Henrik Löwenhamn

Soundcloud vs Mixcloud

Henrik — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:16:08 +0000

A few weeks ago I pulled out my credit card and started paying €9 / month to Soundcloud again. Last year I pretty much only used Mixcloud, but now I might be ditching Mixcloud for good.

Why going to Soundcloud instead of Mixcloud?

Let’s take it from the beginning, which means we can do a comparison between the two biggest services for sharing DJ-mixes on the net.

I jumped on the Soundcloud bandwagon early. They had good services for free, but I chose to pay €9 a month so I could upload loads of mixes. A feature that was great was that you with Feedburner could use Soundcloud as a host for podcasts on iTunes. When I started with this, I must have got my mix on some featured list or something cause it got more than 700 plays in a few weeks. Never figured out what happened.

The fact that Soundcloud was founded by swedes didn’t hurt either.

When Mixcloud showed up, I thought it was just a cheap brittish copy. Without the download of mixes. But I still switched to Mixcloud from Soundcloud for more than a year. Why?

Record labels scanning my mixes

Soundcloud started to, with a little help from some major labels I presume, to scan all uploaded mixes for copyrighted songs. If the software detected a song that belonged to one of the participating labels, you couldn’t upload the mix. Soundcloud was leaving the djs and focusing more on the producers.

At the same time, the connection with iTunes was removed, without any notice. It hasn’t come back yet.

Mixcloud were a free service, no copyright restrictions. You have to fill out a complete tracklist, but I like that. It’s a good feature. Mixcloud is also pretty good with the social stuff.

Back to Soundcloud

So, why am I going back to Soundcloud? I get even less for the €9 a month now, than before. The podcast feature is still missing. I only get 12 hours of upload.

The thing is, even when I really promote the mixes that I have uploaded to Mixcloud, I get very few listens. With Soundcloud, the listens stack up. It might be the more open API and the hundreds of apps that uses Soundcloud. It might be the beautiful HTML5-embed that I can use on my blog.

So the only thing missing is the podcast to iTunes-connection. There’s a beta version, but I haven’t got it yet. I have uploaded the mix to my webserver, but it has some disadvantages, like no proper streaming and not that good statistics.

I think the problem with Mixcloud is the interface. Finding a mix that isn’t featured on the starting page, is hard. Their iPhone-app sucks. There’s no way to skip ahead in the mix, so you have to start it from the beginning if you close the app.

Also, on Soundcloud, Soma Records has 53 000 followers. On Mixcloud? 332. (At the time I wrote this.)

Anyway, here you can find my dj mixes:

Intel Museum of Me

Henrik — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:52:49 +0000

This might be the coolest thing I’ve seen since that Arcade Fire HTML5 video.

Intel has done a Museum of me, that shows you your Facebook life.

Old Microsoft joke

Henrik — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 21:26:13 +0000

More stuff from the vaults. This is a joke 1997:

If restaurants functioned like MICROSOFT:

Patron: Waiter!

Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I’ll be your Support Waiter. What

seems to be the problem?

Patron: There’s a fly in my soup!

Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won’t be there this time.

Patron: No, it’s still there.

Waiter: Maybe it’s the way you’re using the soup; try eating it

with a fork instead.

Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there.

Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl; what kind of

bowl are you using?

Patron: A SOUP bowl!

Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it’s a configuration

problem; how was the bowl set up?

Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer; what has that to do with

the fly in my soup?!

Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you noticed the

fly in your soup?

Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day!

Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of the

Day?

Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day??

Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour.

Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now?

Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato.

Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup, and the check. I’m

running late now.

Waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check

Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check.

Patron: This is potato soup.

Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn’t ready yet.

Patron: Well, I’m so hungry now, I’ll eat anything.

Waiter leaves.

Patron: Waiter! There’s a gnat in my soup!

The check:

Soup of the Day . ……….. . . . $5.0

Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. . . $2.5

Access to support . . . . . . . . . . $1.0

My wishlist 9 years ago

Henrik — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:48:01 +0000

I have done some proper cleaning in the basement, and on an old CD I found this list of DJs I wanted to see in Stockholm:

sasha
lee burridge
craig richards
jay tripwire
tyler stadius
nils noa
ralph lawson
jonathan lisle
james zabiela
paul louth
yousef
paolo mojo
john digweed
carl cox
dj three
dj buck
h-foundation

Stuff must have been going my way, marked with bold text are the ones that actually showed up a few years later.

NBA Finals 2006

Henrik — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:18:33 +0000

I watched the first game of this years NBA Finals yesterday, which is a rematch of the 2006 games. I got goosebumps when the commentators started talking about that third game when Wade took over.

‘Dallas were up 2-0 and led by 13 in the 3rd quarter when Dwyane Wade decided he wanted to win a championship.’

Miami won 4 straight games led by Wade. Awesome.

Check out ilovedisco.se

Henrik — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:55:31 +0000

I have a blog called http://ilovedisco.se/ It’s all about music.

TouchOSC and Traktor

Henrik — Sun, 15 May 2011 10:42:20 +0000

No, TouchOSC is not ok to use in a live situation. Latency is brutal at times.

Report: Traktor Scratch Pro 2

Henrik — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:13:31 +0000

A lot of users has reported that the new upgrade to Traktor Scratch Pro 2 has been full of bugs and problems. Audio dropouts and other problems.

Last night I tested TSP 2 live for the first time. I had no problems at all.

My setup:
Macbook (late 2006, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD)
Traktor Scratch Pro 2
Audio 4 DJ
Traktor Kontrol X1

I played for 3 hours, 2 decks only, external mixer, no sample decks, used some effects. No problem. I even downloaded some tracks from iTunes while playing.

No problem.

We’ll see if extended use of 2 decks and loads of sample decks and effects will manage the computer to knee. But I don’t think so.

Photo: Iban Nieto (CC-BY)

Hello, my name is Henrik Löwenhamn

Henrik — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:11:13 +0000

I have always blogged in Swedish. So I thought it’s time for an english blog. Sometimes there’s just some stuff that needs to be shared to the world.

In the menu you’ll find links to my other sites in english.

Photo/drawing: Jen Collins (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)