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Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 2:45 am
by Kid Bosk
Okay so theres this tune I made here:
Soundcloud
The file I uploaded is perfectly fine but when I upload it to soundcloud its really LQ, and the percussion sounds fucked up.... like I cant explain it... its sorta choppy I guess... Is this simply because soundcloud is a shitty website... or is it something I'm doing wrong.... Again the original file is fine, it sounds crystal clear.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 3:32 am
by VirtualMark
Yeah its been discussed a few times, soundcloud streams in 128k mp3 which sounds like crap. Try leaving a bit more dynamics in your tune as the transients can mask the compression artifacts. Also upload the best quality file you can, as its going to get squashed down whatever so you don't want to load a file that's already got problems.
Might be an idea to leave dithering off too, though this is debatable.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 8:48 am
by Echoi
I dont think its just down to SC, some peoples uploads sound like turd, and others sound near on perfect.
The sub on my tracks on sc a couple of years ago always had this weird digital scraping kind of sound, and the hats seemed to be breaking up in places.
None of that has happened to me for a couple of years, and i am inclined to put it down to improved mixdowns.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 8:55 pm
by ChadDub
Yeah my hi-hats sometimes make this weird sound, idk.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 10:09 pm
by didi
Mate, are you not doing separate mixdowns for soundcloud?
That's brave.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 11:21 pm
by ChadDub
dididub wrote:Mate, are you not doing separate mixdowns for soundcloud?
That's brave.
People do this?
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:04 am
by Basic A
ChadDub wrote:dididub wrote:Mate, are you not doing separate mixdowns for soundcloud?
That's brave.
People do this?
Mixdowns a mixdown. Good or not. The idea of mixing down is to make something sound good in all formats on all systems, in a give-and-take respect... One treatment to rule them all - from vinyl to 128k.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 2:44 am
by Kid Bosk
Weird... I uploaded it as a Wav... but I also have an mp3 that doesn't sound at all like the way it sounded on soundcloud... I worked hard to assure that the mixdown was perfect.... I think its bullshit I should have to make a "seperate Mixdown" for soundcloud. Seriously... are there any other websites musicians can upload stuff too?
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 8:00 am
by didi
ChadDub wrote:dididub wrote:Mate, are you not doing separate mixdowns for soundcloud?
That's brave.
People do this?
No I'm kiddding.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 8:34 am
by Depone
Kid Bosk wrote:Weird... I uploaded it as a Wav... but I also have an mp3 that doesn't sound at all like the way it sounded on soundcloud... I worked hard to assure that the mixdown was perfect.... I think its bullshit I should have to make a "seperate Mixdown" for soundcloud. Seriously... are there any other websites musicians can upload stuff too?
You know what I do?
I don't do a separate mixdown for soundcloud, but I do render to 128mp3 before I upload it.
I do this so I can monitor how shit it will sound before the upload. It sounds counter-intuitive, but by making an ok sounding 128mp3 yourself, when it comes to sounclouds own encoding, there will be less information to fuck up. I tested this, and the results were night and day! From 16bit wav It sounded shit, scraping noises sub fuzz the lot. but from my 128 encoded with the lame mp3 encoder and uploaded it was clearer.
As I said above it has less information to mess with, so you will have less errors. Does that make sense?
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 2:52 pm
by jaydot
This track is currently unavailable.
Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 3:17 pm
by didi
Depone wrote:Kid Bosk wrote:Weird... I uploaded it as a Wav... but I also have an mp3 that doesn't sound at all like the way it sounded on soundcloud... I worked hard to assure that the mixdown was perfect.... I think its bullshit I should have to make a "seperate Mixdown" for soundcloud. Seriously... are there any other websites musicians can upload stuff too?
You know what I do?
I don't do a separate mixdown for soundcloud, but I do render to 128mp3 before I upload it.
I do this so I can monitor how shit it will sound before the upload. It sounds counter-intuitive, but by making an ok sounding 128mp3 yourself, when it comes to sounclouds own encoding, there will be less information to fuck up. I tested this, and the results were night and day! From 16bit wav It sounded shit, scraping noises sub fuzz the lot. but from my 128 encoded with the lame mp3 encoder and uploaded it was clearer.
As I said above it has less information to mess with, so you will have less errors. Does that make sense?
No-one does a separate mixdown for soundcloud, I was kidding.

Re: Does Soundcloud just suck ass?
Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 3:33 am
by Kid Bosk
Depone wrote:Kid Bosk wrote:Weird... I uploaded it as a Wav... but I also have an mp3 that doesn't sound at all like the way it sounded on soundcloud... I worked hard to assure that the mixdown was perfect.... I think its bullshit I should have to make a "seperate Mixdown" for soundcloud. Seriously... are there any other websites musicians can upload stuff too?
You know what I do?
I don't do a separate mixdown for soundcloud, but I do render to 128mp3 before I upload it.
I do this so I can monitor how shit it will sound before the upload. It sounds counter-intuitive, but by making an ok sounding 128mp3 yourself, when it comes to sounclouds own encoding, there will be less information to fuck up. I tested this, and the results were night and day! From 16bit wav It sounded shit, scraping noises sub fuzz the lot. but from my 128 encoded with the lame mp3 encoder and uploaded it was clearer.
As I said above it has less information to mess with, so you will have less errors. Does that make sense?
Yea! See I was thinking of doing that myself and you just confirmed it, thanks mate cheers
