17 Comments

sudara

Sound Cloud has some amazingly creative features - Commenting on the waveform is probably one of my favorites. The developers are very responsive (I was an early beta tester) and fun loving guys.

Bandcamp is going for a different slice of the pie it seems - less community and more pimping you out to have a great landing page. I love their simplicity and straightforward take and their attempts to keep things hi-fi.

I humbly offer my top pick (with the not so humble disclaimer that I’m the lead developer): http://alonetone.com

Open Source. Run by a Musician. No genres. No company involved. Just people and music.

October 13, 2008 @ 3:56 pm

George Napier

Wow. Simply, wow.

Love the reporting feature.

Agree with the above comment: Different slices of the pie. No reason you can’t run with both though…

October 13, 2008 @ 4:01 pm

papertiger

I’m curious as to why virb is not in the test/running — granted, it’s not as “nice”(?), but it seems to get the job done. . .

October 13, 2008 @ 4:23 pm

Peter Kirn

Thanks, sudara! I’ll absolutely be checking that out.

Well, actually, maybe it makes no sense to look at the issue this way. We have lots of overlapping tools. So things like virb are built as full-blown, MySpace-killing music sites. What was interesting to me about Bandcamp / SoundCloud etc. was that they focus (SoundCloud in particular with the dropbox) almost completely on the music hosting side. So that’d be closer to the way a lot of us use things like Flickr or Vimeo, where we use some of those internal community features, but the main draw is the ability to upload there and then integrate with other communities and blogs.

But, you know, it’s almost impossible now to be on top of all of these things, so keep them coming … I welcome more nominees!

October 13, 2008 @ 4:40 pm

Sean

Bandcamp looks pretty good. I like that you can set the price for different quality levels of your songs.

I agree with the above comments that Bandcamp and SoundCloud serve different purposes: Bandcamp is more for getting your music to your fans; SoundCloud is better at letting other music creators know what you’re up to.

Thanks for tipping us off to both resources!

October 13, 2008 @ 4:56 pm

Peter Kirn

Yeah, that’s my impression looking deeper into it. So maybe not a prize fight so much as a guide to different tools is needed … we’ll be on it. Keep the tips coming, tipsters.

October 13, 2008 @ 5:03 pm

Ryan Jaeger

I like this A LOT.

However when their system renames the actual files, they should format them “Artist_-_Album_-_Track#_-_(Disc#)_-_Song Title.” They should probably add file summary info if at all possible, as well.

There are many people who prefer to browse their music w/o an application, and if you extracted the music as they have it now you couldn’t sort by artist.

Either way it’s a start to a good system, but if they want to do it right, they should include all the basic info in the file name, and file info - not just the id3 tags.

October 13, 2008 @ 11:11 pm

leo cavallo

As far as I know Bandcamp.mu is the only option if you need a platform for selling your music on-line, 100% independently and without any extra fees (well, beside Paypal’s fee).

I just created my personal account/page (leocavallo.bandcamp.mu - sorry for the spam!) and I’m loving it.

October 14, 2008 @ 4:27 am

Oliver Chesler

Thanks Peter… and I have to say CDM is a daily must read for anyone into music.

October 14, 2008 @ 7:29 am

georgn

I’ve been using iCompositions.com for a number of years now I’ve been a very happy camper. MacJams.com serves a similar audience.

There’s also macidol.com, virb.com, jamendo.com, last.fm, myspace.com.

I’ve been playing with Soundcloud. And I would have uploaded to bandcamp.mu except their insistence on 16-bit versus 24-bit means I have some transcoding to do first… Now that the beta is over and the pricing for soundcloud has been released, I’m wondering if I’ll continue to bother.

We live in interesting times.

October 14, 2008 @ 11:55 am

paul rose

@ leo cavallo: There is also . They take a fee, but the very minimum. It seems to be orientated to small labels and shops etc, but you can open your own “store” as musician as well.

October 14, 2008 @ 1:13 pm

paul rose

ithinkmuisc.com I mean. Ups someone can edit my post?

October 14, 2008 @ 1:13 pm

links for 2008-10-14 « Jay’s blog

[...] Create Digital Music » Bandcamp versus SoundCloud: Online Music Sharing Services, Fight! [...]

October 15, 2008 @ 12:01 am

New Urban Music Blog

Potentielle MySpace-Killer…

Bandcamp Screencast from Ethan Diamond on Vimeo.

Seit Jahren wird nach Alternativen zur most ugly ever-Community MySpace gesucht, aber niemand konnte sich bisher gegen den Platzhirschen durchsetzen. So langsam scheint s…

October 16, 2008 @ 4:15 pm

Jamie

There is also the freesound project, which has a slightly different emphasis, focusing on sounds rather than ‘music’ or ’songs’. Shame it doesn’t have a nice API for embedding player applets in your own websites etc.

October 17, 2008 @ 1:42 pm

Chris

Sundara — wow, your free music-sharing site feels just right…an attractor for music ^giving^. A work of love indeed.

October 17, 2008 @ 5:44 pm

Jock

As a sound cloud user I can personally say that I hate it and I want it to die.

Bandcamp looks a lot nicer both in external viewing and setup for the artist.

October 18, 2008 @ 8:54 pm

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