# I'm building an audio hosting service



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

While building my sound design website (coming soon) I found the best way to easy host audio with a nice player and an easy embed is still Soundcloud.

It's what most sound designers, sample developers, etc, are using. The ones that aren't using Soundcloud are using some ugly audio player from WooCommerce or something similar. Very few have a decent audio player that's not Soundcloud. Even as a web developer, I couldn't find a decent player that looked good and was lightweight.

Why not Soundcloud?
- Your visitors are being tracked
- Their player heavily promotes their brand not yours
- There are a lot of bots with fake likes and followings
- Their pro plan is quite expensive for what you get ($144 per year)
- No control over the encoding quality

I looked for an alternative to Soundcloud for my purpose and didn't really find any. There are many podcast hosting platforms and music platforms, but nothing really for pros that want to showcase audio on their website.

The idea of the service would be to have a dashboard where you can upload audio files, select the encoding quality of the MP3, and then easily create an embed code for your website with a simple and beautiful player you can customize. You'd get analytics without the use of cookies so you don't have to annoy your users. The player would look 100% as if it was yours. No branding from the service.

Pricing would be much more competitive than Soundcloud. I'm thinking it would be something like $30 per year which should suffice for 90% of people, and then pay-as-you-go per GB stored/consumed.

Are there any features you'd like to have if you were using this service?


----------



## MusiquedeReve (Mar 10, 2021)

This sounds like a great idea

In terms of branding the artist versus the 'player' - will you have an upgrade/option to remove the name of the 'player' so the sole focus is on the artist's brand?


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

ChromeCrescendo said:


> This sounds like a great idea
> 
> In terms of branding the artist versus the 'player' - will you have an upgrade/option to remove the name of the 'player' so the sole focus is on the artist's brand?


The idea is that the player will not have any branding at all from the service. It will look 100% like a player from the artist.


----------



## MusiquedeReve (Mar 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> The idea is that the player will not have any branding at all from the service. It will look 100% like a player from the artist.


Then my work here is done


----------



## Nimrod7 (Mar 10, 2021)

I would definitely buy something like this. I don't like soundcloud too, and I don't like the lack of control.

Things to consider (which probably you do already):

- Styling (to fit the artists website)
- A batch uploader
- Decent file manager (Delete, Rename tracks, folders or organize if you have multiple websites)
- Albums / Playlists
- Mobile compatibility
- An easy to use encoding interface -> e.g. from Wav to a more web friendly format
- Variety of supported formats
- Tags and metadata such as description for each track, credits
- Sharing and compatibility with social media (as much as they support embedded formats)

Sounds fun, but a lot of work! 😬


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

Nimrod7 said:


> I would definitely buy something like this. I don't like soundcloud too, and I don't like the lack of control.
> 
> Things to consider (which probably you do already):
> 
> ...


Great ideas!

Yeah you will have all those


----------



## Thundercat (Mar 10, 2021)

Perhaps this is implied or a foregone conclusion, but making sure users can't download the music in any way would be important. Unless the artists gives permission for this. I think SC does this too.


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

Thundercat said:


> Perhaps this is implied or a foregone conclusion, but making sure users can't download the music in any way would be important. Unless the artists gives permission for this. I think SC does this too.


Yes, I've thought about that.

The player would be streaming chunks of audio. Even if you got a "hacker" that knew how to get access to the URLs of those chunks, they would have to manually join them to get the complete audio file. This is what Soundcloud does btw.

Of course, you could add the option to download the whole file too.


----------



## Duncan Krummel (Mar 10, 2021)

I would _really_ adore having the ability to replace existing tracks without messing up links, etc.


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

Duncan Krummel said:


> I would _really_ adore having the ability to replace existing tracks without messing up links, etc.


Of course!


----------



## José Herring (Mar 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> While building my sound design website (coming soon) I found the best way to easy host audio with a nice player and an easy embed is still Soundcloud.
> 
> It's what most sound designers, sample developers, etc, are using. The ones that aren't using Soundcloud are using some ugly audio player from WooCommerce or something similar. Very few have a decent audio player that's not Soundcloud. Even as a web developer, I couldn't find a decent player that looked good and was lightweight.
> 
> ...


Do it. I'm in.


----------



## el-bo (Mar 10, 2021)

Sounds like a great idea.

