Uploading music: Jamendo vs Soundcloud

Recently I got interest again in composing music. Moreover, I wanted to explore some options to publish my music on Internet, so I packed some of my (really) old tracks and tried to upload them to some websites.

The first option could be just to upload the files to www.liopic.com and use a Flash widget to let the visitors play the music. The problem in this case is the big use of bandwidth and the lack of “discoverability” by non-related people.

In order to explore other options, I started to search using some premises: a public website, that lets people comment tracks and creative commons publishing options. That discards places like grooveshark or the dying last.fm.

Jamendo
My album there
Obviously, speaking about copyleft music, Jamendo is the most popular place, and totally free. It has a lot of users that, in theory, creates a nice community. Actually the website is a bit web 1.0 style, with a sometimes uncomfortable navigation. It’s good to listen to an album, but not really easy to listen to a kind of music. Perhaps I got too used to Last.fm tag’s radios, but I feel that the just 6 radios are plainly not enough, specially if there is no random ordering. But the worst part was uploading my music: it tooks 5 days to publish it, until they validate it! So, not my favourite place, even I got an album review.

Pros: lot of people, totally free
Cons: 1.0 style, painful uploading, just 6 radios

Soundcloud
My profile and music there
I discovered this website almost by mistake, while following Moby on twitter; he published his new album on soundcloud. I raised my eyebrows when I see the wave player with the option to comment on a time position of a track: that’s a fantastic idea. I uploaded my tracks and they were published instantly! And I feel the sound quality is slightly better than on Jamendo; I noted less distortion in the beginning of “Jinx” using my 100€ headphones. The site’s navigation is web 2.0 style, but again I feel it’s a bit difficult to find something like tag’s radios. However, on Soundcloud an alternative way to get radios is playing a group tracks. You can license the music as CC or with normal copyright. Finally, if you want to upload more than 2 hours of music, you have to get a pro account: that’s not bad, cause I understand they should get some benefits, and actually the prices are in various ranges, starting at a reasonable 29€ for year. Perhaps I’ll pay.

Pros: nice player, 2.0 style, all kind of publishing options
Cons: not so many users, lack of a real tag’s radios