The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hey folks.

This past weekend I was playing around on Soundcloud and made a playlist of music from the two musical communities I'm a part of: Songfight and the scene around NYC's Sidewalk Cafe. I'm listening to the playlist and I see how much of an embarrassment of riches my musical life is. I'm so damn fortunate to get interact with so many talented musicians. Songfighters rock, Sidewalkers rock, and I'm enjoying listening to this playlist a lot. So, I'd love to expand it if I can and perhaps have a full work day's worth of songs to enjoy.

Are you on Soundcloud?

Here's the playlist for those curious to listen.

I've been meaning to listen to that playlist of yours, I'm excited to check it out. I'm on SoundCloud. I've got a mix of Merisan stuff, my quick covers, my fun-a-day instrumentals from January, and other miscellany. I think some of it's actually pretty good!

https://soundcloud.com/sdouglass



https://soundcloud.com/samfun-aday

And BSS is on there too:

https://soundcloud.com/berkeleysocialscene

I'm on there as well: https://soundcloud.com/plaidfluff

Jerkatorium on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jerkatorium

I enjoy keeping up with what other SF artists are up to by stalking them on Soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/caravanray

forgotten about soundcloud. I rarely look at it. Must update some old versions of things I have on there

Soundcloud is where I dump my trash demos/works in progress.
https://soundcloud.com/schlimminy-cricket

As a matter of fact, I am.

https://soundcloud.com/mike-bush-557254277

Does anybody know of any good alternatives to SoundCloud? It seems likely to me that they will be bought by somebody in the next 1-2 years. They just don't have a viable business model. They tried to expand into subscription streaming music but that doesn't really seem to be going anywhere. Plus that industry is turning into a real bloodbath.

If Soundcloud folds I'll just go back to self-hosting all my music and sharing it on Tumblr or something. (Not that Tumblr is in any particularly good spot either.)

Tumblr seems likely to be sold off or otherwise negatively effected by what's going on with Yahoo. They've done practically zero with it anyway. Has it continued to grow or stagnated or declined? I don't even know. Facebook still doesn't really seem to be terribly music friendly except for its Spotify integration, which doesn't help a ton with most independent music. Bandcamp doesn't seem to be very big on integrating with social media sites like Facebook either, not really their style to work with other people.

I'm there, too. Not sure why.

https://soundcloud.com/roymond

Soundcloud doesn't work properly in my browser of choice... but I (we) have tracks up at https://soundcloud.com/ujnhunter (so far just the David Bowie Tribute is there, hope to add more in the near future...) & https://soundcloud.com/photovoltaik but I prefer bandcamp myself. http://photovoltaik.bandcamp.com

I've considered hosting individual songs on Soundcloud but haven't made the decision to do so yet. What are the upsides of using Soundcloud vs. putting everything on Bandcamp, which is what I currently do?

ujnhunter wrote:Soundcloud doesn't work properly in my browser of choice...

Which browser is that?

fodroy wrote:I've considered hosting individual songs on Soundcloud but haven't made the decision to do so yet. What are the upsides of using Soundcloud vs. putting everything on Bandcamp, which is what I currently do?

They're pretty similar but SoundCloud has more "social" type features (commenting on tracks, even on specific moments of a track, liking, sharing, playlists, etc.) and potentially better integration with other sites/services. It's a little more feature rich but they might not be features you care about.

SoundCloud and Bandcamp aren't really comparable in any way. SoundCloud is basically Tumblr but focused on audio posts (with sharing and discovery and reposts and comments and so on) whereas Bandcamp is a storefront.

I basically see SoundCloud as where I put my demos and Bandcamp as where I put my finished stuff. (I also eventually put my finished stuff on SoundCloud with the hope of attracting people who will buy it on Bandcamp but so far that hasn't panned out.)

Lunkhead wrote:

ujnhunter wrote:Soundcloud doesn't work properly in my browser of choice...

Which browser is that?

Firefox (Portable) which may or may not be "outdated" by today's standards, but I'm really sick of all these websites requiring 10 different web browsers to be installed on your computer because some only work properly on Chrome or Safari or Firefox or IE or Edge or Dolphin or... they're just web pages... they should work on every browser, or they should stop using "fancy" scripting crap that only works on one version of one browser. /Rant

That being said... I try to upload all of my (our) tunes onto as many of these sites (Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Reverbnation, Uvumi, etc...) as possible to allow the music to be as widely seen (heard) as they can be.

fluffy wrote:SoundCloud and Bandcamp aren't really comparable in any way.

That seems like a major overstatement. You can upload your songs to both of them, right? People can listen to your songs on them both, right? I could go on....

Soundcloud started off for me as a professional-looking gig-acquisition tool, which I've turned into my Songfight-song-sharing-with-the-world funbag (if I may exploit the term that way). In meeting with my graphic/web designer yesterday, I realise this is an error, both in terms of the shoddy phone recordings (thanks for tolerating them) I now have there AND the missed opportunities to direct my audience to the Songfight page!

Thus there are some professionally recorded tracks near the bottom here, and soon that's all there'll be: http://www.soundcloud.com/pepper-jane

Lunkhead wrote:

fluffy wrote:SoundCloud and Bandcamp aren't really comparable in any way.

That seems like a major overstatement. You can upload your songs to both of them, right? People can listen to your songs on them both, right? I could go on....

Bandcamp is a storefront for selling music. SoundCloud is a social network for sharing music. Completely different design criteria and usage patterns. The way their discovery is wired up is totally different, too. Those two aspects are the only things they have in common.

I mean you can upload your songs to Tumblr and people can listen to them there, right?

You can upload your songs to YouTube and people can listen to them there, right?

Plenty of other sites that fit those criteria as well, but that doesn't make them equivalent.

Also here's a strained metaphor: A bake sale is a place to sell cookies. A potluck is a place to share cookies.

fluffy wrote:

Lunkhead wrote:

fluffy wrote:SoundCloud and Bandcamp aren't really comparable in any way.

lists two ways that they ARE comparable

agrees they are comparable those ways
...
makes a different point, that they are not "equivalent"

I agree they are not "equivalent".

You can also compare apples and oranges on a mass spectrometer. But you can be as obtuse as you want.

When I say they "aren't really comparable in any way" I mean they aren't comparable as the same sort of service because they aren't the same sort of service, at least not in the context in which they were both brought up in this thread. The fact they are both means of listening to music isn't the point of comparison.

You can also compare Song Fight and Soundcloud in that way.

You can also compare Song Fight and Facebook because they are both sites on the web where people post stuff.

You can also compare Facebook and lemongrass tofu because they are both things that exist on the planet Earth.

So okay, congratulations, you poked a GIGANTIC HOLE in my argument through a specious, literal interpretation of a colloquial expression! Aren't you fucking proud.