Is is only you developing it? What (if any) ideas do you have in place if you decide you no longer wish to be involved, or can't keep up with the demand of keeping it running?


----------



## AudioLoco (Mar 10, 2021)

Soundcloud is basically.... evil.... so... yeah!
Just to chime in: A nice private playlists implementation would be an important element for me (I imagine you already considered that, but you never know)
All the best!


----------



## Thundercat (Mar 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> Yes, I've thought about that.
> 
> The player would be streaming chunks of audio. Even if you got a "hacker" that knew how to get access to the URLs of those chunks, they would have to manually join them to get the complete audio file. This is what Soundcloud does btw.
> 
> Of course, you could add the option to download the whole file too.


Excellent! Sounds like you've thought it through!!


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

el-bo said:


> Sounds like a great idea.
> 
> Is is only you developing it? What (if any) ideas do you have in place if you decide you no longer wish to be involved, or can't keep up with the demand of keeping it running?


Indeed, it's only me.

Worst case scenario? I think the smoothest transition would be to open source the audio player so that it can be used with audio files hosted anywhere.

Obviously I'm biased, but I'm not investing a couple of months of my life into something I plan to abandon later on.


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> Soundcloud is basically.... evil.... so... yeah!
> Just to chime in: A nice private playlists implementation would be an important element for me (I imagine you already considered that, but you never know)
> All the best!


Yes, private audio sharing it's something I've thought about too. You will be able to share a playlist with a unique URL or even password protected.

I've always wanted to build something to share audio/video privately with a reviewing system that can have comments on a timeline. Like a producer/director making comments about the music at a particular point in time. I'm not sure there is market for that though.


----------



## AudioLoco (Mar 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> Yes, private audio sharing it's something I've thought about too. You will be able to share a playlist with a unique URL or even password protected.
> 
> I've always wanted to build something to share audio/video privately with a reviewing system that can have comments on a timeline. Like a producer/director making comments about the music at a particular point in time. I'm not sure there is market for that though.


That would be awesome indeed and extremely useful


----------



## timprebble (Mar 10, 2021)

Having alternatives to soundcloud is a great idea...
Audio hosting sounds similar to Octave, which Chris Randall (of AudioDamage plugins) launched a year or two ago...

https://octave.is
Video with timeline commenting is also available, I know its used a lot for VFX and soundmix reviews etc... 
There is this one with frame accurate commenting:








Next generation video collaboration


Frame.io is the world’s leading video review and collaboration platform. Share media, collect feedback, manage reviews, and deliver finished work faster — from anywhere in the world.




www.frame.io





And a comparison with others:





Comparing Online Video Review Tools | Jonny Elwyn - Film Editor


Which online video review service is the right tool for you? Check out this in-depth comparison of the main products to find your best fit.




jonnyelwyn.co.uk


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

Thanks for the links @timprebble !

Octave seems bit similar although it seems more geared towards musicians that want to showcase their music.

My service is more of a general solution to host audio files with a custom player. Initially smaller files like product demos and music, and later on podcasts with RSS on your custom domain.


----------



## timprebble (Mar 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> Thanks for the links @timprebble !
> 
> Octave seems bit similar although it seems more geared towards musicians that want to showcase their music.
> 
> My service is more of a general solution to host audio files with a custom player. Initially smaller files like product demos and music, and later on podcasts with RSS on your custom domain.



Gotcha!

One feature that would be invaluable would be some form of bulk import, for example I currently have (goes & checks) 636 tracks on soundcloud, most are sound library previews. I can easily download them all (and I do so regularly so as to have an ongoing archive of them all) It would be a painful job to manually upload them all to a new service, one by one, and then retrieve an embed code for each. But it does feel like an inevitable task, for all the same reasons you plan to make an alternative, sooner or later soundcloud wont be my solution.

The only other option I thought of was to commission software to generate auto sync waveforms as video, and then use youtube as an embedded playback device. But that would be far from ideal...


----------



## Pier (Mar 10, 2021)

timprebble said:


> Gotcha!
> 
> One feature that would be invaluable would be some form of bulk import, for example I currently have (goes & checks) 636 tracks on soundcloud, most are sound library previews. I can easily download them all (and I do so regularly so as to have an ongoing archive of them all) It would be a painful job to manually upload them all to a new service, one by one, and then retrieve an embed code for each. But it does feel like an inevitable task, for all the same reasons you plan to make an alternative, sooner or later soundcloud wont be my solution.
> 
> The only other option I thought of was to commission software to generate auto sync waveforms as video, and then use youtube as an embedded playback device. But that would be far from ideal...


