SoundCloud - Use Private or Public setting?

[newpipa]

I decided to try SoundCloud for sharing my recordings. So, today I created an account and uploaded a recording I made of me comping “Cry Me a River” to share with my singer since we need to hold off on getting back together in person.

Knowing nothing, I made the track “public”. (Had a few rough spots and the tempo is a little pokey, but no big deal. I’ll fix that later.)

Within a few hours I received a message from a person in the SoundCloud messaging component stating the following...

Gday. Whаt іs nеw
I'm going tо shаre уour trаck Cry Me A River G Comping 7 30 20 12.11 PM
tо Рrіvаte Netwоrk of оver twеntу wеbsіtes, blоgs and sосіal medоa раgеs.
Gеnеrally уou cаn catсh:
● 201 real follоwers, 3050 lіstenеrs frоm Unіted Stаtes, 313 оr evеn more vіrаl shаrіng аnd lіkеs, shоrt whiteboаrd VіdеoТеаser.
Аll the dеtаіls - fоllоw the lіnk in my prоfіle phоto

Other than the unwanted communication, do I care that this person is “sharing” my track? (I am not a professional, so I am not looking to build a following. )

And should I use the “private” setting in SoundCloud, and then use private links to share my tracks? What do folks here use: private or public?

Thanks for your guidance.

[alohachris]

Aloha Newpipa,

... I have never shared ANYTHING online. It's far too easy for original music & vital, personal information to be appropriated by thieves today. That SoundCloud response to you sounds bogus to me, newpipa. Beware!

When I first started gigging in the 60's, I had a couple of my more popular songs appear on another musician's album's, a guy I had never met. Friends told me about the theft. I was stupid & naive enough to NOT have copyrighted those songs - but he did first. He made the money off of them instead of this writer. A lesson well learned. But I couldn't shake the anger for a year.

Subsequently, after receiving zero help through lawful authorities, I got arrested for tracking that musician down a coupla states away, & getting physical with him extensively in front of his family. Cost me plenty in fines, lawyer fee's, court & hospital costs - so I lost out twice.. But I'll bet he never smelled a fresh apple pie ever again, Ha! I told him if I heard that he ever played any of my songs again, the same thing would happen. Think Joe Pesci in "Casino" only at 6'5" & 225 lbs..

But as the song says, since about my 50's, the rage is gone & "Big Bad Bill, is Sweet William now." When I was young, I was always ready - Ha! It happened so often at my early gigs that some claimed I enjoyed the fighting more than the gigs. It might have been true in some venues.

Even 50 years before the internet's capabilities, that kind of music piracy was rampant. I never played an un-copyrighted original song again in public - EVER.

So newpipa, be careful with any original or cover music you share - I wouldn't do it on any format. You can't track down music thieves today on the internet. And conversely, some people get sued for sharing others' covers at sites like Soundcloud. It's against their rules! So as you get into recording, check out the rules of any site you wish to share music through. Be Careful, Newpipa!

What do you guys think?!? We (especially the youngsters) continue to trust sharing our music & info online through this dangerous, open technology. We're all in on it. IMO, the world has gone insane, staring at cellphones all day long, texting away, but without context! Even at 75, I don't trust anything or anyone I don't know, let alone revealing myself, music or financials potentially to internet thieves! Convenient technology can sometimes cost us big-time today.

Newpipa, just share musical phrases or parts of songs, like Doug does, not whole songs or original material on SoundCloud. People will get the drift. There are other protected, paid sites for sharing full recordings - if you stick with recording that is. And if you want to share original music, make sure that it's been copyrighted (check your state's laws).

And...of course, create recordings in a DIY treated space that are actually good enough to share. Ninety percent of all Soundcloud mp3. solo acoustic home recordings sound like they were recorded in Doug's untreated garage Sample One in your other thread. Save the world from yet another one of those people.

Be careful, guys!

alohachris

BTW, Youtube is better than Soundcloud for sharing. Just be careful what you share, newpipa.-alohachris-

[Doug Young]

That looks like spam to me. I often get stuff like this, saying "great track", and promising to get me views on this or that. it's often clear that what they're offering bears no benefit to my style of music, it's just an automated bot that got triggered by a new post appearing somewhere. So I wouldn't worry too much about that one.

As far as posting publicly, what's your goal? If your goal is to freely share your music, then just share it. If you hope to sell it somehow (good luck with that), or for any reason don't want anyone to hear it, then don't post it to a public sharing site. These days about the only way to keep something totally private is to not post it anywhere - even your posts (and this one) on AGF can be found by anyone, they're not private.

I think the idea that somehow keeping music private (assuming it's not just for your personal use) is kind of a thing of the past. Even big names post their tracks and performances to Spotify, You Tube, etc, for the world to hear for free, or relatively free, one way or another.

Anyway, think about what you're trying to do, and consider if posting it online fits your goals.

[rick-slo]

Since you are presenting music that is already copyrighted someone else can't really steal a copyright from you for that stuff. For original music once you create something it is technically copyrighted. Posting it online is one way of cementing a time line. Register original music and recordings with the US copyright office is you are really concerned - and AMI or ASCAP to boot.
Personally I would just make it public on something like SoundCloud.

[Doug Young]

I totally missed that this was a cover. If that's the case, then one reason not to post it is that unless you paid for the rights, it's not legal to post anyway. People do it all the time, but it's against the terms of service at SoundCloud, and technically illegal. One place that you can post is You Tube, because they have a mechanism to allow for this. You could also purchase a streaming license for the tune from Harry Fox. My earlier comments assumed it was your own music you were concerned about sharing.

[keith.rogers]

It's spam. You can report it if you want but best to just ignore it.

