Audio Archives
SoundCloud
| Person Describing Archive | Jared Wiercinski (2013); Chelsea Obodoechina (2020) |
|---|---|
| Is this primarily a poetry audio site? | N (Audio, music files) |
| Sponsoring Person or Institution | SoundCloud |
| Site URL | |
| Site Last Updated | |
| Date Visited | 20202020/08/21 |
| General Description of Archive | SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform which allows musicians to collaborate, promote and distribute their music or sound recordings. It allows artists to (publicly or privately) comment and discuss music (i.e. both specific artists or tracks, and generally through groups), send audio files to each other, and to publish and distribute their work (both internally on the site and externally). |
| Description of archive history or URL | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundCloud |
| Contact information | contact@soundcloud.com |
| Searchable options | Search box located in upper right-hand corner. Searches tracks, people, groups. Also offers an advanced search option for filtering. |
| Relation from the audio to the text | No integration of lyrics. |
| Date/Time/Length/Context info about the audio items | Automatically includes information about when track uploaded and track length. Artists can provide descriptions about their content as well. |
| Author bios and context within literary history | Self-provided author bios |
| Audio file type: streaming, download, file format, audio file compression quality (WAV, MP3, bitrate) | Streaming MP3s, Files can optionally be made available for download in a variety of formats (MP3, WAV, AIF, etc.) |
| Multimedia integration (pictures, video, etc.) | Waveform display (aesthetic and informational value). Artist pages can include pictures. Tracks can include images, including thumbnails which display when widget/player/tracks are embedded or linked to from other sites. |
| Audio playback setup (opens in Flash player, on new blank screen, etc.) | Play track on Soundcloud in player; embed soundcloud player anywhere on the web, including most social networking sites using SoundCloud widgets and apps. |
| Mobile access (i.e. accessible on smart phones, tablets, etc.) | iPhone app available |
| Browsing | Browse: tracks via tag cloud from user supplied tags (then sort by popularity and time periods) or lists sorted by popularity or time period, creative commons live recordings and samples via lists (same sorting as above), or people via recently active lists or automatically generated list based on connections between users, and groups (sorted by level of activity, time period). |
| Discovery features (pre-made playlists; dynamic lists: lists of recent additions, featured items, related items, etc). | |
| Interactivity and Web 2.0 features | Timed commenting. Embed code available. Share feature (on social networking sites or by email). Can add tracks to content-themed groups. Save track to "favourites". |
| Other notes | Excellent statistics available: # playbacks,# downloads, listener's geographic location, identify where audio tracks posted, linked, or embedded; Dedicated URLs for musicians profiles and individual tracks; Built-in email system; Gives content creators complete control over how their content is used (e.g. can use SC to share and discuss content privately among users; optionally allow sharing, downloading, embedding) |