Woah those are a lot of tracks!

If your files have the Soundcloud audio id, it should be possible to alleviate this process a bit by importing tracks names and descriptions automatically simply by dropping the files.

Once I have the public beta up and running I'll contact you. If you're still interested, I'm sure we'll find a way to make this transfer as painless as possible. This is for Tim and anyone else from VIC too.


----------



## Pier (Aug 29, 2021)

So I've been working on this for the last couple of months and I'll be ready to ship the beta before the end of the year!

I have named it *Wavekit* although I have zero marketing material to share other than the logo.






I'm now facing a big decision and I was hoping to get some input from VI:C regarding the analytics from the audio files.

Obviously Wavekit users will want to have some analytics from their audio files like how many times it has been played.

How big of a deal would it be to *not* know where the plays from your audio files come from?

Example: knowing a particular audio has been played X times vs knowing it has been played X times and also which countries the plays come from.


----------



## Tatiana Gordeeva (Aug 30, 2021)

Nice idea!
A few musts for me:

High quality option like FLAC, normal is 320 kbps mp3
Private/public tag
Full HTML descriptions with external links
Replaceable files keeping URLs unchanged
High res covers 3000x3000 pixels 
Make downloadable as an option
More to come...
Name could also be WaveLink or WaveShare or... I will think about it!


----------



## Pier (Aug 30, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Nice idea!
> A few musts for me:
> 
> High quality option like FLAC, normal is 320 kbps mp3
> ...


Thanks for the ideas!

Right now we're encoding at 192kbps which is way better than the default 128kbps of Soundcloud. We could definitely bump it to 256kbps or even 320kbps, it wouldn't make much difference to us in terms of cost, but it would make streaming slower for your visitors.

Unfortunately FLAC is not compatible with all browsers but we plan to support AAC and/or OGG Vorbis later on. At launch we will only have MP3.

We have private sharing on the roadmap, but it won't be available at launch. Probably more like mid 2022.

About the HTML descriptions, the idea is that we're providing the audio hosting (for the streaming) and also a customizable audio player to put on your website where you can add any description with any formatting you wish. We've considered also providing a public page for users like a Soundcloud profile (eg: _wavekit.app/tatiana-gordeeva_) but my thinking is that Soundcloud would be better for that since users can subscribe to your profile, like audios, write comments, etc. We're definitely not a social media for audio.

What would be the point of having 3000x3000 covers on the audio players? Again, this is not something that would impact our costs much, but it would make your website pretty slow for your visitors. Also, it's something you can put on your website.


----------



## MartinH. (Aug 30, 2021)

Pier said:


> How big of a deal would it be to *not* know where the plays from your audio files come from?
> 
> Example: knowing a particular audio has been played X times vs knowing it has been played X times and also which countries the plays come from.



Personally I don't have much audio to host, so I'm not your target audience. But for what little it's worth, I'd care much more about how many people are playing a track twice or more than what country they are from. Also I think it makes sense to differentiate between people who play back the whole song and people who skip ahead. Although some may not even want to know that, since it's probably pretty depressing for most tracks. But if they're taking it seriously it might be a useful metric.


----------



## Pier (Aug 30, 2021)

MartinH. said:


> Personally I don't have much audio to host, so I'm not your target audience. But for what little it's worth, I'd care much more about how many people are playing a track twice or more than what country they are from. Also I think it makes sense to differentiate between people who play back the whole song and people who skip ahead. Although some may not even want to know that, since it's probably pretty depressing for most tracks. But if they're taking it seriously it might be a useful metric.


Great points!

It's an interesting metric, but I've never thought about this. I'm not sure it can be solved without tracking users though.


----------



## Tatiana Gordeeva (Aug 31, 2021)

Ok, audio streaming only. Get it. I read it too fast. 
In that case of course my points about HTML and hi-res covers are moot.
This is relegated to the poster's site as you said.

In this case my _fantasies_ become different  I want info and features that only the streaming server can have like:

Detailed track stats as mentioned are a must for me too. A bit like YouTube: listening time, attention drops, skips, played tracks order, etc. 

Anonymous user data from type of player and format used, location, etc.

