Any tips on how to put music up for streaming in reasonable quality?

[Bartholomeus]

Edit: perhaps I should have posted this under Newbie Questions. If so, feel free to move it.

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In the past I've put some music on Soundcloud. Now, I am not an audiophile at all, but the quality of the stream was just horrendous, strange warbling and clipping that definitely wasn't part of the files I uploaded. So much audible distortion was introduced that I was very hesitant of sharing links to those tracks with anyone.

Then I looked at Youtube, but it's essentially just as bad: 128kb/s, unless your video or channel draws lots and lots of traffic.
But still, perhaps it doesn't sound too bad right? So I gave it a shot and uploaded a track and listened back to the stream. It sounded horrible: weird compression pumping and overall much duller sounding than the uploaded file.

So, what website do you recommend for promoting your music? Is hosting the files on your own server/website the only option if you want acceptable quality streams?

Thanks!

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[nordicguy]

Not that you'd have to buy any products from them, but here are two links that might be of interest for you.
Both have a blog where you can find pretty interesting topics.
https://www.meterplugs.com
https://www.masteringthemix.com
Hope this help.

 

[Bartholomeus]

Do you think the problem is with the mastering prior to uploading, rather than the conversion to low bitrates, i.e. lossy compression, at Soundcloud and Youtube?

 

[Divico]

How about sharing a link. Hard to say if the problem is just lossy compression or if there is more to it

 

[Bartholomeus]

Here is a track of mine that, when streamed, sounds to me like it has a lot less high frequencies than the original:



According to some interwebs sources [1, 2], an audio file compressed to 128 kbps simply does not contain much frequency content over 15-16 kHz anymore. I guess my ears are still pretty sensitive in that 16 to 20 kHz range.

But perhaps I am too worried about audio stream quality, when I should just be working on my composition and mixing skills. Garbage in high bitrate is still garbage after all.

1: https://thesession.org/discussions/19642
2: https://www.michielvanerp.com/check-the-true-quality-of-your-mp3-files/

 

[Divico]

Here is a track of mine that, when streamed, sounds to me like it has a lot less high frequencies than the original:



According to some interwebs sources [1, 2], an audio file compressed to 128 kbps simply does not contain much frequency content over 15-16 kHz anymore. I guess my ears are still pretty sensitive in that 16 to 20 kHz range.

But perhaps I am too worried about audio stream quality, when I should just be working on my composition and mixing skills. Garbage in high bitrate is still garbage after all.

1: https://thesession.org/discussions/19642
2: https://www.michielvanerp.com/check-the-true-quality-of-your-mp3-files/

Maybe you could provide us the original in good qualtity. Dropbox or something.

 

[Polkasound]

Do you think the problem is with the mastering prior to uploading, rather than the conversion to low bitrates, i.e. lossy compression, at Soundcloud and Youtube?

When you upload to SoundCloud, upload your original, uncompressed audio files. The compression algorithm they use seems to have the least discernible effect on 48kHz/24-bit wav files. Never upload MP3 files.