I was thinking to myself the other day, “It’s been a while since SoundCloud added new features. I hope they keep innovating.”. Well it seems the Berliners have been busy getting us an iPad app. I think musicians are more keen on design than the regular person and that’s one of the reasons I like the new iPad app. It’s pretty.

“The iPad is a revolutionary device that has changed the way we interact with content of all types. Our amazing iOS and design teams have created a fantastic app to reflect this, enabling you to interact with the sounds shared with you in a very intuitive way.” – Soundcloud.com

For more info: blog.soundcloud.com/2011/10/27/ipad/

Every musician knows by now Soundcloud is a great way to share and explore music. I share my own tracks to Groups and often explore them. Here are 14 that are non-genre specific but more “pro-audio” based. What are your favorite Soundcloud groups? Have you started a Group of your own?

1. The Singer/Songwriter Group link
2. Analog or Modular Synthesizers link
3. Samples link
4. Sound Concepts and Experimental Feeds link
5. Hardware Samplers link
6. iOS Music link
7. Creative Commons link
8. iOS Musicians link
9. Hardware Synthesizers link
10. Circuit Bent link
11. Synth Samples link
12. The Sound of Airports, Planes, Trains & Train Stations link
13. Vocoder Love link

“SoundCloud was originally started in Stockholm, Sweden, but was established in Berlin, Germany in August, 2007 by sound designer Alex Ljung and artist Eric Wahlforss. It had the intention of allowing musicians to share recordings with each other, but later transformed into a full publishing tool which also allowed musicians to distribute their music tracks.” – Wikipedia

Follow me on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/thingstocome

Did you know there are a few hidden or extra ways to customize a SoundCloud player? First, for a few extra color choices head over to a Get Satisfaction post which shows you some text and numbers to enter into the Embed code: link. If you want to go further check out The SoundCloud Custom Player at GitHub (that’s how the image of the player above was created): link. If you have customized your player let me know I’d like to see it!

“This plugin allows you to create easily customizable, HTML/CSS/JS based audio players. It uses jQuery together with the official SoundCloud Flash widget for the audio streaming and widget JS API for its control.” – github.com

Follow me on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/thingstocome

For some reason I should be more excited about the Mac App Store than I am right? I thought it was strange that it’s not integrated into iTunes. I looked for Mac apps there for 10 minutes before I figured out the new store launched from the Apple menu or dock. In a way I’m happy about that because iTunes is way too clunky already but the new Mac App Store’s home is inconsistant. Ok getting past that… the desktop SoundCloud app is the launch winner as far as music stuff goes. It’s nice, new and makes sense for some although I think I will simply keep using the website. The only music software I download after the big one (Ableton) are plug-ins and those are a no go so… I bought the update to iMovie which is the only thing I wanted out of new iLife. It’s a start.

“You can browse Mac apps by category, such as games, productivity, music, and more. Or do a quick search for something specific. Read developer descriptions and user reviews. Flip through screenshots. When you find an app you like, click to buy it.” – apple.com/mac/app-store/

For more info: apple.com/mac/app-store/

Stratus from Lee Martin on Vimeo.

The only type of SoundCloud player that was missing was one that would float on the top or bottom of a site and continue to play as you switch pages. Lee Martin solved the problem with his new Stratus SoundCloud player.

“Stratus is a jQuery powered SoundCloud player that lives at the bottom (or top) of your website or blog and enables visitors to listen to SoundCloud tracks & sets.” – stratus.heroku.com

For more info: blog.soundcloud.com/stratus

SoundCloud for iPhone from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

SoundCloud has updated it’s iPhone app to include one very important feature: recording. After you hit the new orange button your track is pushed to the SoundCloud site and you get options to share the track on Facebook and Twitter. Will this replace the very sleek FiRe app for you? If the Berliners are reading this I’m ready for an iPad SoundCloud app too please.

“Record: capture your sounds on-the-go and share them directly to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Browse and search user profiles. Share any public track to Facebook & Twitter Background playback (on iOS4)” – soundcloud.com

By the way, I have been featured on the SoundCloud sign up tour pages: click here

Be warned the service I am mentioning today may not be legit. Would you pay to have your SoundCloud tracks played more? Cloud Promotion says it will get you a set number of “Plays” for money. It seems the service is based in Europe because their prices are listed in Euros and the English text is well messed up (fancy detective work I know). Some examples: 1000 Plays for 25 Euro or 5000 Plays for 75 Euro. The site looks very much like the SoundCloud site. Is it officially affiliated with them somehow? Does it matter who listens to your songs? I know I would like a target audience not just 1000 random people. Lastly, would 1000 Plays = 25 actual song sales?

I tried to find some mention of Cloud Promotion in the SoundCloud forums but I couldn’t figure out a way to search there. If I am missing an obvious way to search the forums someone please let me know.

“With cloud Promotion You Can Have A couple bunch of Traffic to your mix or track And Make Easy The Audience of Your Dream” – cloud-promotion.com

For more info: cloud-promotion.com

In a previous post, “Great Facebook Bandpages with RootMusic and ArtistData” I explain how I made my Facebook fan page for The Horrorist so pretty. Last night J Sider the CEO of RootMusic did a live walk through of their service on Ustream which I have embedded above. If you have used the service please leave a link to your Facebook fan page in the comments so I can check out your design and music.

“J Sider, our CEO, is going to demo how to set up and optimize a BandPage. He’ll start from scratch and give you the inside scoop on all the new features so you can get the most out of your BandPage.” – RootMusic

For more info: rootmusic.com

SoundCloud has finally upgraded it’s platform to include Advanced Search. This was a desperately needed feature and is the cherry on top of the current best place to share music for musicians. In the past I had issues even finding my own uploaded tracks. You can now also get detailed genre, tag, label and track type searches. I can finally troll through “synthpunk” or “EBM” tagged tracks. There were Groups before but honestly people put their music in every group so it’s played more. I know they can do the same with Tags but it’s less an issue for some reason.

The Berlin company also have upped their integration with Creative Commons. They have added a special start page if your searching for CC licensed material: soundcloud.com/creativecommons and the SoundCloud Player now shows a CC symbol if the material is licensed. So now I can search my own username and find everything I released under a CC License: http://bit.ly/b3wE7i

For more info on the new features: blog.soundcloud.com/tag/feature/

Follow me on SoundCloud: thingstocome

I’ve never set up a Facebook Fanpage for my own music (The Horrorist). When I originally joined Facebook it was reluctantly because MySpace was still a living community and it seemed redundant. To top it off the music features in Facebook were seriously lacking. Two external services, one which ties into Soundcloud have changed my mind.

RootMusic helps you design a proper “Bandpage”. It pulls your music from SoundCloud and allows you to make something actually album cover like. In other words your not stuck in tiny font slash baby blue Facebook land. RootMusic also easily pulls in Vimeo, Youtube videos, photos from your Fanpage, and your Twitter and RSS feeds.

Lastly, it has integration with ArtistData. ArtistData takes your show dates and puts them all over your social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, Eventfull…) so you don’t have to do the repetitive task yourself.

For a much more detailed review of RootMusic check out this write up on TechCrunch titled, “Musicians – This Is How You Create A Great Looking Facebook Page”: click here

The Horrorist Facebook fan page: listn.to/TheHorroristmusic