And conversion on the fly would be very nice. I upload a single 24/48 or 32/96 WAV file and the system serves the listener whatever he wants from his profile... CD quality, mp3, AAC, ogg, etc. Who wants to create multiple versions and upload them?

All fantasies technically, I'm sure.


----------



## Pier (Aug 31, 2021)

Tatiana Gordeeva said:


> Detailed track stats as mentioned are a must for me too. A bit like YouTube: listening time, attention drops, skips, played tracks order, etc.


I do plan to implement all those eventually, but at launch only the number of plays will be available.



> Anonymous user data from type of player and format used, location, etc.


Player type and format, of course, even at launch.

About the location, I'm still trying to figure out how to do it anonymously. It seems the IP address is considered personal information under the EU GDPR laws, which is one of the reasons users need to accept a privacy/cookie dialog from Soundcloud whenever they visit a site with an embedded player.



> And conversion on the fly would be very nice. I upload a single 24/48 or 32/96 WAV file and the system serves the listener whatever he wants from his profile... CD quality, mp3, AAC, ogg, etc. Who wants to create multiple versions and upload them?



Oh yeah, you won't have to upload the encoded versions. Just like Soundcloud, you upload the .wav or .aiff and we encode it for you.


----------



## Nico5 (Sep 2, 2021)

@Pier
Is there any chance you'd consider creating a really nice WordPress plugin for playing audio files from the WordPress media library or other self-hosted? Of course that would be a rather different business model, with potentially less upside, but arguably also quite a bit less work and risk?


----------



## Pier (Sep 2, 2021)

Nico5 said:


> @Pier
> Is there any chance you'd consider creating a really nice WordPress plugin for playing audio files from the WordPress media library or other self-hosted? Of course that would be a rather different business model, with potentially less upside, but arguably also quite a bit less work and risk?


I've actually considered it, but I assumed there must something already in the market since the WP universe is huge.

What features are you missing from the current options?


----------



## gsilbers (Sep 2, 2021)

Pier said:


> I've actually considered it, but I assumed there must something already in the market since the WP universe is huge.
> 
> What features are you missing from the current options?



nico is right, it would be great as WP plugin. there are plugins but those are not as easy. 

not only playlist but also to play files like in NI or big fish audio where a player pops up from below. 

just drag and drop mp3 and change order in a play list. drag and drop and the files gets imported into the self hosted server not our hosting. 

right now for most players you have to go to the side panel in WP, create a playlist. import mp3, or do some weird link thing etc. 

sometimes all we want is just to create a block, add a module on one side and import one mp3 that module and won't add to the sites download bandwidth. and the other side an image. done. 

of course I know nothing about this but that would be ideal. charge a one time upfront fee and done. 
charge $30. get 500k buys and you get to be a millionaire


----------



## Nico5 (Sep 2, 2021)

Pier said:


> I've actually considered it, but I assumed there must something already in the market since the WP universe is huge.
> 
> What features are you missing from the current options?


Yes, in general, the WP universe is huge, but I found few good music playing plugins. 

The relatively best one I've ever found is https://sonaar.io/free-mp3-music-player-plugin-for-wordpress/ - but it seems to be geared mostly at a reasonably good playback experience, rather than at also optimizing more than the simplest of needs for a music maker/publisher. Like, there are some purchasing integrations, but seemingly not that much in terms of other desirable analytics. 

So to me it seems like there is room for a really classy offering geared at music makers in the WordPress universe.


----------



## Pier (Sep 2, 2021)

gsilbers said:


> not only playlist but also to play files like in NI or big fish audio where a player pops up from below.


Yeah but what happens when you click on a link to navigate to another section of your site?

I'm guessing you'd like the audio to keep playing, like in Soundcloud, but this is not easily feasible in WP where every link goes to a new URL. It's technically solvable, but AFAIK it would require a custom template.

Personally I'm not fan of WP. There are far better tools like Webflow which let you easily create a site with design tools, and do not have the issues of WP (outdated plugins, security, having to pay and maintain a server, etc).



Nico5 said:


> The relatively best one I've ever found is https://sonaar.io/free-mp3-music-player-plugin-for-wordpress/ - but it seems to be geared mostly at a reasonably good playback experience, rather than at also optimizing more than the simplest of needs for a music maker/publisher. Like, there are some purchasing integrations, but seemingly not that much in terms of other desirable analytics.


Nice player!

