SoundCloud Archives - Sky's Blog

Embedding a smaller SoundCloud player

sky — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 19:59:50 +0000

Soundcloud has easy ways to embed music players in a web site, especially WordPress sites. However, these players can use up a lot of screen space on a page, especially the players for “sets” (several tracks per set).

So here are two special configurations that I particularly like. The top one puts the track image behind the entire player, while the bottom one puts the track image on the left side like an “album cover.” The upper player requires a height of at least 140px to look good; the lower requires 110px.

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New strings, guitars, dances

sky — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 06:00:13 +0000

Preparing for a three-week composition marathon writing “dance” and performance music. I have put up a lot of new composition work on SoundCloud. See “Strings” “Classical Guitar” and “Dakini Dances” for the new material. As always, it’s still drafty, but good enough to listen to and get the idea. Listen online at SoundCloud.

Strings » [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/179144010″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=true&show_user=false&show_reposts=false&show_artwork=true&&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”400″ iframe=”true” /]

Classical Guitar (duets) » [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/178606586″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=true&show_user= false&show_reposts=false&show_artwork=true&&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”400″ iframe=”true” /]

Dakini Dances » [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/132507989″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=true&show_comments=true&show_user= false&show_reposts=false&show_artwork=true&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”400″ iframe=”true” /]

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Max/MSP project

sky — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 18:07:48 +0000

“Max/MSP” is a computer app that implements an on-screen visual programming environment in which you can “wire” together components that make and process sound or logic. You could think of it as programming, but it’s unlike the old procedural programming you probably just thought of. It’s object-oriented, but more than that it includes many components that are paced by a clock. And the “programming” is carried out visually by creating and moving objects on the screen and patching (you might say “wiring”) them together. You might have a metronome beating four times a second, for example, and it could trigger sounds or actions that it’s wired to.

I just completed a one-semester course in Max/MSP and our final project challenged us to build a Max/MSP program (called a patcher) that implements an interesting musical performance.

The “music” in the performance is composed from a set of audio recordings — you might even call them samples — and because any kind of audio sample could be dropped in, there are billions of ways this music might be made and might sound. Because it can all be controlled from the stage in real time, we could also put together a performance using not only the Max/MSP components but live performers.

Video clips for you to play:

Description of this project (5 minute video) »

A Max/MSP Performance by Sky (4 minutes) »

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Putting music on SoundCloud

sky — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 23:19:20 +0000

Ten years ago, maybe, MySpace was the place to put your music. There’s still a lot of stuff there.

Today, the people I’m meeting are putting their music on SoundCloud. It’s easy to upload, and the player is sweet. Nice visuals. Each to click to play. When you’re at the soundcloud site, the player minimizes down to the bottom of the window and keeps playing while you look for other things to explore. I started putting things on SoundCloud this week. A player can also be embedded in your own web site, and there are lots of shapes, visuals and functionality.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/124222697″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” iframe=”true” /]

As you see from the panel above, you can embed the player in your own web site. You don’t have to send listeners to SoundCloud, though you can do that too.

You can also make your uploads private. Well that’s kind of stupid—that you’d put up music and don’t want anyone to hear it, huh? But for sharing a work-in-progress, it’s perfect. I can put up the file and share it with my teacher, or musicians who are going to play it, and nobody else needs to hear it until it’s ready.

SoundCloud uses a freemium model, where the first 180 minutes you upload are free, then you start paying if you need more.

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