7
Creating Sets as Playlists for Your Audio and Using Streams
PLAYLISTS ARE THE IDEAL WAY TO COMPILE VARIOUS LISTS OF SOUNDS. Perhaps you want to add only your own tracks to one to get a feel for an album order. Or perhaps you want to build a list of songs you find inspiring and motivational to showcase your own interests to your fans. Whatever your motives, playlists can help you organize your own sounds, as well as sounds you find on your SoundCloud adventures.
Putting Together That Playlist
Playlists can be made up of your own tracks, or they can be an homage to the mix tape—a collection of tracks you’ve found on SoundCloud that you’d like to keep under a specific heading or playlist name. For your own work, naming playlists is useful if you want to upload five or six tracks as an EP. (EPs are like mini-albums—not quite the length of a more traditional CD/album compilation, a full album, or a remix.) The name will help your fans understand where you are in the process, and your tags will help tell more of the story.
For tracks that inspire you musically, playlists can also act as bookmarks for you to go back to at a later stage. Just remember to give the playlist a name that makes sense to you for easier reference—for example, Electronic Inspiration. More on using playlists as a reference tool later in this chapter.
Adding a track to a playlist is as simple as clicking on the Add to Playlist button below any track. Once you’ve clicked on the button, you’ll have the option of adding the track to an existing playlist or creating a new one (see Figure 7.1).
Figure 7.1 Adding tracks to playlists.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Creating a Playlist
Give your new playlist a title. Designate the playlist as either Private or Public. Then click Save (see Figure 7.2). You can then go to that playlist, or close the window by clicking on the X at the top right and continue with where you were.
Figure 7.2 Naming your playlist.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Public playlists are displayed in your profile and are visible to your followers in your SoundCloud stream. To find them, click on your profile image at the top right, and then in the drop-down menu, click on Playlists. If you have navigated away, at the top of the page you’ll see a waveform representation of your playlist—click this to return to your playlist.
Private playlists are just that—denoted by a lock symbol, these playlists are not visible in the same way as the public lists. However, if you click on your private playlist, you still have the option of sharing, embedding, or sending it as a message. This is useful if, for example, you’re collaborating with someone and would like that person to get a feel for the order you’ve used or perhaps the song selection. For more information on private tracks, see Chapter 8, “Download and Private Access.”
To listen to a song without leaving your playlist, click on the smaller orange playhead that appears next to the Like button when you hover over a track. Simply clicking on the track as is will take you to the artist’s page for that track, which is useful if you’d like to see comments, see the artist’s playlists, and so on.
Editing Your Playlists
Remember tags? You can add those to your playlist, too. Click on your profile picture to access the drop-down menu and then click on Playlist. Click on the playlist’s name. To add the tag, click on the tag icon and type in your words (see Figure 7.3). SoundCloud will help you out by picking up the letters you start to type to generate suggestions. When you’re happy with the tags, click Save.
Figure 7.3 Adding tags to a playlist.
Source: SoundCloud®.
If you’d like to change the order of the tracks in your playlist—and, as a musician, this is a way to get a feel for what your album sounds like with tweaks to the order, what mood you want to create, and how the album builds up—click on the Edit Tracks icon (the one with the pencil). First up, you can search for a track straight from your playlist. Simply type an artist’s name or a keyword into this search bar and watch the results populate. To add a song, simply click and you will see it appear in your playlist. To remove a song, click on the gray X in the circle—it’s to the right of the track name. Once the icon changes to a white-gloved hand, you will see the words Remove from Playlist as you hover over this X. You will be asked if you really want to remove the track from your playlist. Click Cancel to go back or Yes to remove the song.
When you hover over your tracks, you will notice that the cursor is a four-sided arrow. Hovering over a track and dragging while in this mode allows you to physically move a track’s position either up or down your playlist. Arrange the tracks in an order you’re happy with, and then at the top of the page, below the tags, click on Save. To delete your playlist, click on the Trash icon below the large waveform representation at the top of the screen.
