Alternatives to Soundcloud

A recent announcement heralded the news that after a supposed 5 years of negotiations, the PRS for Music in the UK (Performing Rights Society, collect revenues and royalties for artists) are to open legal action against Soundcloud for lack of paid revenues and licenses. Initially I was incredulous at the entire news, especially that Soundcloud had stuck to a single defence for over five years and my first thoughts contemplated the death of the service as it buckles under the weight of a lawsuit - something made more poignant as I have only just paid for another year's subscription. 

NB: Apparently PRS' official name is "PRS for Music", but it is rarely referred to as this in the news. In this article, PRS and PRS for Music refer to the same organisation.

Daybreak - new track

New Track - Hafnium

Soundcloud Pro

I've finally taken the plunge and bought a year's worth of Soundcloud Pro - for less than £30 for 12 months of premium features, including loads of extra upload time, better stats and more profile options I can definitely say that it's money well spent.

One of my tracks Scandium was featured in a recent Secret Soundcloud mix and is getting some good reviews - definitely got to get networking and get more music posted. 

Soundcloud Link: 
http://www.soundcloud.com/southerntrax

New track - Titanium

I do like being able to punt out lots of new music and this track is no exception. I turned it around in about three weeks or so and just wanted it done, so here it goes. Not much to say about this track that I haven't already talked about, though I am particularly satisfied with the rising synthesiser line. As Synth1 has no reverse saw LFO shape, I had to use the triangle shape as a reverse saw. Using a very slow time period hooked to the oscillator pitch and tweaking LFO2 as an amplifier gate so I could do bit of jerky movement as it got higher in pitch, I got it done.

From Soundcloud:

Titanium: because it's heavy stuff. Just kidding - this grew out of my love of seeing Netsky last year at Lovebox in London and loving the sort of trance-meets-drum&bass sound that is going around.

A few modifications to my pads to become strings, add some classic dance pianos and this baby is ready to roll - hope you like it!

New track - Cerium

New track - Yttrium

Soundcloud April Fools

A lovely little April Fool's joke by the team at Soundcloud includes the Drop-o-meter that indicates the drops in a Soundcloud track based on a patent-pending algorithm.

Nice laugh, guys!

Read more about it here

Buying your way into the charts

A recent article on the Beeb (that's the BBC for overseas readers) caught my eye the other day, which claimed that chart topping artists had at some point fabricated their successes in order to get noticed by DJs, record labels and other artists. In singles out a company that would arrange for videos on YouTube or tracks on Soundcloud to receive set numbers of hits and accompanying comments to back up the legitimacy of the "traffic". In doing so, this increases the visibility of the work on the site, at which point it starts to pick up organic hits and thus into the headspace of industry professionals.

New Track - Scandium

A nice departure for me that uses a pad to determine the key and the bassline works off of that. Really enjoyed making this one and playing with Protoplasm TSM for the pad. The breakbeat I ended up using is the Worm break and I liked the ability to mess around with proper old-school rave break downs as well. As to whether I will do something similar in the future, who knows?

New track Beryllium

Happy New Year!

First and foremost, welcome everyone to 2013! Been doing a lot of other things over the last fortnight, so I thought I'd write a little to set things up for January and hopefully roll on from there.

Namm 2013 winter show coming soon

All eyes will be on Namm for the upcoming show at the end of the month - its always nice to have something to look forward to in the new year to bring us out of the post Xmas slump. Not sure what to expect from this year and the exhibitors but if it is anything like last year there should be some fabulous new kit coming out.
http://www.namm.org/thenammshow/2013

Zombie Stomp - new track on Soundcloud

I have a new track to listen to on Soundcloud, this time taking some inspiration from Halloween. It's been an idea I've had in my head and in draft form for about three years so I'm glad I was able to finally get it arranged and put out there. 

As ever, any feedback is much appreciated

Lanthanum - hip hop grooves and summer sounds

Calcium - it'll leave deposits on ya!

Lovely new track from me and some great responses from people on Soundcloud so far. Basically a kind of experiment with rain sounds, reverb and delay in an attempt to create soundscapes. Hope you enjoy and if you like it, let me know by leaving me some feeedback.

Find me on Soundcloud as ever:
http://www.soundcloud.com/southerntrax

First remix/rework

Magnesium, burning bright!

My goodness, what a busy boy I've been recently! After two days of being quite possessed by this track, I had to get it done and dusted and out there, so here is Magnesium for you to enjoy.

Actinium - new track on Soundcloud

Another new track out on Soundcloud, this time something more bouncy and electro - house oriented.

I've got a week off at the moment so I'm trying my best to make some new tracks and get them finished so I can post them up.

http://soundcloud.com/southerntrax/actinium

Radium & Barium - a real radioactive duo

Two new tracks that have finally been finished and that I am happy with after tinkering with them for ages are now available for your listening pleasure. 

For more information on either Radium or Barium and to hear them in all their glory, please click on the below links and read the descriptions on my Soundcloud page.

Radium:

http://soundcloud.com/southerntrax/radium

Barium

http://soundcloud.com/southerntrax/barium

Pre-weekend musings

Hello Internet; how you guys doing?