Soundcloud

• Soundcloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website. It allows people from all around the world to upload and promote their own music, create their own profiles, and develop and design their own online aesthetic.



• Based out of Berlin, Germany, Soundcloud was launched in 2008, with a recorded 76 million registered users and 175 million monthly listeners as of March 2019. Since its initial launch, the music sharing platform has gone through a lot of changes and updates in order to remain as a competitor in the ever evolving music sharing/streaming industry.


• Soundcloud was one of the first music distribution platforms to provide power to the people, with any person able to upload their own music, free of charge, which could then be streamed all around the world by other users. As a result, this quickly became extremely popular, launching the careers of many integral artists within the music scene now, such as, Chance The Rapper, Lil Uzi Vert, Kaytranada and Post Malone.



• With Soundcloud originating as a fairly underground source, and it’s demographic being a younger audience, it was able to revive and revamp genre’s such Hip-Hop and House and well as more Left-Field Electronic and Bass genres.


• Like most other streaming services, usability is extremely easy, with users able to search up profiles, songs, artists or playlists, as well as receiving recommendations based on listener history. Anyone with the basic plan can like, comment and share tracks, which are saved on accounts.


• Soundcloud also depicts audio tracks graphically as waveforms, allowing music to become more visual for listeners. As a result, listeners can click on the part of the waveform that they want to comment on, allowing timed comments for certain sections of a track.
  
• A variety of files such as M4A, MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AIFF, etc are supported, however streaming quality is reduced to 64kbps. If songs have downloads enabled, users can download the song at the quality that it is uploaded as. Otherwise, a subscription to the new Soundcloud Pro Unlimited feature enables songs to be streamed at the highest quality available.
  
• The SoundCloud API is built with the design principles of REST in mind, exposing SoundCloud resources like tracks, sets and users which can be accessed and manipulated using the HTTP methods GET, POST, PUT and DELETE.
• This allows users to: Upload audio files, Update metadata, Share sounds to other Social Networks, Create sets and playlists, Add sounds to sets and playlists and Access sets.
  

  Putting an emphasis on artist empowerment, Soundcloud offer a variety of plans in order to suit each artist/project.

  Soundcloud Basic	Soundcloud Pro	Soundcloud Pro Unlimited
  Free 3 hours of upload time Basic stats (amount of plays, shares, comments) Basic embed controls (enable free download, add descriptions, control over profile)	CA $7.50 per month 6 hours of upload time Advanced stats (where listeners come from, amount of clicks) Advanced embed controls (Linking to websites and other hyperlinks) Spotlight (adding featured songs to your profile) Access to Soundcloud Premier Monetize unlimited tracks on SoundCloud Distribute one release to all major music services)	CA $15 per month All Soundcloud Pro features Access to Soundcloud Go+ (normally an additional CA$9.99) Mix the world’s largest catalog in select DJ Tools Enjoy ad-free, high quality audio, offline listening