The thing with analytics is that it requires backend infrastructure which AFAIK cannot be solved with a WP plugin.

So for example, ignoring the privacy aspects, let's say you'd like to see countries in your analytics. For me to provide this information I need to rely and pay a third party every time I want to know where the IP comes from. I'd also need backend code running in the background, so that is another recurring cost.

Since there are ongoing costs, you'd be forced to pay a subscription, which I'm guessing is what you're trying to avoid by self hosting everything.

Also, if you're using WP what CDN are you using? Most people use Cloudflare with WP because it's free, but caching audio and video goes against the Cloudflare TOS.

In the end, if you want those kinds of features, it just makes more sense to use something like Soundcloud or Wavekit that will provide you with the audio hosting, the player, analytics, a CDN, content management tools, etc. It's not a coincidence the majority of websites are using Soundcloud to showcase audio.


----------



## Soundbed (Sep 2, 2021)

Wow cool venture!

I currently pay for both SoundCloud (two accounts annually) AND disco.ac but my intention has always been to leave SoundCloud for disco.ac because it not only hosts Audio and presents it in a player and a portfolio type page for clients but also stores all my metadata.


----------



## Pier (Sep 2, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> but also stores all my metadata


Could you elaborate on this?

What do you mean with metadata?


----------



## Soundbed (Sep 2, 2021)

Pier said:


> Could you elaborate on this?
> 
> What do you mean with metadata?


Disco.ac solves a few problems for media composers but here’s a few and then I’ll get to why metadata is critical and what is it for those interested. 

First, there’s a player for one or more songs. 

Next, there’s a page with a theme that can have images and logos for a prospective client, publisher or group of artists to reference or client to peruse a library’s catalog or agent to showcase an artist’s songs and so on. 

Now, under the hood to have all those users build all those playlists for all those use cases they will need to be able to organize their catalogs (sometimes with tens of thousands of tracks). Metadata can help them organize it. 

More importantly, if you publish non-exclusively to one music library you might come up with 15 keywords that describe your track plus your ASCAP id plus writer’s splits plus contact information and cover art and tempo, key, date, isrc, track number on album, and so on. In iTunes and mp3 format it’s composer, artist, and so on till comments.

Anyway all this extra data needs to be stored for an artist or publisher catalog. Metadata. Music supervisors are searching metadata to find the right piece for a tv show. 

Similar artists might be a metadata field or entry. So you might have Portishead in your metadata, or Enya or Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

longing, mournful, anguished, sorrowful, crushed, sad, dejected, torn, brooding

These might be one set of metadata. 

There are many categories of metadata.


----------



## Nico5 (Sep 2, 2021)

Pier said:


> Personally I'm not fan of WP. There are far better tools like Webflow which let you easily create a site with design tools, and do not have the issues of WP (outdated plugins, security, having to pay and maintain a server, etc).


Fair enough not to be a fan of WP - and I wouldn't want to convince you otherwise. 

I happen to be quite big on open source based self-hosting for a variety of reasons - starting with full control over my data. But that's predicated on the fact that I also get quite a bit of enjoyment out of maintaining my skills in that area. So I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. And I also don't self-host everything in my life. So I'm more pragmatic than hard-core philosophically pure.



Spoiler: A couple of little side notes about modern WP



Ever since the Gutenberg project WP has been migrating towards being much more similar to Webflow and other no-code environments. Of course that pissed off a lot of the commercial theme developers and web developemnt agencies, since it probably kills a bunch of revenue streams for them. 

WP security for the last few years has been no better or worse than any other huge and open platform - you just have to be smart and diligent and probably a little lucky. If you install plugins with little security thought, you'll get hijacked much like you'll get hijacked when installing software on Linux, MacOS or Windows without considering security.





Pier said:


> Also, if you're using WP what CDN are you using? Most people use Cloudflare with WP because it's free, but caching audio and video goes against the Cloudflare TOS.


Yes, I'm using Cloudflare, but don't need the bandwidth savings for music/vidoe, since I'm running on Ionos vps hosting, which has unlimited bandwidth (albeit capped throughput) - but especially since I'm not running any high traffic sites (which would probably also be the case for most music makers here).



Pier said:


> So for example, ignoring the privacy aspects, let's say you'd like to see countries in your analytics. For me to provide this information I need to rely and pay a third party every time I want to know where the IP comes from. I'd also need backend code running in the background, so that is another recurring cost.


