SoundCloud is a tool for sending and receiving music, with features tailored specifically to the needs of people who want to share and discuss tracks. Tracks are shown with a sound waveform, and comments can be placed on any spot in the track timeline. SoundCloud tries to take the hassle out of working with music online, and is focused on music professionals rather than the general music listener. You can take a tour of the features here. SoundCloud was part of SIME07: the service was used for collaboration when Le Choix made the SIME theme.
With the latest release, SoundCloud is maturing into a music platform and useful tool for producers, labels and anyone making, discussing or sending music. The release brings two features that makes Soundcloud a real participant in the music ecosystem even though the service is still in invite-only beta mode. (We have invites for the SIME crowd, check the bottom of this post!)
The DropBox is an upload page or embeddable upload widget that can be used to receive tracks, that get added to the Soundcloud dashboard and can be played and discussed immediately without the hassle of downloading from some ftp-server or file-sharing page. Labels and music bloggers are already using this tool, and the second big feature of the latest release: the embeddable music player. Soundcloud is going from being a walled garden during the first beta phase, to spreading public Soundcloud tracks all over the web in a customizable player that displays both the track wave form and the timed comments in it. As an example, I have embedded the SIME 07 soundtrack produced by Le Choix below:
I also had the chance to talk a bit with Eric Wahlforss, one of the founders of SoundCloud, and ask him a few questions about the SoundCloud service and the company.
Andie: Behind the scenes, you are developing a solid API for SoundCloud. Why is this important, and what kind of services do you hope people will build on top of the API?
Eric: The API is actually launched already, and there are a ton of cool stuff that could be built on top it. Just imagine direct integration with music/audio production software, so that artists could create tracks and share them with friends or collaborate right from within the environment they are familiar with. All sort of audio upload/publishing/sharing tools could also be possible, e.g. record sounds on an iPhone and push them directly to SoundCloud. We already have a sort of real-time social network mashup radio app running internally, it’s pretty awesome…
Andie: SoundCloud has managed to draw some high profile names to the service. Tell us who these people are and how they use the service.
Eric: We have people like Richie Hawtin, Dimitri from Paris and Louie Vega on the site. Some of the big names, like Howie B, are really active users. They mostly use SoundCloud to stay up to date with their network of producers and to send and share unreleased material with their circles.
Andie: Do you get a lot of feedback from your users, and how do you handle that feedback internally?
Eric: We get a lot of feedback every day, and we always try to talk back, and generally be very transparent in our development process. Every now and then we sit down with users and ask them what they want from the platform. The hard part is to synthesize the plethora of requirements into “smart compromises” that will do the job without getting in the way of users.
Andie: What does it mean for SoundCloud to be located in Berlin? Is it a good startup environment?
Eric: Berlin is a fantastic city! It’s one of the most important musical hubs in the world and quality of life is great. Rent and food are really cheap, so we save huge amounts of cash too. It’s almost like outsourcing to east europe, and yet we stay in the west really close to most other metropols in Europe. The only thing that kind of sucks is the German tax law, but we get partly around that by being a UK Ltd.
Andie: You have a couple of invites to SoundCloud for the SIME crowd. Who should take a chance to check it out, and why?
Eric: SoundCloud is simply the best service for sending and receiving music. If you’re dealing with that a lot, then you *need* an invite, it will ease your pain.
If you want to ease your pain, sign up for Soundcloud through the special SIME guestlist here:
http://soundcloud.com/guestlist/sime
[Disclaimer: I was part of the Soundcloud team for a short spell when the project was started in Stockholm in spring 2007, before I moved on to a game producer role at the company P.]
