Gray on 31/3/2019 at 14:20
I have a question for those of you out there that are more knowledgeable than me. Let me set the premise first:
I'm a pretty terrible musician. I know what bits I'm good at, and I know what bits I'm bad at. I can make some pretty decent backing music, and I'm actually quite proud of my drum machine programming. But what I am not is a song writer. I've tried and failed many times. I have about 200 half-assed songs that never went anywhere.
Working on my most recent piece of crap today, I realised that that is what I do. I make tiny bits of songs. Not actual songs.
So here is my question:
Is there some music sharing website or community where I can upload my tiny bits of crap and then have someone else use it for their own songs? If so, where, and how do I use it? Keep in mind, I'm pretty old and thick, so please use small words.
My tools are usually old analogue or analogue-digital hybrids like the Juno-1 (my first synth and preferred weapon of choice), but recently I've not touched them (mainly because they're in a box in a country far far away) and I've been using an app called Caustic instead. Regardless of my tools of choice, if I can export sound files and upload them, maybe someone more talented than me can use it for something better. Maybe there's even someone out there who also uses Caustic and I can just send them the files for them to muck around with. Any suggestions?
Jason Moyer on 31/3/2019 at 16:02
I dunno about collaborative sites, but you could do worse than at least sharing your stuff on Soundcloud so everyone can share in your joy.
Gray on 1/4/2019 at 14:14
I posed the same question to my brother-in-law, who's a local musician and really quite talented, and he said Soundcloud as well. I've heard of it before, but never actually been. Thanks, I'll try it.
Nameless Voice on 1/4/2019 at 18:35
If you want to actually give the sounds away for others to use in their projects, you could always upload them to (
https://freesound.org/) freesound.
I know I go there if I want sounds for modding / gamedev purposes, so I'm guessing that musicians probably also go there for clips?
But it's just a generic sound-sharing site, not specifically for music beats or anything like that.
Gray on 1/4/2019 at 22:17
Yes, I do want to give away my stuff for free, if anyone is willing to have it, and make some better use of it. I realise of course that there are thousands, if not millions of musicians out there way more talented than I am, so there is really no reason why anybody would care about the crap I make. It's all gonna be highly derivative, but hey, at least it'll be free. Maybe I can just make a drum loop someone enjoys and can steal for their own project, be it a song or a game or (ugh!) even a lowly TV advert.
So, thank you, I'll check out Freesound too. If I do use either of these sites, I'll link my crap here so you can hear for yourselves why I call it crap. Prepare to be underwhelmed.
demagogue on 2/4/2019 at 03:42
The way that happens on Soundcloud is you just start uploading stuff, and eventually you get requests from people into that style.
It helps if you make stuff that's good for sampling.
The other option, I can't say for sure it'd work but I'd wager, is to still upload to Soundcloud, but get involved with a forum for the kind of music community you want to be tapped into... I play piano and keyboard, jazz and electronic. For jazz piano, I know exactly where to go (the non-classical sub-forum of the piano.com forums). So if you can find the equivalent for that for whatever style you're into, then you just start posting and making yourself known, and at some point you start giving links to your music, and then collaboration opportunities come out of that.
Gray on 2/4/2019 at 05:06
I only just now made a short piece that I'm not yet embarrassed to share, but I probably will be tomorrow. It's a pretty basic drum&bass track that might have been mildly innovative 20 years ago. I'm pleased with two things in it, the main drum bit and a bit near the end when the drums come back. Apart from that, the actual music is a lot more old and stale. But, I figured, if I can make a short thingy that makes me dance in my chair, maybe someone else might too. I'll try to upload it to some site or other, but if I fail, don't worry, you're not missing out on quality culture here.
[Edit]
Bleh. To sign up for Soundcloud was was trying to use the email account I use for lesser things, to avoid getting too much spam, but they now demand a bloody phone number to allow me to sign in, which I refuse. They shouldn't need my bloody details, I've had that account for years, if not decades. I'm too tired to deal with all the admin now, I'll work on it some other day.
On the upside, you're not missing much, it was a pretty mediocre song anyway, it just made me briefly happy but I doubt anyone would actually care. Just imagine a really great drum&bass track from 20 years ago, and then scale it back to something much less impressive. A lot less. Like a 2/5.
demagogue on 2/4/2019 at 06:52
They do that now? Eyuch, sorry about that. There are other places to upload sounds, although at that point you may as well make a video of it with some fitting background art and upload it to Youtube.
PigLick on 2/4/2019 at 13:09
I wouldnt mind hearing your stuff.
Gray on 2/4/2019 at 22:16
Oh no, please don't misunderstand me, all Soundcloud wanted was an email address. I'm perfectly fine with that.
My problem was that I was gonna use my lesser email account, the one I use to register for various online stuff to keep most of the spam away from my main email account. It was my lesser email site that now apparentky does not allow logins unless you give them a valid phone number, thereby completely nullifying the reason I use it in the first place. I don't want THEM to start spamming my phone.
On the upside, that bought me more time I probably needed. Predictably, that song sounds a lot less presentable now than it did at the time, I need to put more effort in not making the drums so tediously repetative. Also, it makes me wish I still had that electric guitar that I gave away to my niece, the song could use a bit of angry distortion. Now it's basically a drumloop experiment dressed up to resemble a song, and not a very good one at that.
PigLick, you might regret saying that some day.