Soundtrap, anyone?

[David Colpitts]

Hello, All.

 

I learned about Soundtrap from a wise member of this group, and must say it has provided surprising fun (and nice-sounding recordings) with very little fuss and simple learning curve.

 

While still new to the platform, just a word about what it is/does:  It's an online DAW, with simple multi-track recording/overdubbing/audio augmentation tools, and all stored cloudside.  It is a subscription service, and after the free month expires, I suspect I am "in" for the 10 USD per month. It lets me do clean  overdubbing of multiple instruments and singing (plus lots of synth stuff and midi I suspect I'll rarely, or never use) and makes it very easy to sync one recording with another.  For collaborating remotely, it allows real-time communication, and rapid combinations of recorded bits into coherent (or, of course, incoherent) combinations.  I have had so much better luck than with anything else I've tried; maybe because it's simple and designed with music educators and students in mind.  

 

Hardware and internet requirements seem modest. Schools report great results with Chromebooks.  In fact, I am having my best luck "syncing" when I just use a cheap USB mic (no audio interface) and the built-in sound on a simple laptop.  The latency when I try to play along and record that way is inconsequential, but when I try with the Scarlett 2i2 and Shure dynamic mic clone, the latency makes it harder to hit spot on.  Counterintuitve, but empirically confirmed in my case.  Pretty soon, I'll run out of excuses for not posting tune clips.

 

So, does anyone here use it?  Can you share benefits or issues?

 

Regards to all,

 

David

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by David Colpitts

[David Barnert]

I expect you’ve seen Jim B’s recent thread?

[David Colpitts]

Yup; just replied to it.  Ships passing.....

[Jim Besser]

I've been using it for a week or so, with mostly positive results. But I am finding some odd behaviors, the strangest being this: laying down a click track and playing along, I'm getting periodic latency, generally in the middle of a tune. To test this, I created a slow click track - something like 50 BPM - and recorded just a simple scale, being very careful to be spot on with the track.  Playing it back, I was on at the beginning and end, but in the middle, there was a noticeable latency.

 

But when I record 2 tracks of music, things seem pretty much in sync.  Here's something I did this week using Soundtrap.  Mostly it seems together; whatever latency there is could be because of the DAW, or because the baritone concertina is slightly slower to respond than my Jeffries.  

 

I'm just beginning to play around with this, but it seems very promising. I'm sure all this is stuff I could do with a non-Web DAW, but I'm interested in making music, not climbing steep tech learning curves.