sacred Lost:
“Yo waz-up Dr. Luv…

I had high hopes for the internet and it was actually better when it first got going, ca. 2010[?]. I don’t know, I guess it gets corporatized/governized (commercialized) like everything else that use to be some kind of outlet/hang-out for people. But was it ever good? No, not really.

If I had a website it would be good for the kind of desperately creative/going nuts (sick of the same old /beep/) kind of people out there like you and me. All these sites are just playing games with people’s need to be heard–it’s one sided, everyone is really just alone probably thinking the same, WTF am I doing here?

IDK–but yeah, the guitar is always there! I’ve been trying podcasts/where you just talk… sort of let whatever out (which is actually better for me because I still don’t have any music recording equipment! And currently use my ipod’s voice memo feature!). But I’m currently looking for a (limitless) site to share my podcast, and music (and am not going to pay soundcloud!)/ …to (-at the least-) have them online for posterity sake! If nothing else.

So—many people are uploading stuff now I’m starting to feel more insignificant than ever… but it’s probably more of a reality check[!]. But like I was stating, these sites should be better designed so you can discover people you like. The only way I ran across you was because (the old) myspace had proper designed forums you could share stuff. Forums that worked better than all these new designs that are so limiting and (intentially) hard to navigate (if they even have a community type forum). And let’s face it most of the stuff /beep/ anyway–not much real/originals out there. But then again/no where to look either… It seems the more we advance technologically the further we become divided. Conveiniently packed away in a computer matrix. I think if the Beatles started out today they’d never get anywhere.

Thanks for giving me a soundboard to ramble. Maybe we should move to Colorado?! Where we could jam/and get stoned! If I could ever get the /beep/ out of here/I need to.

Study cool,

Ron (Sacred Lost)”

Also, my thoughts in regards to podcasting/this thread:
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=84168

ReverbNation.com is okay but the downloads get the metadata removed and blocked from re-adding! And just about all sites recode/transcode whatever you upload to 128k for their players, which can ruin the sound if it’s compressed already at a different rate. ANyway other than that, too many chiefs and not enough Elvis’s or screaming fans or much of anything unless your already an actual practicing musician, which in that case la tee da to you, here’s a quarter in your hat -----.