Hopefully you should all know by now, but SoundCloud currently has three really great players that can be customized in a number of ways. There is the mini, waveform and artwork player. Each can be used to great effect in different scenarios. And there are several standard customizations you can do with each. Please note, to access the mini and artwork players you’ll need a premium account.

As well as the standard player customizations there are a number of other ways that you can hack the SoundCloud player. You just need to know where to look in the embed code. There are a range of different parameters that you can change in the embed code when you share a player:

buying = true/false (show hide buy buttons)
sharing = true/false (show hide share buttons)
download = true/false (show hide download buttons)
show_bpm  = true/false (show hide bpm display in player)
show_playcount = true/false (show hide number of track plays)
text_buy_track = string (e.g. ‘Tweet’ and it goes to your buy link)
text_buy_set = string (for the buy all button)

You can of course also change the height and width.

height = number of pixels
width = number of pixels

But one hidden little feature that we wanted to tell you about are our new double height (or width players). All you need to do is double the number of height (or width) pixels eg.

height=”600″ width=”300″

In the above example I’ve changed two things. Example code is below.

1) I’ve changed the height to make a tall player
2) I’ve hidden the play count
3) I’ve turned the share option off

<code><object height="600" width="300">
<param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fsmashingpumpkins%2Fa-stitch-in-time&color=ff7700&amp;sharing=false&amp;show_playcount=false"> </param>  <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> </param>  <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="600" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fsmashingpumpkins%2Fa-stitch-in-time&color=ff7700&amp;sharing=false&amp;show_playcount=false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300"></embed> </object></code>

So that’s it. Fairly straight forward once you know how, but very handy. In part 2 we’ll share some more tips.

If you’re going and would like to hook up then please get in touch or feel free to stop Alex & I in the street and ask for some stickers and a chat! We’ll be updating this post over the next few days as we confirm all our plans in more detail. There’s quite a few things going on during both Interactive & Music. Here’s where you’re most likely to find us.

Music Panel: How We’ll Be Listening To Music in 2020

Date: Wednesday, March 17
Time: 15:30-16:30
Location: Convention Centre, 16B

Alex will be joining a panel discussion with Ben Perreau, Jonas Woost and Steve Savoca. More info.

Five Possible Futures For The Music Industry
Date: Friday, March 19
Time: 17:00-18:00

I will be joining a panel discussion with Neil Schield, Adam Shore and Jack Horner. More info.

F*CK YEAH SXSW: hosted by Tumblr, Kickstarter, SoundCloud

Date: Saturday, March 13
Time: 18:30 onwards
Location: EMO’s, 603 Red River Street (at 6th Avenue)

Audio & Visuals by The Eclectic Method w/ DJ Mel & DJ Suspence. Sponsored by The Planet. Open bar with RSVP

MusicTech mixer: hosted by SoundCloud + Songkick

Date: Tuesday, March 16th
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Jaime’s Spanish Village, 802 Red River St

Margaritas, mexican food and conversation with folks at the intersection of music & technology. Free drinks and snacks until they run out – but don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around. RSVP required.

The Hype Machine’s Lose Control 2 party

Date: March 17, 18, 19, 20
Time: 12PM – 2AM everyday
Location: Vice (6th Street + San Jacinto, Austin Texas)

This unofficial party spans four whole days. That’s 56 hours of music and friends with 3 floors and many more bands & DJ’s. SoundCloud will be sponsoring, providing wi-fi and encouraging bands to upload their music to the HypeCloud Player. More info.

And most of the ways people currently use to share music privately are broken, cumbersome or plain ugly. FTP is fiddly and long. And generic file sharing services mean that the recipient sit through spammy ads, whilst waiting for the link to even become active. These links aren’t secure either, often expire and can hide viruses. Not nice!

SoundCloud is easy for the recipient, easy on the eye and let’s your music take center stage. And of course, we can also help you keep it private and secure.

HOW DO I SHARE A TRACK PRIVATELY?

1. Upload your release

If you want to send a release, showreel or playlist then upload all the tracks at the same time. This will create a ’set’. Complete as much or as little metadata you want. The great thing about using SoundCloud is that you’re not just sending files, you’re creating a beautiful page on the web that can include cover artwork, video links and full descriptions or promo text.

2. Mark as ‘Private’

This will make the track completely private and secure. It won’t show up on your public SoundCloud page and can’t be searched for either. No one can get to the track unless you have given them access.