Sharing Your Playlist
When you’re in your specific playlist, underneath the waveform representing it at the top of your page you will see the Like (heart) icon. Next to that, you’ll see the Share icon. Clicking on Share gives you a number of options, shown in Figure 7.4. You can share to other popular social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, and Pinterest, or email the song. Just click on each icon and follow the instructions.
Figure 7.4 Get social with your playlist.
Source: SoundCloud®.
To generate the code to embed your playlist on your blog or website, click on the Embed option next to Share in this pop-up window. Click on More Options below the generated image to adjust the pixel dimensions of the embedded playlist.
Clicking on Message, next to Embed, generates a To field, where you can type the recipient’s email address, plus an area beneath that to type a message. Clicking the Add Track option allows you to add additional playlists or one of your tracks to the message.
Figure 7.5 Adding tracks or playlists to a message.
Source: SoundCloud®.
What’s That Other Pencil Doing There?
Apart from the Edit Tracks option we’ve already discussed, there’s a more in-depth Edit option for your playlist, accessed by clicking on the Pencil icon, which works similarly to the way you edit individual tracks (see Figure 7.6). Here you can also rearrange your tracks, change the playlist title, add images, add descriptions, choose the type (for example, Demo or EP) or genre, add tags, and view your settings, which include your public or private options (see Figure 7.7).
Figure 7.6 Further editing—the pencil icon.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Figure 7.7 Doing some further editing.
Source: SoundCloud®.
What about Reposting?
If you’re eager to let your followers know about your latest SoundCloud crush, simply click on Repost. A question box will pop up to check whether you want to proceed. Click Yes (see Figure 7.8).
Source: SoundCloud®.
You’ll notice that the appearance of the Repost button has now changed, and it looks as if it has been pressed, and the arrows are now orange. That same symbol of the two arrows will appear next to tracks in your stream.
Reposting is a useful way of letting others know what styles and genres of music you’re listening to, and that you’re giving the track that extra bit of validation by not only liking it, but actively sharing it to your stream.
Streams
Your stream represents what you’ve added or reposted, as well as what those you follow have uploaded, reposted, or created. Any private tracks they share with you will also show up in your stream. It’s your go-to point for seeing the most recent interactions on SoundCloud from both your activity level and theirs, and it’s a great place to look for new influences and inspiration. If you’re following someone whose musical taste you admire, keeping an eye on your stream and seeing what they’ve reposted may give you some insight into a hot new band or an interesting musical genre.
SoundCloud was created with people and community in mind, and your stream is a vital part of this interaction. If you decide to unfollow someone, they will no longer show up in your stream. Remember those genres you selected right in the beginning, in Chapter 2? These will also show up on your stream. To unfollow these, simply click on your profile and navigate through the drop-down menu to click on Following. Hover over the image representing the artist/band/musician and click on the blue bar that says Following. The image will disappear, and the rest of the thumbnails will shuffle slightly to fill the space.
This is also handy if you’ve forgotten who you were initially following, so pop back onto this page often, click through the images to go to the profile pages for each, and listen to the audio tracks.
Now that you know about playlists, you can also explore other artists right from their profile pages.
SoundCloud as a Reference Tool
Maybe you need some inspiration for new song ideas. A great way to get inspired is to listen to some of your favorite artists. You can create a playlist and then start browsing SoundCloud for some of your favorite songs. You can then start listening to these songs in your playlist and make note of what draws you to the songs. Remember that you can also add comments to the sections of the songs you like and reference them later. After you’ve listened to some tracks for inspiration, jump onto your musical instrument of choice and see what happens.
Figure 7.9 SoundCloud playlist as a reference.
Source: SoundCloud®.
It’s funny how listening to some of your favorite tunes can help you generate song ideas. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to write a song like the ones you’ve been listening to, but it can get some creative wheels turning. SoundCloud is a community of music fans—whether they’re creating their own or building playlists of their favorite tunes—and with the community comes a wealth of knowledge and an opportunity to learn, listen, and be inspired.
In the next chapter we take a look at Public and Private access on SoundCloud, and what it means to you as a musician in the management of your tracks.