MLS.
The TelenatorGreetings all!
This is just an important heads up to everyone involving SoundCloud. There is a current and lively complaint thread over on KVR about the sound quality (or lack thereof) in resulting tunes uploaded to SoundCloud. It’s been a few months since I’ve uploaded any tunes to that site, so I had forgot ‘the trick’ to having your tunes sound good on that site and NOT SUCK. But I remember now.
Here’s the deal, assuming you don’t want your music to seriously suck when listened to there. Look, their policies and formatting requirements are always subject to change, but if all possible NEVER upload MP3’s of your tunes to that site in anything less than 320kbps. In fact, if possible, NEVER upload any MP3’s at all!
Upload your music in WAV files at the standard 16/44.1 consumer-grade quality. Further, if they are still allowing you to upload your stuff in 24-bit/44.1, then this is your ultimate option.
The reason, which none of us could seem to remember or figure out when I passed through the KVR thread is very simple: SoundCloud converts your tunes to whatever format it is currently using. THEY convert it to an MP3 for you, so you can clearly see the problem with sending them something such as 192kbps in an MP3. Not only this, but we established that if you give them an MP3 in the same format they will host your tune in, STILL some sort of bizarre and detrimental transformation takes place, practically destroying all quality.
I have always uploaded 16 or 24 at 44.1 to SoundCloud. My songs sound fine, but some at KVR had been loading MP3’s to them at anywhere from 96 to 320 in MP3 format, and every one of them were having royal fits over the fact that their music now sounds horrible when played back. BTW, buying their upgrade services does not help in this. It only allows you more tunes/space and a couple of other, silly perks.
I am aware that some Podium members already know about this, but safe to say that many do not. Your tunes will suck when played back if you ignore this. I’ll bet roughly the same is true on the dozen other sites that host — so use caution and load the highest quality any time they will let you. Read their guidelines, as somewhere they are required to post “the Rules.”
Happy Uploading!
Tele
MLSDamn! I’ve always uploaded MP3 to Sound Cloud!
I must be lucky because by the time it never happened nothing in particular.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendation!
Cheers, Damy.
The TelenatorPerhaps you were wise enough or just lucky and loaded the higher fidelity MP3’s in 320mbps. If you are handing out your tunes to others, MP3’s at this rate are certainly passable, assuming the mix was okay and you dithered down to 16-bit WAV or perhaps used FLAC format in your DAW before converting to MP3 at 320.
Tricky to state plainly with all the numbers flying about in my first post, but I tried to point out that if uploading MP3’s in 320 to SoundCloud their converter probably won’t choke the life out of your music. In fact, things may sound okay, but there’s always that fair chance it won’t. The most critical thing is to LISTEN to any tunes you upload right after it says done converting. If your ears say it sounds good enough, then it is. If what you hear rots, yank it down and return with a lossless file format that they accept, the prime one being some WAV file.
It’s not mentioned much, but good to know that in the lossy audio format of MP3, even at 320kbps as much as 90% of the original audio content is removed so the file can be compressed quite small. So imagine how much is missing if at 192kbps! MP3 uses psycho-acoustic algorithms to fool the listener into not missing that removed content. Sound scary enough yet? Yeah, that’s why youngsters who listen to low-quality MP3’s, say, in 192 all day long on those little players instead of at least 320, regularly suffer from chronic listening fatigue.
Below 320 the bass starts to get wiped right away, the ultra-highs, and to some extent the highs, except they get badly smeared as well. That’s the first of problems you will hear if SoundCloud or any bad conversion mangles your music. The most common description is, “No bass left in my tune, and the highs were all strange and swirling sounding.”
MLSNow, you don’t believe what you’ll read in a moment. Are you sitting? No? So sit back and hold on tight! 😀
I’ve always uploaded MP3 at 160 kbps! But there’s a reason: my internet connection is slow. Yes, that’s right. Unfortunately I’m one of those seven million (!) of Italians who don’t have yet a fast connection. I will try to solve the problem in the coming months, but for now, to limit the file size and uploading time, I’m forced to use that format.