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Sinister SoundCloud
Sunday, August 21st, 2022 08:44 pmI spent my whole Saturday editing together the first track of Snoozefest 2022... the dusk track... working with material from six different takes, and taking pains to make sure everything flowed properly from earlier, with no crickets, to later, with more crickets.
It took all day!
I uploaded it in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and made a splash graphic for it as well! I was very happy with the track!.. after having gone to the trouble of creating the canopy hoist, just to get the cicadas more loudly and clearly.
--<>--
But then I listened back to it today, streaming from SoundCloud and... it sounded like SHIT! It was all lossy! The buzz of the cicadas was all lispy and washy!
What was going on? The FLAC on my computer still sounded crisp and clear!
Turns out that SOUNDCLOUD has recently changed their motherfucking policy, so that even when you PAY, to upload HD AUDIO... they now stream it to EVERYBODY in SD!
And to hear it in HD, like it was UPLOADED FOR MONEY... the LISTENER, now has to also PAY, motherfucking TEN DOLLARS A MONTH!
Even I had to start paying an EXTRA ten dollars a month today... to hear MY OWN audio... that I PAID them to host... in high definition!
--<>--
Before you think this is a petty rant, and that SD is just fine... well, for music it is! But for goddam cicadas buzzing and crickets chirping it is NOT!
Standard definition cannot deal with the high end on insect recordings! It either turns it into a lispy mush, or it produces noticeable artifacts that sound like electronic beeps and boops in the background that are impossible to ignore!
If I was just uploading music in MP3 format, I would not care! MP3 is a lossy compression format, but it's tailored specifically for music... the same way GIF is tailored for cartoons, and JPEG is tailored for photographs.
Snoozefest is a special case, where SD doesn't cut it!
So no... I'm not just being a petty audiophile about this. Any normal person who listens to these recordings in SD is going to go... WOW!... this is hot garbage!
--<>--
The whole point of Snoozefest was that I pay to upload these long form HD tracks so that the listener can play them for free on their end and use them to sleep to all night, or to meditate, or whatever... with no commercial interruptions!
And what makes this move by SoundCloud so sinister is... PICK A BUSINESS MODEL MOTHERFUCKERS!
Their business model is... the content creator PAYS them to host the material and make it available!
So what the fuck are they doing, shitting down my content and then forcing the listeners to ALSO PAY to hear it the way it was uploaded!
I'M PAYING YOU TO MAKE MONEY OFF MY CONTENT???
FUCKING NO!
What's next?.. throw adds into the middle of the tracks? Why not? You're taking my money. You're taking the listener's money. Why not throw some adds in there to fuck both parties even HARDER up their asses?
That's the goddamn American Way!
--<>--
I'm testing out the possibility of a YouTube channel... but that might not work either. I'm renduring a test "video" of the audio of my, Dusk 22, track as an MP4. But that might end up sounding just as bad as SD on SoundCloud.
And even if the sound quality is acceptable... I'm pretty sure YouTube WILL throw in unskippable adds, even if I'm a very low profile YouTuber with very few followers... not trying to get monetized.
I'm not positive about that, because I haven't uploaded to Youtube in like eight years, but... it's a long shot!
Unless somebody files a lawsuit against SoundCloud for this bullshit, I think I'm pretty well fucked!
I suppose it's still possible for people to just download my files and listen to them on their own devices. But that makes it less convenient for them... because they have to store it locally, and have no easy way to make playlists...
And it sucks for me too, because then I have no idea if the stuff is being played!
------------{=0=}------------
All of this highlights why I hate the modern internet, and the way unchecked capitalism has destroyed it, like it destorys everything!
YOU WOULD THINK that a boring loser like myself... who is not trying to get famous... and not trying to push any goddam agenda... would be able to share some boring ass cricket recordings with the vanishingly small numbers of people who care... without any problems... IF I'M PAYING A SERVICE TO ALLOW IT!
Again this is AUDIO!.. in the age where even movies can be streamed flawlessly on PHONES... it's not HARD to stream HD AUDIO!.. The files aren't that BIG!.. that's why the FLAC format was INVENTED!
FREE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODEC!!!
But NO!
