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Tunes Of The Month, Dec 2014


Jim Besser

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Jim, just out of curiosity, after turning us all on to SoundCloud (I never heard of it until you mentioned it), you seem to have abandoned it in favor of DropBox. Care to comment?

 

I like Soundcloud, and it's almost perfect for what we do at TOTM.

 

But I was nearing my usage limit for the free service, and upgrading is sort of expensive. I would have done it - but I also need a cloud based storage system for other purposes, including sharing PDFs of music, playlists, charts and backing up files.

 

Dropbox lacks the elegant music player that Soundcloud offers, but it can be used for all these other functions, as well, and the cost for virtually unlimited storage is modest. So for me it's strictly an economic decision; instead of subscribing to multiple services for different cloud functions, Dropbox provides everything I need for one modest monthly price.

 

YouTube is a fine alternative for TOTM participants. But I find that it takes more work to produce a good recording - you have to worry about how it looks, as well as how it sounds - and the audio quality when I record video with my iPhone or iPad isn't as good as when I use my Zoom H2n MP3 recorder and produce audio-only files.

 

That's my reasoning, but your mileage may vary.

 

 

I would add that soundcloud compress the audio file not dropbox...

 

It's possible to create an audio only file for You Tube - after a fashion. You simply make your audio recording as normal and load it into your video editor. Add a still photograph, anything you fancy - a picture of your concertina is as good as any. Drop your audio recording into the timeline, add the still picture and drag it out to the length of your audio file and save (export) it to whatever video format you prefer and upload the resulting file to You Tube. I agree it's a little more effort than a true audio only file but I would argue not much. There are many, many videos of that type on You Tube and it does not cause any problems. The only time I've heard of a problem is when someone used a photo they'd found on the internet and the owner of the copyright of the original photo notified You Tube. If you use your own photo, no problem or if you download one off the internet look for pictures with a Creative Commons licence.

 

I use that sometimes or as a modification add a number of photos and create a slide show though most of my You Tube videos are with my ukulele and I usually video myself as I am recording. I am beginning to run out of free soundcloud space, though so I may well start putting concertina recordings on You Tube.

 

I agree, soundlcloud also compress uploaded files but that's for online playback. If you upload an uncompressed file or one with lossless compression such as flac, set the Download option on, then anyone listening can download your original file to listen to at the quality you recorded at if they wish.

 

I save my completed audio files as flac both for inserting into video and for uploading to soundcloud. That way, I maximise the quality of any file uploaded. What happens after that is outside my control but I still have the originals available should anyone want them.

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It's possible to create an audio only file for You Tube - after a fashion. You simply make your audio recording as normal and load it into your video editor.

You can do this directly in YouTube using Upload->Photo slideshow:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1696878?hl=en-GB

 

But you can't upload audio from your computer if you go this way. See point 5 in the instructions:

 

5. Select an audio track from the library under “Audio”, or select No audio to have your slideshow play without music. (You won't be able to upload audio files from your computer). {My Italics}

 

Edit to add. The instructions above your link explain how to create an audio slideshow in Windows Movie Maker and Mac iMovie. I use Linux so use a different video editor but the method is much the same.

Edited by Tootler
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But you can't upload audio from your computer if you go this way. See point 5 in the instructions:

Oh, you're quite right. I misread the instructions.

 

Easily done.

 

I suppose you could make a silent slide show, download it and add the audio and upload again but that sort of defeats the object. it's easier to create the whole thing on your computer and upload.

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