SoundCloud links, when "private" do not work in forums like this, which will see the domain name and try to generate the embedded player, and those don't work with the private URL. So, if you want to post the URL here for folks to easily click and play, you need to make the track public.

There are lots of threads on the copyright topic. I have bought mechanical licenses for covers I put on SoundCloud, but some folks do not. Just be aware you are rolling the dice to some extent there, but I have never heard of anyone getting a C&D notice or blocked. (Be curious if it has happened.)

[KevWind]

Yep spam just ignore it. I'm guessing they or their search program targets new accounts, and auto posts a boiler plate response , most likely you will not hear from him/them, again if you don't respond.

If it continues you can block specific users from interacting with you on SoundCloud

https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us...our%20account.

BTW I am not clear what ("comping “Cry Me a River”) means ? I am guessing are you saying you uploaded your cover arrangement, of "Cry Me A River" ? "Comping" is a mixing/editing term, indicating taking parts from different takes, and making a single track out them

You can make your tracks public or private depends on who you want to share them with. If it is for example share here on AGF then public and share the streaming link . If your are going to only share with a few specific individuals (like your singer) then make them private and "Downloadable" and either way upload them in the original recorded full bit WAV files

[Shepsdad]

Just about every single time you post something on SoundCloud, you will get almost instant “likes” “follows” or Messages. It’s all spam. I have a lot of stuff on SoundCloud, but I also post everything to Soundclick, and never get spam there. It’s a smaller site, but been around for a long time. I’ve been using Soundclick since the early 2000s.

[Dave Hicks]

I think of the public version of Soundcloud as being an electro version of an open mike - a place to share your music with a public that might care or might not.

However, being the electro version, it's open to spam and offers of dubious "friendship".

D.H.

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by KevWind

...
BTW I am not clear what ("comping “Cry Me a River”) means ? I am guessing are you saying you uploaded your cover arrangement, of "Cry Me A River" ? "Comping" is a mixing/editing term, indicating taking parts from different takes, and making a single track out them ....

"Comping" is also a jazz(ish) term for accompaniment, which might be a person's own arrangement, chords, etc. That was my take, since the song is kind of a standard.

[newpipa]

I could have been clearer in my description. As one responder noted, “comping” is the term we use in jazz for “accompanying”. Likely evolved because it’s easier to say. If some other player is soloing, then as a guitar player, your either comping (which is what you do most of the time), or not playing at all.

Anyway, my recording was me playing the accompaniment to the jazz standard, Cry Me A River, that I would be playing behind my singer. I am sharing these with her, so she can practice.

I thought a bit about any copyright issues that some discussed. My understanding from jazz is that the “changes” (I.e. jazz term for the chord progression of a tune) cannot be copyrighted; only the melody is copyrighted. And many tunes have the same or similar changes. Thus, you will see many folks who teach jazz online will not provide the melody in their teaching materials to avoid copyright issues. However, they use/provide the “changes” freely. The melodies are easy to find, learn by ear, purchase in a “Real Book”...

So, not to put too fine a point on it, but my comping is just playing the changes, not the melody.

Too much on that however. You all have been very helpful on the SoundCloud deal that is all new to me. I can ignore the “bots”, and maybe use the private setting on my tracks.

Final Questions - When I get my first acoustic recording setup together and want to share here for some feedback, must my track be “public” in SoundCloud for folks to listen to it? Is there a preferred sound file format (e.g. MP3, WAV) that one should use for best results?

Thanks all!

[Shepsdad]

Originally Posted by newpipa

I could have been clearer in my description. As one responder noted, “comping” is the term we use in jazz for “accompanying”. Likely evolved because it’s easier to say. If some other player is soloing, then as a guitar player, your either comping (which is what you do most of the time), or not playing at all.

Anyway, my recording was me playing the accompaniment to the jazz standard, Cry Me A River, that I would be playing behind my singer. I am sharing these with her, so she can practice.

I thought a bit about any copyright issues that some discussed. My understanding from jazz is that the “changes” (I.e. jazz term for the chord progression of a tune) cannot be copyrighted; only the melody is copyrighted. And many tunes have the same or similar changes. Thus, you will see many folks who teach jazz online will not provide the melody in their teaching materials to avoid copyright issues. However, they use/provide the “changes” freely. The melodies are easy to find, learn by ear, purchase in a “Real Book”...

So, not to put too fine a point on it, but my comping is just playing the changes, not the melody.

Too much on that however. You all have been very helpful on the SoundCloud deal that is all new to me. I can ignore the “bots”, and maybe use the private setting on my tracks.

Final Questions - When I get my first acoustic recording setup together and want to share here for some feedback, must my track be “public” in SoundCloud for folks to listen to it? Is there a preferred sound file format (e.g. MP3, WAV) that one should use for best results?

Thanks all!

I’ve done a few private tracks on SoundCloud, I only shared those in a one particular place and just posted the private link there. Nobody had any problem just clicking the link and going directly to it. I usually upload everything in .wav

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by newpipa

Anyway, my recording was me playing the accompaniment to the jazz standard, Cry Me A River, that I would be playing behind my singer. I am sharing these with her, so she can practice.

Just put the files in dropbox, or google drive - you can get free accounts. Or for practice, just make them fairly low bit rate mp3s (so the files are small) and email them to her.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

"Comping" is also a jazz(ish) term for accompaniment, which might be a person's own arrangement, chords, etc. That was my take, since the song is kind of a standard.

Ah. OK as in complimenting I guess. Hey thanks I did not know that, learned something new

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Ah. OK as in complimenting I guess. Hey thanks I did not know that, learned something new

Short for "accompaniment", Kev. Usually meaning that traditional jazz style of backing chords behind a singer or soloist. Of course it's only clear in context. There's "comping" a track together as in Logic's "fast comping", or "comping tickets" as in free, probably others as well.