You would be wrong!.. because not only has capitalism fucked the CLIMATE to the point where it's incredibly DIFFICULT just to get these goddam recordings anymore... either of thunder, or of crickets and cicadas... which should be EFFORTLESS!..
But now when I do all the work to capture and edit this shit into something worth hearing... I CAN'T SHARE IT WITH ANYBODY EVEN WHEN I PAY TO!
That's not how the internet was supposed to be!
--<>--
Unchecked corporate greed has turned the internet into a fucking dumpster fire that serves no purpose than to suck money out of bank accounts, and fracture civilization to the point of collapse!
TV used to be a shared cultural experience... everybody saw the same free network shows, paid for by ads, and most people saw the cable shows if they paid for one goddam subscription that was affordable.
Now, Disney makes you pay for this, Warner for that, Hulu for that, Netflix for that, and a hundred other video subscription platforms. The same is true for music! Especially unsigned music, as I've already ranted about in this blog... dozens of different platforms, all with paywalls, both for the creators, and the audience.
TikTok will shadow ban you if you attempt to promote something you're doing on another platform.
YouTube will demonetize you, if you say the wrong words... and forces obligatory adds into everything.
Facebook and Twitter only exist for bots to sow discord and propound conspiracy theories that radicalize uneducated people... because public education sucks too... and you can't get that online either!
Our devices, and even our desktop computers are becoming less and less our own property over time!
It's not insane to think that even Windows might one day force you to watch an add when you boot your own goddam computer!
--<>--
These are not the complaints of an old man who's just falling out of step with the times! This shit is bad, from one end to the other, without any redeeming aspects!
Here I am blogging on DreamWidth, because it's the ONLY platform left that's free!
Tumblr is dead!.. Blogger is dead!.. if you want a blog nowadays, you have to first pay for a domain name... then pay again for a hosting service... then pay a third time for some bullshit cloud software... then pay a fourth time for SEO... then pay a fifth time for STATS... it's fucking ridiculous!
--<>--
Okay, I've wasted enough time on this rant.
I've still got to see if my MP4 has decent sound quality, and test out how many adds YouTube's gonna throw into it, if I upload it.
Then I still plan to try and record outside tonight.
So... I'll talk to you later.
--<>--
But in the mean time PLEASE... download this track from Soundcloud before you play it!
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
It took all day!
I uploaded it in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and made a splash graphic for it as well! I was very happy with the track!.. after having gone to the trouble of creating the canopy hoist, just to get the cicadas more loudly and clearly.
But then I listened back to it today, streaming from SoundCloud and... it sounded like SHIT! It was all lossy! The buzz of the cicadas was all lispy and washy!
What was going on? The FLAC on my computer still sounded crisp and clear!
Turns out that SOUNDCLOUD has recently changed their motherfucking policy, so that even when you PAY, to upload HD AUDIO... they now stream it to EVERYBODY in SD!
And to hear it in HD, like it was UPLOADED FOR MONEY... the LISTENER, now has to also PAY, motherfucking TEN DOLLARS A MONTH!
Even I had to start paying an EXTRA ten dollars a month today... to hear MY OWN audio... that I PAID them to host... in high definition!
Before you think this is a petty rant, and that SD is just fine... well, for music it is! But for goddam cicadas buzzing and crickets chirping it is NOT!
Standard definition cannot deal with the high end on insect recordings! It either turns it into a lispy mush, or it produces noticeable artifacts that sound like electronic beeps and boops in the background that are impossible to ignore!
If I was just uploading music in MP3 format, I would not care! MP3 is a lossy compression format, but it's tailored specifically for music... the same way GIF is tailored for cartoons, and JPEG is tailored for photographs.
Snoozefest is a special case, where SD doesn't cut it!
So no... I'm not just being a petty audiophile about this. Any normal person who listens to these recordings in SD is going to go... WOW!... this is hot garbage!
The whole point of Snoozefest was that I pay to upload these long form HD tracks so that the listener can play them for free on their end and use them to sleep to all night, or to meditate, or whatever... with no commercial interruptions!
And what makes this move by SoundCloud so sinister is... PICK A BUSINESS MODEL MOTHERFUCKERS!
