Composition #1 - "Game"

Composition #3

SOundcloud releavance

I use Soundcloud at the moment in order to promote my own DJ Mixes. I find it is an easy to use platform for me to upload any mixes I have recorded, and for potential listeners to quickly and easily find the rest of my music. A way in which I try and get my music noticed is by using hashtags. Every song I upload it asks for a genre, which it turns into a hashtag. For example people can search "Drum and Bass" and only DnB songs and mixes will be seen. This allows for my music to be published to the correct target audience. In the titles for them I also include key words. For example, my two most poulor mixes both include the word "Balter", which is a big dance music festival. This gives the mix a larger search range to potentially be found. 

I also use Soundcloud in order to find any new music or artists. Soundcloud has a feature called The Upload, which shows tunes that the Soundcloud algorithm thinks you will like. A lot of them are available for a free download, so I can add them to my DJ library to be used in sets. I find alot of hidden gems in Soundcloud free downloads, as a lot of them are wicked bootlegs (unoffical remixes) which sadly can not be put on streaming services.

In the real music industry, promoters and A & R representatives like to see if an artists has a fanbase, Soundcloud streams and followers are a great way to evidence that. If artist has a following, it is less of a risk to put them on their record label.

I also use Instagram to help promote my music and Soundcloud. I have an Instagram where I post videos of me playing out at live gigs, where I am playing at next, mixes with other DJs, but more importantly clips of my Soundcloud mixes. In my Instagram bio I also have a link tree, which is a website where you can add multiple links to your many internet accounts, on it is my Soundcloud. This allows people to find it through my Instagram. I also put my Instagram in Soundcloud descriptions, so it works both ways.

When it comes to copyright on Soundcloud mixes it is a bit of a grey area. Some sources say that you are not able to put mixes onto Soundcloud as it is copyright infringement and breaks their terms of use, https://soundcloud.com/terms-of-use, as the tunes that are being mixed are not always their own music. However, due to the large volume of tracks being uploaded to Soundcloud (over 150 million at the moment, https://www.businessofapps.com/data/soundcloud-statistics/), it is impossible to police everything and I currently have 16 mixes live, with none of them being taken down or copyright striked. Another negative of Soundcloud is the audio format it uses. 

In digital sound, there is different types of files types, these can be sorted into compressed and uncompressed. An example of uncompressed audio is .wav or .aiff, these are almost perfect representations of what the producer made, with a bitrate of 1,411Kbps, and sound the best. This is the file types that are preferred by DJs and audiophiles. The file size for these are around 40/50 megabytes per song. A compressed audio file is an .mp3. These do not sound as good on high end speakers and have a maximum bit rate of 320Kbps. Even though as an artist, we are asked to upload an uncompressed sound file, Soundcloud does not use it and compress them for streaming, with a bit rate of 320Kbps, https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051838074-High-Quality-streaming. Bandcamp is another service that is used for streaming and for purchasing songs. For quality it is much better. You are able to stream .wav files in the browser and if you buy a song, all the file types are the same price, when normally .wav or .aiff are more expensive. Bandcamp's main selling point to users is that it pays the artists the majority of the royalties for the music, whereas other streaming service such as Spotify gives very little. The only down side of Bandcamp is that you are not able to publish DJ mixes.