4
How SoundCloud Differs with Its Waveform Display
WHAT MAKES SOUNDCLOUD UNIQUE AMONGST THE OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS available is that it displays a detailed waveform of the audio file/song that is playing back. It also allows users to add annotations/comments at specific points in the song. This has huge advantages for musicians—they can receive valuable feedback from fans and fellow musicians. In this chapter we’ll look more at why this is so beneficial to musicians.
The Waveform Display
When you’re uploading your initial song, you’ll get your first glimpse at the waveform display of your composition (see Figure 4.1). When you play back the song, you’ll see that as the audio starts streaming, the waveform will go orange, showing how much of the audio has been buffered to your computer. You can click on different regions of the waveform if you want to play back the song from different positions. This is a great way to get an indication of where your song-arrangement changes are—for example, where the verses are and where the choruses kick in. Maybe when the song hits the chorus, there is a bump up in the song’s level and energy. Maybe distorted guitars come in on the chorus sections of your song. You should see this quite clearly in the waveform display, which is really useful.
Figure 4.1 The SoundCloud waveform display.
Source: SoundCloud®.
What’s also important about the waveform is that it displays the beginning of the song on the left and the end of the song on the right. In between these left and right points of the waveform, you can add comments or tags to the waveform, as shown in Figure 4.2. Other users can also add their own tags and comments. Once a comment is added, it’ll be time-stamped to that point in the song. This is a great way to get feedback on specific points in your songs. We’ll touch on time-tagged comments in Chapter 5, “Using SoundCloud as a Sketchpad,” and cover them in more detail in Chapter 10, “Building Up Time-Tagged Comments,” so jump there if you want to get more details on how they work and how you can create and moderate them.
Figure 4.2 SoundCloud waveform with time-tagged comments.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Benefits of the Waveform Display for the Home-Studio Musician
The waveform display can also be very beneficial to the up-and-coming home-studio musician/producer. It shows you visually how your audio is being expressed. You get to see the dynamic range of your audio. What I mean by this is how far your audio extends in volume. A smaller visual waveform means that your relative audio levels are quite low, and a more extended and dense waveform means a much louder relative level and range.
When you first get into home recording, you’ll notice that your audio signal is probably much softer than other commercial releases. And you’ll definitely notice this when you upload your first recording and see the very minimal dynamic range. Now, I could get into a whole debate on audio, mastering, and the loudness wars. But what I’m really trying to get at is that you can use SoundCloud as a tool to compare your audio to other commercial releases on SoundCloud. Check how their songs are represented visually, and then start using music-production techniques to get your audio close to the same level.
If you have some mastering tools at your disposal, such as limiters, then use these to increase the relative level on your audio. Limiters are great because you can set a threshold that your highest audio peaks don’t go over, so the processors don’t cause any harsh distortion on your audio. If you want to learn more about mastering, you can take courses or look at some of the tutorials that are available online. You can also check out The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook, Third Edition, by Bobby Owsinski (Cengage PTR, 2014).
Or, if you prefer a third party to master your audio (which is actually quite a good idea, because that person hasn’t spent as much time as you have listening to and tweaking the song), then look for a mastering engineer in your area. There are also some quite good mastering services online, where you can submit your unmastered song. They’ll work on it and then send you the finished production.
See the waveforms in Figures 4.3 and 4.4 for examples of an unmastered and a mastered track.
Figure 4.3 Example waveform of unmastered song.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Figure 4.4 Example waveform of mastered song.
Source: SoundCloud®.
That gives you some pointers to making sure your songs can stand up against other songs on SoundCloud. Remember, the visual representation should not replace a good set of ears—listen to your track and use all the tools available to you to make it the best you can. In the next chapter, we’ll look at how you can use SoundCloud to help you sketch out songwriting ideas.