Cloudkillers??? Has anyone else tried this...

[Promise One]

Hard work always pays off in the end, you can't skip past that whether via a free service designed to do it for you or paid for. You have to do the leg work yourself then things should naturally follow. Legend4ry and Basic A nailing the point down with the various ways to do it, plenty of them to try.

[Basic A]

Software lol. whats the difference tho? I figured setting up a DJ set in ableton warping songs to mix together and adding effects on the two tracks (decks) that would mimic what you would find on a traditional dj set would be good.

i feel like i would be lost on any DJ rig iv never used before lol

The difference with software/ableton is you wont be learning how to beatmatch by ear - youll be using a computer to determine your tempo, and sync it with the other track. Thats not cool. DJing is a very universal concept, the idea is if you give any of us a pitch fader, we can lock 2 tracks together... By learning on software instead of the traditional route, your going to isolate yourself to a single setup. If you understand the theory of DJing youll start to see that all rigs are EXACTLY the same thing as each other, with software like ableton putting you off on the side, the only guy who cant work the CDJs. If you learn traditionally, you wont be lost on any rig. If you learn on software, youll be lost on every rig.

Now, Im not saying changing to software at a later date wouldnt be worthwhile.

Lemme use a guitar as an analogy... CDJs and Turntables are guitars, they all look a little different, some have a few bells n whistles others dont have, but at the end of the day, they've got the same strings, so if you can play one you can play em all. Ableton is like a sequencer with a guitar patch loaded in comparison... You might make something that sounds good, you might learn music theory, but at the end of the day, put in front of an actual fretboard, your gonna be stuck.

[staggalicous]

Good advice. ill keep that in mind

[fractal]

Hard work always pays off in the end, you can't skip past that whether via a free service designed to do it for you or paid for. You have to do the leg work yourself then things should naturally follow. Legend4ry and Basic A nailing the point down with the various ways to do it, plenty of them to try.

[spongeonfire]

(In risk of starting a flame war)...

why do ppl hate cloudkillers? Its not like you cant skip a track without commenting on it.

here is how i see the site... and please dont ruin it for me by shooting me down. To me, the site is not about getting more comments so that people think your music is better... your just retarded if you think that. Its about guaranteeing that my music gets heard, regardless of if people like it or not. They listen to whatever track randomly pops up. if they dont like it, they skip it. The commenting, for me, is a way to force people to tell me what aspects of my music they like, and what I should be doing better. the site is not about making tracks look good by having comments galore. It is a community of people trying become better at what they do, and the only way to get "better" at a form of art is of course to practice, but also to have people give feedback on what they like about your work, and more importantly suggestions and advice on how to make tracks better.

people will never find your music if your just sitting around making music and hoping that people will somehow stumble upon your page. This is just a way to guarantee that someone will hear your music. Stop trying to ruin this site for other people by calling it "cheating"... if you dont like it, dont join....

I hate that shit. Its not legit, Im what getting 10 comments or even less but the funny thing is, i can count on them becuase they are usually helpful tips not "great track come see mine brah"
I listened to ure track, no offense but it doesnt deserve all of that praise. Whats so unique about it compared to others.

Someone i found on soundcloud gets 12 listens but he is probably my favorite artist at the moment becuase he is so darn unique.

Music shouldnt be about who has the most comments or views. Do you think independent labels are after comments and listens. Maybe minor major or major labels lol.

Stick to making beats and enjoying them, not making beats use a site to help me become the next skrillex.

[CaveLvl]

Yall are trippin over these comments and follows. Write a good tune. Bet you get some emails

[garethom]

Anyone wanna buy a soundcloud account with 13,400 fans that have absolutely no interest in the music, and 300 that might? Got one going.

My advice can only be to put your music around but to people that WILL be interested. Get involved in collectives, as someone mentioned, but not waste soundcloud groups with like, half a million members, but smaller groups that actually care about what is posted. I got picked as Soundcloud User of the Day, and then got put on the featured user page (I think for a lot longer than they intended, hence the 13,000+ fans). I later found out it's because some head honcho at Soundcloud kept an eye on the collective, as it was a style of music he really liked. You never know who's watching.

The majority of comments I get are from people with an opinion that I respect, and they actually mean something to me. The rest are a group of goons who follow me, then unfollow me when I don't follow them back. Now I've been removed from the featured user list (I think), the people following me has levelled off, but every day I'm getting around 50 new "followers". Think that highlights the amount of people who only follow you to follow back. I'd be happy if I just had the 400 or so followers that would've found me even if I'd never been featured.