I think country level with close enough to be useful accuracy can be had for free. Specifically I'm currently running self hosted Matomo analytics on my self hosted wordpress multisite environment. So that way I don't share my visitor's info with any of the big data gobblers.



Pier said:


> In the end, if you want those kinds of features, it just makes more sense to use something like Soundcloud or Wavekit that will provide you with the audio hosting, the player, analytics, a CDN, content management tools, etc. It's not a coincidence the majority of websites are using Soundcloud to showcase audio.



It's difficult to argue with your position, since it's pretty much the proven one so far and that's most likely because self hosting is still too much of a niche-enthusiast undertaking, since it simply (still) takes a lot more expertise and time to pull off. 

I've been quite leery getting into offering cloud services for musicians (or others) myself, though, since I'm not sure you can grow it enough without vc money. In my observation, it's not so been so much the development of a better mouse trap, but the capturing of mindshare and market that is often (always?) the most expensive part of a cloud play. But if you get vc money, they want crazy multiples back (been there, done that) and you pretty much end up like cloudflare. So I'm not really mad at cloudflare - it's just that I think their original premise had no chance, once they got vc money -- and it had no chance without that vc money. 

If you can pull off what you're trying to do in a longer term sustainable way, I'd be so incredibly happy not only for you, but for musicians and the world in general, because big vc money is killing pretty much everything that's noble.


----------



## Pier (Jul 6, 2022)

I'm getting there!

The streaming tech and player are already running in my sound design website:









Mercury - Nightmare - Cinematic horror presets for U-He Zebra 2







www.mercurysounddesign.com





You cannot see it there, but the player is already customizable (themes, colors, etc).

I'm weeks away from starting to open it up to hand picked users, and still months away from a public beta.


----------



## Alchemedia (Jul 6, 2022)

Pier said:


> I'm getting there!
> 
> The streaming tech and player are already running in my sound design website:
> 
> ...


Congrats Pier!


----------



## Pier (Sep 7, 2022)

Another little update...

👇



In case it's not obvious, Wavekit share URLs can now be pasted on VIC and the player is embedded automagically!


----------



## Soundbed (Sep 7, 2022)

Pier said:


> Another little update...
> 
> 👇
> 
> ...



Nice!

Let me know if you want another beta tester. I’ll DM you my email because I’m on VI-C less frequently these days.


----------



## Pier (Sep 7, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Let me know if you want another beta tester. I’ll DM you my email because I’m on VI-C less frequently these days.


Please do!


----------



## osterdamus (Sep 7, 2022)

I'll happily volunteer as a beta tester, too, if you need one. I've got experience in tech and startup, so I can mix user oriented feedback with technical discussion.


----------



## cedricm (Sep 8, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> Perhaps this is implied or a foregone conclusion, but making sure users can't download the music in any way would be important. Unless the artists gives permission for this. I think SC does this too.


An impossible task. All what we can hope for is to make downloading too cumbersome for many/most people.


----------



## osterdamus (Sep 8, 2022)

cedricm said:


> An impossible task. All what we can hope for is to make downloading too cumbersome for many/most people.


I agree, and even if Pier does his part on the development side, it's not very difficult to get software that'll capture the audio of a computer. 

I'd say leave it to the composer to choose whether they want to do their part to avoid piracy, which to me means adding their own audible watermarks.


----------



## xepocal (Sep 8, 2022)

Pier said:


> we plan to support AAC and/or OGG Vorbis later on


AAC would be awesome - smaller files and works on all browsers!
Serving AAC inside MP4 by default is definitely a consideration I'd make in 2022!

Vorbis I don't see much point in (no support on Apple devices).

Opus I'd consider. Firefox and Chrome support Opus inside MP4 and Opus inside WebM. Apple only supports Opus inside CAF and only on desktops at this point AFAIR.

FLAC should work on >95% of devices in late 2022.


----------



## Crowe (Sep 8, 2022)

I'd probably suggest hosting it outside of the USA, in a country where you don't pay bandwith per GB, which is utterly ridiculous if you ask me.

Other than that, I'm very much in favor!

EDIT: I honestly wouldn't put too much time and money into protection against piracy. I've yet to encounter a player that can't be circumvented. As said, watermarking is the only real way to protect your audio.