3. Select who has access

There are 4 different ways that you can give people access to the track or set that you just created.

i. add their email address(es)
ii. add their SoundCloud username(s)
iii. add a previously created Contact List
iv. create a ’secret link’

4. Mark the track for download

Now you can decide if you want the track(s) to be downloadable by the recipient or if you want to give them streaming access only. If you mark as downloadable the recipient can access the original file (WAV, MP3, AIFF etc) as well as the preview quality stream that SoundCloud creates.

HOW WILL THE RECIPIENT GET THE TRACK(S)?

Once you have given someone access to the track they will receive an email notification that you have shared the track(s) with them. Inside the email there is a unique link that takes them directly to the track page that you created on SoundCloud that includes all the information you added. They can also download the original artwork or view any video links that you included.

If you marked the track for download then they simply click to get the download. There are also direct download links in the email notification (they’ll need to be logged in to download of course).

DOES THE RECIPIENT HAVE TO SIGN UP?

Yes, and no. If the person you’re sending music to doesn’t already have an account then we automatically create them a temporary account and all they need to do is put in a password, known only to them. This has to be done in order to make sure your track is only available to those you’ve given access. But it’s an extremely quick process for the recipient and they don’t have to create a full account on SoundCloud or spend anytime inputting their details. Also, they can use this same password the next time you send them a track.

If you want still want your tracks to be private but you don’t need this top level of security then you should use our ‘Secret Link’ feature which is available for anyone with a premium account.

YOU MENTIONED IT WAS SECURE?

Yes, you control exactly who has access to which tracks. Recipients are sent a unique link which is tied to their own account. The link is secure and can’t be accessed by anyone else unless they also know that persons account details. You’re also able to see stats on your track. How many plays or download it has had and even who listened when.

Of course no audio on the web is completely secure. But we make it as secure as possible without making the user experience totally suck. And if you’re only making a stream available this is a lower MP3 quality file encoded at 128kbps.

If you have any questions on using SoundCloud for private sharing then please feel free to get in touch or leave comments below.

1) SoundCloud is beautifully simple

It’s so easy to get started. Set up a free account and upload your music in any audio format. You can add as much or as little metadata as you want including a description, buy links, video links, and release dates

2) Our players are the best in town

Our classic waveform player is now ubiquitous across the web. You’ve probably seen it quite a bit recently. But we’ve added two other players* specifically with bloggers and websites it mind. There’s the minimal player which we stripped back as much as possible. It’s literally just a play button next to artist name and track title. And there’s the artwork player. You’ve probably guessed already… it’s literally just your artwork, with a play button. So it looks beautiful on the page and the blogger doesn’t even need to add any cover art themselves. It’s right there, as the player.

3) SoundCloud plays nice with The Hype Machine

SoundCloud is the only service that has a streaming music player that The Hype Machine can detect across the blogs that it aggregates. This means that a music blogger can grab your music from SoundCloud and can customize and embed a beautiful player in a post, knowing that it will still show up on The Hype Machine. And it’s much nicer than having to send them an MP3 link or re-hosting it on one of those nasty generic file sharing sites.

4) Geek out on stats, stats and more stats

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like geeking out on stats? Who’s playing your music, which blogs are raving about it, what are your most popular tracks, how many times has that free track been downloaded? SoundCloud can now answer those questions. You can see how many plays/downloads came from which blogs and where in the world those listeners are*. And because The Hype Machine now plays tracks back directly from your SoundCloud account we know how many times it has been played there too.

5) It’s easy for bloggers

We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for bloggers to share your music. Many are already using our private or group dropboxes to receive music. Just some of the things we’ve done include making it possible to share a player to Blogger with just a couple of clicks, working with Wordpress.com to have an official integration, allowing customization of our players, and of course the partnership with The Hype Machine. Of course we can’t force anyone to write about your music, but we can make it as easy as possible for you to share the music if they do want to.

*some features require premium accounts

Record an album in February that’s 10 songs or 35 minutes long

Recording can only be done in the month of February – no prerecorded songs.

All material must be previously unreleased, and we encourage you to write the material during February too.

What better way to spend your February. It’s a perfect excuse to ignore the dark nights and crazy winter weather outside. Just stay inside and be inspired to create (or finish) your album! Read all about it here.

We know that SoundCloud users are a very creative bunch so stop what you’re doing right now and sign up for the challenge. You’ve still just about got enough time left! And if you do take it up then please keep us posted with your thoughts and progress in comments below. There’s a RPM Challenge group on SoundCloud too for posting your works in progress. What are you waiting for?