[Electric_Head]

Followers that follow but never return to your profile to listen or comment is just a piss take.
If you don`t really care about my music then why exactly did you follow me??
5 good followers are waaay better than 4000 randomers.

[zillion]

Admittedly i have used this on one of my tracks and thought yer i'm getting loads of comments and i felt a bit special. But then i release what the hell is the point in getting loads of comments that mean nothing and having to listen to hours of awful music and yes you may find one artist you like but that is out of about 200 tracks. When i could have spent that time sending tracks to dj's and labels that i think would be interested and get some actually feedback on my track rather than some generic comment that means nothing.

Cloudkillers is for the people that are more interested in how they are perceived rather than the music they create.

[Alissio]

no no no no its a poor excuse for people who think comments on a waveform mean something, good music is gonna get noticed theres no need for something like this. Its cheating in my book

Could not have put it any better. Don't use that shit.

[tempestmichael]

no no no no its a poor excuse for people who think comments on a waveform mean something, good music is gonna get noticed theres no need for something like this. Its cheating in my book

Easy to say when you're writing in a popular genre,
but then if you go look at some of the most advanced song writers on soundcloud..
they have less than a thousand plays..

Why?
because people don't appreciate that stuff.
heck, there are people out there who only mix like 4 loops together, call it songwriting, and they get more plays than those who actually write their songs.

1 in 100 people might appreciate classical-electronic for example
so some people definitely do need better ways to reach their niche demographic.

What's with the hate on for people using software instead of DJing on here to..
I mean, there are lots of genres of music that have nothing to do with DJing and don't try to
so I don't think we should be closed minded.
Writing with MIDI and spinning are apples and oranges.
There are better aspects for each.
With DJing, there's more performance value
and with MIDI there is better songwriting.

It's a to each their own kind of thing.
It depends on your genre.
Not everyone has to be a DJ.

none of you compare to Nobuo Uematsu's songwriting capabilities and he did everything with MIDI.

It's also true that a lot of us writing with software
are actually using keyboards and Midi guitars like myself so it's even more hands on than you think.

Don't be closed minded.

[Gridkeeper]

HI, I think many of you may be missing the point of the Cloudkillers music promotion site





Just because a track has hundreds or thousands of comments , doesn't mean it's a great track but some of the time
it does. Of course there's always been people who jump on Cloudkillers because they just want comments and track
plays without having to pay for them and some don't care what's written in the comments. But you know what, most
people do care. They care a lot. Cloudkillers is a great and fair way to promote any genre of music. Who's to say
how many comments a track should have or not have, no matter how good or bad it is.

There are a lot of amateurs at Cloudkillers as well as professionals and established labels. The site is fairly
new so it has taken time to tune it and understand how to run it in a way that helps the music industry by
creating opportunities for many producers, singers and Dj's among others. Many people have been signed from CK's
and there are scouts watching it all the time. Many of the comments are good enough for people to actually get
decent feedback on their music which allows them to progress further with their production and mastering skills /
techniques. You could only ever possibly know this by experiencing it for yourself. Not just jumping on it for a
few minutes or an hour but actually spend a few days there to see and feel what it's really all about. Go onto the
chat section and actually ask the users why they use it. You may be surprised with what they say to you.

No one is force fed anything. There is no force. People agree to the terms of the site when they join, the same as
you agreed to the terms of the Dubstep forum. If you're reading this post then please know that i am certainly not
force feeding it to you. You chose to read it yourself, so I thank you. Yes you can buy points to get comments
which some of the established labels do, and it's all part of the unique algorithm which runs workings of the
site. It's not the same as going to a company and buying bot plays or bot comments, it works on an exchange system
similar to barter. No one gets paid money for writing a comment yet all the comments are from a real human. Yes in
the past some people have skipped through tracks just to earn themselves points to get back comments themselves.
This was one of the problems faced by the Cloudkillers admin and the moderators team, which by the way has grown
considerably since the site was first started.

There are always new versions of Cloudkillers being developed to iron out these problems. The moderators now react
fast to pick up on people spamming and they don't last long at all. These people are dealt with They are also
implementing, very soon, a new commenting system which will only allow the listener to write a comment of a
minimum length, therefore making sure they are writing something constructive and descriptive as this is what
people need to hear to evolve their music, no matter how experienced they are. There are now many many spam
filters in place within the site and moderators now watching the comments 24 hours a day. Anyone who's comments
aren't up to par are spoken to about this and if anyone refuses to adhere to the site terms and commenting
guidelines they are subsequently banned. Most people understand this and change their ways which has a positive
effect on the site and the quality, which IMO, benefits the music industry. To this date 300 people have been
banned from Cloudkillers. The moderators are there to educate and guide as well as performing many other behind
the scene duties.

