Post by Audiozoo on Jul 14, 2017 11:24:31 GMT
Clyp-It is the new SoundCloud, Audiozoo is the new CloudKillers
SoundCloud is currently undergoing rumours of closing in less than 50 days time.
This might be correct, might not be.
Either way, it will NOT be the first time.
Let me point something out, there are TWO SoundClouds. They might appear to be one, but they aren’t.
I shall explain further.
When SoundCloud first launched, it was a website designed around the sharing of audio-based content creator’s submission.
Literally the sound equivalent of YouTube.
What is it now?
Well, after the destruction of ‘Soundcloud Groups’, and the prior removal of the ‘notify all followers of your new upload’, SoundCloud has a new front-end, in case you haven’t realised.
It’s called SoundCloud Go.
Guess what? SoundCloud IS going to Go, that’s for sure.
So the question is, what are you going to do about it? Quoting Dizzee Rascal’s new song, “what you gonna do?”
Where are YOU going to share your audio if and when SoundCloud ceases to exist?
Personally, I am going to share audio on Clyp.It instead.
But let me advise you of some other alternatives you are probably already aware of:
1. Spotify
2. BandCamp
3. YouTube
1. Why would I personally not choose Spotify?
Spotify is similar to SoundCloud Go, because it’s focused user-type is the listener, not the content creator who is operating as a solo unsigned artist. Content creators like Taylor Swift, that’s a different story, for example, she isn’t operating alone, she has a management team.
Let’s pick another artist, out of respect for her, i just want to make an example clear.
If you are an unsigned artist, you are operating alone, you have no:
- Manager
- Graphic Design Team
- Mixing & Mastering Engineer
- Marketing Team
- Fashion Stylist
- Photographer
- Promoter
I could list more, because I can bet you there’s more to it than just that basic infrastructure.
Of course, none of the above is necessary, it’s possible to become an internet sensation by accident, just ask Antoine Dodson.
However, if you want to succeed without ‘luck’, you need some form of team like the above mentioned.
If you don’t have that, you are not going to benefit from a site that is intended for Class A content creators who do, which is why I mentioned an artist like Taylor Swift.
You would be better off uploading to a site that is designed for base-level content creators who really only have an audio file to upload, and a name to upload it under.
So forget Spotify for now. Let’s wait until you level up. Get signed to a record label before you join Spotify. Just my suggestion.
2. Why would I not personally choose BandCamp?
BandCamp is great for uploading finished songs, but it is a waste of time if you only have an unfinished work in progress.
Also, last time I tried the site out, you can only upload .wav quality, not mp3s. I understand why, and it has good reason, but this makes it a place unsuitable if you have many tracks to upload, and a limit on time to get that process done. I have 124 publicly shared tracks on my SoundCloud page, so re-uploading them on BandCamp would take longer than I want to think about.
So cross BandCamp off your list. Also, one of the greatest benefits of having a SoundCloud page is the facility available of direct messaging other users, that is pretty valuable. I have met some contacts that are more important than my SoundCloud page itself. If it got shut down over some copyright issue, I could restart pretty easily through my contacts. Without them, I’d be starting at square one all over again, with 0 followers. That’s just considering the aspect of promotion, but really, people have more value than that (of course), there are a billion reasons why my friends and acquaintances on SoundCloud are valuable contacts.
You could use BandCamp if you choose to use a communication driven social media site like Twitter or Facebook, but otherwise, this would be lacking if you use BandCamp alone.
3 . Why would I not personally choose YouTube?
Well, YouTube is a BRILLIANT site. Skrillex is one of the most followed users on SoundCloud today (6m followers apporximately), but on YouTube, he has 15m subscribers.
The problem is, if you don’t have video content to share, your upload could easily get buried, not because of the quality of the audio you are presenting, but just because it has no visual content to entertain the viewer. So the competition for you is much harder than necessary if you choose to use YouTube as a main site for sharing your music.
Even if you have an audio visualizer, you are competing against music videos that have camera footage, then above that, video editing teams and paid directors behind them.
Trust me, that isn’t the place to be if you only have this ‘1 piece of audio’ you want to share somewhere.
So where? Where would I share my audio? I recommend to you, Clyp.it.
That is the NEW SOUNDCLOUD.
So what about the communication that I mentioned in relation to BandCamp?
I recommend everyone has a Twitter account. That is the easiest way of building a network around your music, regardless of what site you choose to upload it. It’s free to use, you can easily share your Clyp.it upload on twitter. It would be no different to SoundCloud.
However. There is something good that I found on SoundCloud, which I mentioned above, which I have taken a step further. I run a forum. you’re probably reading this article there.
The reason I run this forum is because, while SoundCloud messages are all fine and dandy, they are severely limited when compared to a forum. I am able to share things categorically.
That means, in one area I can put links to tutorials and video links, or even self-written articles to help music makers learn about music production. Personally, there are some links only found out about through a random conversation with someone outside of SoundCloud. That is why I believe it is valuable to have a place that makes all the links I have collected available to people all at once. Why me? well, because I’ve literally studied every genre of music production that I’ve encountered. So if it’s relevant to the genre, it will probably be there.
What I’m trying to point out is, whether you join MY forum or not, even a forum of your own would be able to achieve much more than SoundCloud direct messages.
Also, if you have a lot of followers on SoundCloud, you might turn off the messaging facility, then SoundCloud has little substantial benefit to you over Clyp.it.
The forum is ONE way of having a messaging system that isn’t clogged with spam.
There are other forums; Reddit is brilliant. However, if you want to share music on Reddit, they in some cases have very strict rules, to ensure you listen to everything else people have been submitting, and you are only allowed to submit something once a month in some places I’ve seen on Reddit. Other than that, it’s not a bad place to upgrade your music-related discussion and communication. Which is why I made my own one, instead of just using Reddit. Also, Proboards are very easy to customize, unlike other sites that require technical knowledge of HTML, CSS or Java. That’s certainly not an area of expertise to me. I play to my strengths.
“Audiozoo is the new CloudKillers”
Yeah. About that statement I made... I still fully stick to it. I’ve tried using CloudKillers, and I won’t go back to it. I choose not to name the artist who did it, but it was easily dominated by a very selfish person who just put garbage comments on everyone’s uploads, to allow themselves to get maximum attention there. It worked, so forget CloudKillers. it’s a waste of time. Let me point something out though, I mean no disrespect to the owners of CloudKillers, because they DID TRY to set something up to allow SoundCloud users to get more comments on songs. It is not necessarily their fault that some people abused the system.
Also, it was quite common on CloudKillers that people would comment (much longer word counts than they would through SoundCloud directly), but would not re-visit the songs they commented on, so would not click like on them whether they liked the song sentimentally or not. It would be inefficient to use CloudKillers in that way.
One of the problems I personally had with CloudKillers is that I think like an A&R. I give a monkeys (I’m trying not to use profanity, alright m8) about unsigned artists who convince me with their musical talent. So when I used CloudKillers, I found more often than not I would be unable to stick to the script of just commenting and skipping to the next song.
If I discovered a talented artist, my CloudKillers efficiency would IMMEDIATELY grind to a halt, and I would go to the actual SoundCloud page to re-post their song. Loading times of a new tab would obviously make me lose in a race versus someone who only cares about promoting their own music.
So instead, I run Audiozoo. it works much better for me this way.
I’m done talking for now.
& Welcome Danielle Haskell! What a nice surprise! 