The most important part of this is to tell you that The Hype Machine now detects SoundCloud players in the blogs that it aggregates. And as you probably know, the blog post and track are then sucked into the The Hype Machine. If you’re a blogger this means that you can use our players even more now and know that your post will show up on The Hype Machine.

This is exciting news in itself, but wait, it doesn’t stop there. When a fan listens to that track on The Hype Machine it’s actually streamed directly from SoundCloud. This means that if you’re the artist or label that has uploaded the track you’ll actually get stats on the number of times it has been played on The Hype Machine – as well as knowing exactly which blogs embedded your music in the first place. We’ve been busy building the most kick-ass stats for our users as possible and we think this is a great addition.

We think that this is all rather badass. The Hype Machine and the music blogs serve a massively important role in fans discovering new and exciting music. And it’s often the blogosphere that helps interesting new acts break to a wider audience. We’re thrilled to be part of that ecosystem, by allowing artists and labels to serve tracks directly to music bloggers via SoundCloud. And hopefully at the same time eliminating a lot of the hustle for the bloggers having to re-upload tracks to their own servers or use generic services like zmegasupersendfile.com

Here’s just a few of the releases you should be getting excited about. Go blog about them!

We’ve partnered with Abbey Road’s Online Mastering service to allow you to seamlessly send your audio to Abbey Road directly from SoundCloud with just a couple of clicks. Never before has it been this simple to get your music in the hands of the world’s best mastering engineers and have it worked on with the same type of equipment that was used to add the final magic touches to classic albums such as The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’.

Simply sign up at Abbey Road’s Online Mastering site then connect your SoundCloud account. Abbey Road have built the integration using our ‘Connect With SoundCloud’ feature to make the flow extremely straight-foward for users. Once connected you can just search and select the tracks in your account that you want to be mastered. SoundCloud and Abbey Road do all the rest!

We’ve not only made it super simple, we’re also giving all SoundCloud users a 20% discount to use the service. All you need to do is type the code ‘CLOUD9‘ into the correct box whilst making payment to make the saving. Enjoy! And let us know what you think.

Update: Check out this Reuters video of our visit at the studios earlier this week (video seems broken, try this link)

There’s a bit of twist to the contest. In fact there are three twists…

1) You’ll need to scavenge the music blogosphere for all the best stems. Start the hunt on Electrorash blog. And actually it’s pretty easy from there.

2) We’ve teamed up with Aviary’s excellent audio/remix tool Myna to give everyone a chance at making their own version. I might even have a crack myself over Xmas! Launch Myna from Delphic’s Doubt remix page (and more news on SoundCloud + Aviary in a future blog post!).

3) The guys behind the Delphic site have built some rather wonderful wizardry using our API so that you can upload your remixes to the band directly and have added a natty little voting button next to each submitted track. Clever huh?

So it’s time to get busy! We’re looking forward to hearing what you do.

The album is being made available exclusively at The Everybody website as a Creative Commons licensed, royalty-free package of lossless stems. The band are selling this package for $40 (via our friends at Topspin), which might at first sound like quite a bit but in fact you’re actually getting a lot. The stems are licensed and royalty free which means you can make your own version and (as long as you’re providing attribution back to the band) you can in theory make lots of money selling whatever you’ve created. We think that’s pretty badass!!

Not only that, but you can also submit your creation to SoundCloud for review by the band. Once David and Joey have had a chance to check out all of the tracks they’re going to choose the best of the best of these new creations and turn them into an album called The Everybody Else and release it as a limited-edition gatefold vinyl alongside the originals in Spring 2010.

So… what to do next?

1) Watch the highly entertaining infomercial (above)

2) Head on over to the band’s rather nice website to purchase the extended lossless album that comes with all the Creative Commons licensed royalty free stems

3) While you’re on the site don’t forget to pick up the free bonus tracks here

We’re pleased to say that SoundCloud will be in Manchester for In The City this year. I’ll be taking part in a panel on Monday called “New Digital Weaponry” whilst Alex will be there on Tuesday as part of the Tribes, Fans & Followers session with our friends Ian Hogarth (Songkick), Sean Adams (Drowned In Sound), Anthony Volodkin (Hype Machine).

There’s also a whole load of amazing bands (over 150 in fact!) descending upon the city from the 18th – 20th October as part of the event. And the super-friendly chaps who are working hard to organise ITC have kindly offered two pairs of wristbands for us to give away to fans of SoundCloud.

To be one of the two winners couldn’t be simpler. Send us a tweet to @SoundCloud telling us why you think you should win the wristabands. We’ll pick our favourite two by 4pm today (GMT, Friday 16th). For more details of what you’ll win check here.