Their business model is... the content creator PAYS them to host the material and make it available!
So what the fuck are they doing, shitting down my content and then forcing the listeners to ALSO PAY to hear it the way it was uploaded!
I'M PAYING YOU TO MAKE MONEY OFF MY CONTENT???
FUCKING NO!
What's next?.. throw adds into the middle of the tracks? Why not? You're taking my money. You're taking the listener's money. Why not throw some adds in there to fuck both parties even HARDER up their asses?
That's the goddamn American Way!
I'm testing out the possibility of a YouTube channel... but that might not work either. I'm renduring a test "video" of the audio of my, Dusk 22, track as an MP4. But that might end up sounding just as bad as SD on SoundCloud.
And even if the sound quality is acceptable... I'm pretty sure YouTube WILL throw in unskippable adds, even if I'm a very low profile YouTuber with very few followers... not trying to get monetized.
I'm not positive about that, because I haven't uploaded to Youtube in like eight years, but... it's a long shot!
Unless somebody files a lawsuit against SoundCloud for this bullshit, I think I'm pretty well fucked!
I suppose it's still possible for people to just download my files and listen to them on their own devices. But that makes it less convenient for them... because they have to store it locally, and have no easy way to make playlists...
And it sucks for me too, because then I have no idea if the stuff is being played!
All of this highlights why I hate the modern internet, and the way unchecked capitalism has destroyed it, like it destorys everything!
YOU WOULD THINK that a boring loser like myself... who is not trying to get famous... and not trying to push any goddam agenda... would be able to share some boring ass cricket recordings with the vanishingly small numbers of people who care... without any problems... IF I'M PAYING A SERVICE TO ALLOW IT!
Again this is AUDIO!.. in the age where even movies can be streamed flawlessly on PHONES... it's not HARD to stream HD AUDIO!.. The files aren't that BIG!.. that's why the FLAC format was INVENTED!
FREE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODEC!!!
But NO!
You would be wrong!.. because not only has capitalism fucked the CLIMATE to the point where it's incredibly DIFFICULT just to get these goddam recordings anymore... either of thunder, or of crickets and cicadas... which should be EFFORTLESS!..
But now when I do all the work to capture and edit this shit into something worth hearing... I CAN'T SHARE IT WITH ANYBODY EVEN WHEN I PAY TO!
That's not how the internet was supposed to be!
Unchecked corporate greed has turned the internet into a fucking dumpster fire that serves no purpose than to suck money out of bank accounts, and fracture civilization to the point of collapse!
TV used to be a shared cultural experience... everybody saw the same free network shows, paid for by ads, and most people saw the cable shows if they paid for one goddam subscription that was affordable.
Now, Disney makes you pay for this, Warner for that, Hulu for that, Netflix for that, and a hundred other video subscription platforms. The same is true for music! Especially unsigned music, as I've already ranted about in this blog... dozens of different platforms, all with paywalls, both for the creators, and the audience.
TikTok will shadow ban you if you attempt to promote something you're doing on another platform.
YouTube will demonetize you, if you say the wrong words... and forces obligatory adds into everything.
Facebook and Twitter only exist for bots to sow discord and propound conspiracy theories that radicalize uneducated people... because public education sucks too... and you can't get that online either!
Our devices, and even our desktop computers are becoming less and less our own property over time!
It's not insane to think that even Windows might one day force you to watch an add when you boot your own goddam computer!
These are not the complaints of an old man who's just falling out of step with the times! This shit is bad, from one end to the other, without any redeeming aspects!
Here I am blogging on DreamWidth, because it's the ONLY platform left that's free!
Tumblr is dead!.. Blogger is dead!.. if you want a blog nowadays, you have to first pay for a domain name... then pay again for a hosting service... then pay a third time for some bullshit cloud software... then pay a fourth time for SEO... then pay a fifth time for STATS... it's fucking ridiculous!
Okay, I've wasted enough time on this rant.
I've still got to see if my MP4 has decent sound quality, and test out how many adds YouTube's gonna throw into it, if I upload it.
Then I still plan to try and record outside tonight.
So... I'll talk to you later.
But in the mean time PLEASE... download this track from Soundcloud before you play it!
°¦}
