SoundCloud is a global online audio distribution platform based in Berlin, Germany, that enables its users to upload, record, promote, and share their originally-created sounds. According to the company’s data, in December 2014, the service attracts more than 175 million unique monthly listeners, while content creators upload about 12 hours worth of audio every minute. Founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss are the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technical officer (CTO), respectively.
SoundCloud is an audio platform that lets you listen to what you love and share the sounds you create.
Millions of people use SoundCloud to listen to music and audio for free. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. The SoundCloud app lets you hear more.
Features
Among SoundCloud’s key features is the ability to allow artists to upload their music with a distinctive URL. By allowing sound files to be embedded anywhere, SoundCloud can be combined with Twitter and Facebook to let members reach an audience better. By clicking a share button corresponding to the site where they wish to promote the shared content – such as Facebook – and approving the post, artists and publishers can let audiences on that site see the content through their desired media outlet. This contrasts with MySpace, which does not have reshare buttons. Over half the songs that are uploaded are played within the first 30 minutes, and 90% of all uploaded tracks receive a listen from at least one user.
SoundCloud users can create and join groups that provide a common space for content to be collected and shared.
Registered SoundCloud users have the power to listen to as much content as they wish and to upload up to 180 minutes of audio to their profile. All of these features are free of charge and available to all SoundCloud users as soon as they have registered a SoundCloud profile.
An average of 12 hours of audio is uploaded to the site every minute,and half of SoundCloud’s content is split between small-time musicians and mainstream superstars.
SoundCloud distributes music using widgets and apps.Users can place the widget on their own websites or blogs, and then SoundCloud will automatically tweet every track uploaded.
SoundCloud depicts audio tracks graphically as waveforms and allows users to post “timed comments” on specific parts of any track. These comments are displayed while the audio segment they refer to is played.
Other standard features include the ability to create playlists (previously known as “sets”), and to “Like”, “Repost”, and “Share”, to “Follow” another user, and to make complimentary downloads of their audio available.
SoundCloud’s API allows other applications or smartphones to upload music and sound files, or download files if the user has permission to do so.
This API has been integrated into several applications, most notably GarageBand, Logic Pro, and PreSonus Studio One DAW, as well as into music finders, including SoundYouNeed.
SoundCloud supports AIFF, WAV, FLAC, ALAC, OGG, MP2, MP3, AAC, AMR, and WMA files and transcodes them at 128 kbit/s
https://soundcloud.com/