----------



## Pier (Sep 8, 2022)

osterdamus said:


> I'll happily volunteer as a beta tester, too, if you need one. I've got experience in tech and startup, so I can mix user oriented feedback with technical discussion.


Awesome! Please send me a private message with your email!


----------



## Pier (Sep 8, 2022)

cedricm said:


> An impossible task. All what we can hope for is to make downloading too cumbersome for many/most people.


Yeah... I actually gave it some thought last year and concluded it doesn't make sense to spend effort on that.

Even if I developed the most sophisticated and secure system for audio streaming, anyone can just record the system audio with the loopback function included in most audio interfaces these days. Or simply use any of the dozens of virtual audio cables that exist (Audio Hijack, etc).

It's really an unsolvable problem that not even companies like Netflix or Disney have solved.


----------



## Pier (Sep 8, 2022)

xepocal said:


> AAC would be awesome - smaller files and works on all browsers!
> Serving AAC inside MP4 by default is definitely a consideration I'd make in 2022!


I analyzed this and ended up deciding AAC doesn't make much sense for this use case. AAC performs better than MP3 at lower bitrates, but at higher bitrates like 192kbps there's not an audible difference.



xepocal said:


> FLAC should work on >95% of devices in late 2022.


Yeah that would be my option for hi quality streaming rather than AAC.

The issue is that, even though all browsers officially support it, the support is not consistently great. Firefox in particular still has issues with FLAC.

Right now I'm using MP3 which has universal rock solid support literally everywhere. I'm using LAME which is really the best encoder regarding audio quality and at 192kbps it sounds great and audibly better than Soundcloud.


----------



## dohm (Sep 8, 2022)

This is a really cool project Pier. Just want to let you know I am impressed. I would love to have an alternative to Soundcloud.


----------



## Pier (Sep 8, 2022)

Crowe said:


> I'd probably suggest hosting it outside of the USA, in a country where you don't pay bandwith per GB, which is utterly ridiculous if you ask me.
> 
> Other than that, I'm very much in favor!


Yeah egress and storage are by far the biggest costs on the infra side.

And I agree it's ridiculous since it's really an artificial charge. Carrier providers for data centers don't charge egress but just how big of a data pipe you're renting.

If memory doesn't fail me, I think AWS was the first company who started charging for egress.

Anyway I don't want to derail my own thread into talking about cloud infra 😂


----------



## Pier (Sep 8, 2022)

dohm said:


> This is a really cool project Pier. Just want to let you know I am impressed. I would love to have an alternative to Soundcloud.


Thanks!

But just so that anyone doesn't get the wrong idea... I'm not building a Soundcloud competitor. Well not exactly.

Soundcloud is a social media for audio with a distribution and monetization service that happens to be used as audio hosting for embedding solution for websites.

Wavekit is (for now) just focused on audio hosting and embedding. Of course I have Big Plans™ to do a lot more stuff, but I want to solve this properly first.


----------



## Jett Hitt (Sep 8, 2022)

@Pier I'm pretty excited about this. Somehow I've overlooked this thread for the past 1.5 years. I've long sought something like this.


----------



## dohm (Sep 8, 2022)

Pier said:


> Thanks!
> 
> But just so that anyone doesn't get the wrong idea... I'm not building a Soundcloud competitor. Well not exactly.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the clarification. I don't need the social media features. In fact, I only use soundcloud for hosting and embedding.


----------



## Loïc D (Sep 8, 2022)

I’m using the service of Mix.Up to share tracks with directors & producers.
The player is nice, it offers time-based comments and A/B listening to versions of tracks.

I’m in if you’re looking for beta-testers or if you want me to tour Mix.Up


----------



## proggermusic (Sep 8, 2022)

Mostly commenting to stay updated on this because I missed this thread when it started – but I think this is a fantastic idea and I hope it goes swimmingly for you! I'll definitely be in to subscribe for $30/year, I'd say, and I'd much rather do that than use something like Soundcloud where it's "free" as long as I'm the product they're selling. So to speak. Great idea and great job so far!


----------



## Pier (Sep 8, 2022)

Thanks @Loïc D !

Hit me up with a private message and your email!

Mixup is great, but it's solving a very different thing. Sharing private audio with comments, A/B, etc, is something I've considered workin on too but for now I just want to focus on hosting + embedding. 

Honestly if it was up to me I'd solve everything! 

But I'm bootstrapping this on my own. No VC cash to burn, for better or worse.


----------