Any issues which come up within the site are regularly talked about within the Cloudkiller community and the
admins and moderators are always in the process of developing tactical ways and writing code to deal with any
issue. Any complaints from users are taken seriously and dealt with as quickly as possible. The community is good,
positive and helpful to one another. Much time is also set aside for professionals to help other with their
production skills and knowledge which I see as a valuable asset, especially as all advice is free. So in the end,
although there may be people that don't like your music, you get it exposed to many of those that do like it and
are willing to tell you so and why. This is achieved through hard work and the willingness to socialize within the
community thus making contacts by actually chatting/socializing with real human to human interaction.

Again, some misunderstand how Cloudkillers works with labels IMO. There are labels established at Cloudkillers and
there are labels that come there just to see who's doing what. It's hard work to actually earn the comments
received at Cloudkillers. The work is done in exchange for comments, simple and very effective.
labels look at the tracks, regardless of how many plays, and they read the comments. If there are repetitive
comments like "nice track" etc.. (which as i said earlier are being outlawed at a very fast rate), the labels are
experienced and wise enough to know what they mean/or don't mean. They read the constructive and descriptive
comments and take them on board. They analyze the feedback to see how real people feel about the track which helps
them make that crucial decision as to whether to sign it or not. Now they could pick up a really good track (in
their opinion) which has few comments and few views. Now on doing that they would now need to find out whether
people are going to like it or not so they'll have to go through the promo process more themselves to find out.
Cloudkillers allows them to see what's what. Much like discovering a song on youtube, myspace, blog etc...
regardless of view counts, they will read the comments. So like I said, Cloudkillers can be hard work, the more
you put in, the more you'll get out of it.

A voting system has also been introduced which is based upon mixdown quality, composition and originality. These
results are posted at fiercebark so no matter how many track plays or comments a song has, if you really want to
know how good it is then this is the place to look. Also a place which labels go to when they are looking for the
cream of the talent.

Everyone makes music because they like doing it. The music industry has changed very much in the last several
years. You're not off base, that's your choice and you're opinion, but not everyone's. Just because you made
something which you like and think is ready, doesn't mean everyone else or even a label will like it.
If you placed your track onto Cloudkillers and the majority of the feedback came back saying you could do this
that or the other to make it better, so you change it, then sent it off to a label and they sign it. Then would
that not be better than sending it thinking it was good enough rather than knowing it was the best you could
achieve with your musical ability. Cloudkillers is real life. Cloudkillers is not a one stop solution - this is
also discussed a lot - Proper promotions involve many forms or effort across the web and diversity of the music
promotion is key. People who are highly motivated utilize many forms of promotion to move their life forward in
creative ways to help achieve their goals and ambitions whether it is just for fun/hobby or a career choice -
Typically these are the people who are 'making it' in the industry - people who don't just slack, but also put
effort into what they do (not just the music).

No one at Cloudkillers is allowed to beg or ask for track reviews or followers, there is a strict policy regarding
this. Thank you, Gridkeeper.

Cloudkillers : http://www.cloudkillers.com/register.php?aff=24104

[BonerJams04]

so you work at cloudkillers than ?

[Gridkeeper]

so you work at cloudkillers than ?

Yes I do.

[BonerJams04]

sum up that wall of text for me.

[crabb_steppa]

if you ain't making waves with the heads in your local area.. you are doing it wrong.


reps are made in face to face contact inna dance - fuck a internet



plus the fact that this "service" is slowing down the board means that soundclouds in sigs will probably get removed altogether. thanks a lot bro

[Gridkeeper]

if you ain't making waves with the heads in your local area.. you are doing it wrong.


reps are made in face to face contact inna dance - fuck a internet



plus the fact that this "service" is slowing down the board means that soundclouds in sigs will probably get removed altogether. thanks a lot bro

How would that work out for people that didn't live in an "area" with any sort of music scene. Not everyone lives or works where the scene is happening so they rely on the internet. You're on it now also aren't you? On a music forum of all places.

Also i'm interested to know if you discriminate against all people with large amounts of comments on their tracks who post on forums or just ones who use cloudkillers? thanks, Gridkeeper.

[crabb_steppa]

I'm not going to share that information with you Mr Gridkeeper, we've only just met

[crabb_steppa]

obvious cloudkillers rep is obvious

[elyhess]

Lol that's fucking stupid, totally cheating. People are seeking fame it seems