Mixtapes has been a part of the DJing culture for eternity now, from the days of distributing Cassette Tapes to Burnt CDR's - the Mixtape is a part of the DJ scene as it is like the DJ's portfolio,
I can understand the reasoning of this act of taking down people's copyrighted stuff (which apparently is being HEAVILY reinforced) - many people apparently used Soundcloud as a means of distributing illegal, full length, unmixed tracks (some of them straight off beatport!) - so that's why!
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| Soundcloud Pricing - From FREE to 500 Euro A year! |
So as my Soundcloud premium was approaching its end... It made me think, do I really want to pay 79 euro a year (the premium plan that i was on - which included 12 Hours of Upload) just for soundcloud to take them down? If that is the case - what would I use the 12 hours of bandwith for?
There are 2 pretty good competitiors or alternatives to Soundcloud, namely 'Mixcloud' and 'MixCrate', I shall discuss each and one of them in pretty good detail you so you can decide which is best for you - keep in mind all of them are free (Soundcloud includes 120 upload minutes on free account) so you can definitely sign up for all of them anyway - but its good to know which one is best for your particular needs!
Soundcloud
Why Its Good?
- Good, attractive layout, easy to use widget to embed on social media
- Highly populated - Everyone has one! Gets your sound the most exposure!
- Nice postable APP on both IOS and Android - easily accessible from tablets and mobile phones
- Premium is Expensive (up to 500 Euro!!!)
The Bad
- Limited to 120 Minutes on FREE Account
- Mixtapes containing other artist works are prone to be taken down immediately
- Limited Downloads on FREE Account (100 Downloads only!)
Mixcloud
The Good
- FREE and Unlimited!
- Tracklist of mixtape built in
- Not as heavily populated as Soundcloud, but its pretty crowded
- OK Looking widget, although not as nice as SoundCloud's, but still, looks pretty cool!
- Pretty good and fast app on the Android
The Bad
- Mixtape only - no single sounds are to be uploaded!
- No DOWNLOADS!!! (Except by the use of other, third party applications to download the sound) - why not??? They need to enable the downloads as an option!
- Android app disables "seek" in mixtapes, forcing you to listen from beginning to the end without the ability to skip to the middle
Mixcrate
The Good
- FREE and Unlimited!
- DOWNLOADS Enabled!!! (Only for Registered Users)
- Tracklist built in on the mixtapes
The Bad
- No Android or IOS APP!
- Mixtapes only - no single tracks here
- No Fancy widgets with awesome waveforms
- Not as populated as Soundcloud (Currently - that might change with Soundcloud taking down mixes!)
- Downloads of mixtape require registration - some people are lazy and this may stop them from actually downloading your music!
My Recommendation
If the whole purpose of you getting a soundcloud premium to upload mixtapes, keep in mind that even though you paid some serious $$$, they may (and will) take down your mixtapes if they find that something in there that belongs to another producer (particularly well known ones, say Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, Swedish House Mafia? Include any of their tracks in a mixtape and you will almost definitely be taken down)
If you produce original tracks and remixes, its a good idea to get soundcloud's free account anyway (for 120 minutes of upload - thats enough to upload 40 songs of 3 minutes in length for example) and that is quite much for single tracks and original production, or you can choose to get their lowest premium account which costs 29 euro a year which doubles your upload time to 240 minutes
If you dont produce and upload only mixtapes - i'd go with either Mixcrate or Mixcloud, since they are both free - if enabling downloads are a must, then I'd definitely recommend Mixcrate - if you dont mind that they require signing in / registration before downloding of course
A good recommendation is to "cycle" your mixtapes, lets say you get the Free Soundcloud account, you can upload one 60 minute mixtape to your soundcloud for a short amount of time, and then after that when you have made your next mixtape, delete the old one and upload it to either Mixcrate or Mixcloud, where your COMPLETE collection of works can be accessed at all times, this way you are still getting Soundcloud's maximum exposure, even if just for a limited time
Oh and for reference, here are the links to all 3 of my pages:
