12
SoundCloud on the Go
WITH CURRENT TECHNOLOGIES, PEOPLE ARE SHIFTING A LOT OF WHAT THEY DO ONTO THEIR MOBILE DEVICES, such as smartphones and tablets. For example, people check out weather on their smartphone or read books on their tablet. The folks at SoundCloud have been forward-thinking with their social media tools and have also developed a mobile app so you can upload your song ideas to SoundCloud while on the go. Let’s take a look at how to do this.
SoundCloud Mobile App
The SoundCloud Mobile app is supported on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. If you own any of these devices, take advantage of the mobile app so that you can keep tabs on your SoundCloud profile even when you’re away from your computer.
You can download the iPhone and iPad versions from the Apple App Store, and the Android version from the Google Play site. Navigate to the SoundCloud Mobile page on your mobile device (https://soundcloud.com/mobile), and there will be links to the downloads for the respective iOS and Android versions (see Figure 12.1).
Figure 12.1 Downloading the SoundCloud Mobile app.
Source: SoundCloud®.
When you launch the SoundCloud app on your mobile device, you’ll see that you have tabs for your profile, your stream, and activity. There is also a Search tab for you to search for songs and artists.
Under You (your profile), you can listen to your uploaded tracks and see any tracks you have liked (see Figure 12.2). Plus, you can navigate to artists that you follow or that follow you.
Source: SoundCloud®.
The Stream tab will keep you up to date with artists you are following and any tracks they have uploaded. So even while you’re out and about, you can listen to any new tracks that have been added to your stream. The Activity tab (the icon that looks like a comment box with a heart in the middle) keeps you up to date on any activity on your profile, such as any likes, comments, and new followers.
The Search tab is a great way to search for new artists while you’re away from your computer. Maybe you’re traveling and you’d like to look for a new artist. Use the Search functionality, shown in Figure 12.3. Start following the artist and listen to their tracks while you travel to your destination.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Mobile Recording
Probably the most useful feature of the SoundCloud Mobile app is the record function that you can access through the Rec button (see Figure 12.4). All mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads have a built-in microphone so that you can make use of this feature. The Rec button arms the built-in microphone on your device and lets you record ideas when you’re away from your computer setup. Maybe you’re at a band practice and you’d like to capture the idea of the new song your band’s working on. Or while you’re on the bus, you have a vocal idea. You can quickly jump to the SoundCloud Mobile app and record the idea as inspiration hits. Hit the Rec button, and the app will start recording any audio that the microphone signal picks up. It’ll display the audio waveform of the audio being recorded (see Figure 12.5).
Figure 12.4 The Record function.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Figure 12.5 Recording audio with the Mobile app.
Source: SoundCloud®.
This is great because it gives you a visual display of the audio. So first you can see that there’s a signal, and you can also see how loud the signal is by the height of the waveform. While recording, the Rec button changes to a Pause button. If you press this, it’ll pause the recording. Press the button again if you wish to resume recording. This is nice if you want to take short breaks between recordings.
You have some other options, too (see Figure 12.6). The Play button on the left of the Rec button will play back what you recorded. You can hit Delete if you weren’t happy with the recording and want to try to record the idea again. You can even edit the recording using the Scissors icon. This brings up a left and right locator on the audio waveform that you can move around to zone in on the area of the waveform you want to save (see Figure 12.7). Use the Play button to listen back to your edit. When you’re happy with the edit, hit the Apply button.
Figure 12.6 The Edit functions in the Mobile app.
Source: SoundCloud®.
Figure 12.7 Editing your audio.
Source: SoundCloud®.
When you’re completely happy with the recording and the edit, press Save to upload the audio to your SoundCloud profile. A dialog box will come up with a What field to give the audio recording a description and a Where field if you want to add where you recorded the sound (see Figure 12.8). This will access the location services on your device and give you a location to add in this field. Maybe you’re doing some field recording at a specific location and you’d like to add in these details, so that when you get back to your studio computer, you already have the location details for each audio recording. This would be quite a timesaver, instead of having to jot down on paper the details of each recording and then capture those details when you get back to your studio. But that’s just one scenario where this would be handy. I’m sure you can think of others that would suit your situation. Maybe when you record a snippet of a live gig, you can add in the location so that fans who were at the gig can go and listen. There are also some sharing options if you want to share the sound on other social media platforms.
Figure 12.8 Adding details to your Mobile audio.
Source: SoundCloud®.
When you’re finished, hit the Post button, and the app will upload the sound to your SoundCloud profile. As you can see, it’s a very simple feature, but super handy when you’re out and about but would still like to be connected to the SoundCloud community.
Mobile Apps for SoundCloud: In Chapter 11, we touched on the Auria mobile app (www.auriaapp.com), which has SoundCloud integration. Let’s talk a bit more about it here. If you’re looking at going completely mobile and you would like to do all your music production on an iPad and upload straight to SoundCloud, then this is the app to go for.
Auria supports up to 48 tracks of simultaneous playback. It can record 24 tracks at once, and it offers many more features, too. In a nutshell, this is probably the most comprehensive professional recording app on the iPad. It does come at a price—it’s $49 at the App Store—but I’d say it’s completely worth it. The reason I’m mentioning it in this book is that it also integrates well with SoundCloud, allowing you to upload directly to SoundCloud from within the app. I’ve used it only very briefly, but I was extremely happy with its performance. So if you’re looking at going completely mobile, I’d recommend Auria.