Trying to finish this track off. Just added the vocals and redid the mix. How does everything sound?

[modern tusk]

https://soundcloud.com/dj-jonah-gabriel/echo-folder-vocals/s-ACesepWzLTX?si=9c26c55ba98b49f3a153f8a1e0f0ff33&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

[jade ferry]

FYI, it works best if you upload an AAC (lossy, if you don't have Nitro or some other host for larger files), or the original WAV/AIFF file, because MP3 will destroy a lot of information, and SoundCloud will make significant changes to the audio (all of them very bad). SoundCloud only streams something profoundly awful, like 64-128kbps MP3. So maybe your song will sound bad if you give us a SoundCloud link, but it sounds much better if you upload a better file.

[modern tusk]

Ah, makes sense. Thanks.

[frail wind]

I respectfully disagree. It will sound like what everyone who uses SoundCloud will hear!

I recommend making a streaming edit and a club edit (or whatever you’ll put on bandcamp for purchase)

Are you sure SoundCloud is converting the wavs to 128 mp3? My understanding is they just compress louder than around -12 lufs. But converting every time there is an upload seems like a lot of dev ops and server load. Though it will save on server disk space/storage

[frail wind]

(also, it says track not found!)

[jade ferry]

Yes, their sound quality is awful. You don't have to take my word for it. Peep the audio stream.

[jade ferry]

Nah, that's trivial. Costs pennies per conversion at most.

[frail wind]

Really? Bc according to billboard there were 45 million tracks uploaded in 2022-2023, which if we say the cost of compute is .01 then makes $450,000 on conversion cost per year.

That just surprises me.

@jade ferry

[frail wind]

@modern tusk

[modern tusk]

Sorry. Here's an updated link.

https://soundcloud.com/dj-jonah-gabriel/echo-folder/s-oomFAit0sZZ?in=dj-jonah-gabriel/sets/jonahs-first-ep/s-uTiZpYp5ZFK&si=3ff3fc59fb8e4dca81a6d4a0e80e23f6&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

[jade ferry]

If I spend 450k to make 4.5MM, that sounds like a win.

[jade ferry]

The cost of storage and especially the cost of outgoing data transfer is more painful than the cost of a few CPU cycles, in my experience, especially for services at scale.

At that scale, the obvious smart move is to queue conversion jobs and batch process them. Each user experiences maybe a few seconds or a minute of delay, but the cost efficiency is better.

From SoundCloud themselves:

We transcode all tracks to 128 kbps mp3 and 64 kbps opus for streaming playback.

64
kbps
opus
🤮

https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003450667-How-do-I-upload-a-track-to-SoundCloud