We like a bit of a challenge at SoundCloud. And what better challenge than this, the RPM Challenge…?

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 discovery was unintentional, it just happened. Like most more interesting discoveries.  

A few weeks ago, Alec from the Education Department of LPO sent me a message about their dusty old SoundCloud account they’ve just found and haven’t been using. They were even thinking about deleting it.

No.

Alec knew better. As he wrote me, “However I saw how wicked your widget is and it really interested me.” That made me very excited. That made us very excited. We were excited that the London Philharmonic Orchestra found us awesome, as we do them!! So I asked if we can do a little Q&A with Alec and he kindly accepted and took time to answer some of my questions .

Can you tell me in 140 words or less the idea behind The Band? Or maybe just a few keywords?

The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s The Band is a youth fusion group that gives aspiring young musicians from South London the chance to work with members of the Orchestra in creative composition workshops.

How long has the project been going on and is there an end-station?

We’re in to the second year of the project now and we’ve already had three successful concerts in Royal Festival Hall, London. The sessions give the young musicians a space in which they can explore composing in their own musical styles. They experience first-hand the Orchestra members’ skills and expertise, and learn from them what it means to be a member of a musical ensemble.

I know that any music lovers living and/or studying in South London (Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark) aged 15 to 19 can join and the young musicians create their own music (wow!) according to the group’s taste (ranging from classical to bhangra). Can you briefly describe how the creative process in such a diverse environment works? And what are some of the key ingredients that keeps this going? Do many participants go on making music?

Each session is different. Previously we’ve had musicians familiar with Indian and Latin percussion, jazz, dance and folk music working within the group. So we’ve encouraged them  to share the music they’re interested in with the group. This year the group are working towards a pre-concert performance, playing before the Orchestra’s evening performance. This concert will feature works by Schuman and Ravel and so we’ll be looking at these two composers over the term sessions.

Each Band member brings their own interests and tastes to the group. Phil Mullen – the musical director of The Band, the Orchestra musicians and the team work with young people to bring these different tastes and talents together in a really positive way. You can hear the results for yourself!

Yes, many Band members have gone on to study music at college or university, some have auditioned for West End shows and some just continue to enjoy playing music in their own way.

How do you think online platforms such as SoundCloud can facilitate education and community projects like the Band?

We are aware that we expect a lot of our Band members. This term for example, we’re going to be creating about 1.5hrs of music over only 10 sessions, that’s 15mins of new material per session. We’re really keen to use the fact that our young musicians are very internet savvy to create an environment where Band members can listen to and analyse the work they’ve done.

What other technologies does The Band utilize?

The Band has a website which has information about the sessions on it and gig recordings. We’re also encouraging people to use our Facebook group where they can look at photos, discussions and listen to recordings (through tasty SoundCloud widgets) in a secure environment.

Do you have anything else to add in roughly 140 words or less?

If you’re in the UK and near London on March 12^th then come along to Southbank Centre – the gig is free and starts at 5.30pm!

Also, if you know of anyone in the South London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark or Lewisham who might be interested please get in touch.

I will now leave you with one their tracks recorded last year: I ain’t leaving. Wow.

Michael Eames of PEN Music Group in Los Angeles has been a long-time SoundCloud Pro Plus user. The PEN Music Group is an independent music publisher who focuses heavily on film/TV/ad placement.

We had the chance to get a little more details about how Michael makes use of SoundCloud. He also shared a lot of really interesting insights about his work experience and also has a couple of useful tips for aspiring artists.

Read on & you all enjoy your weekend, mkay?

Michael, tell us a little bit about you, the PEN Music Group and what made you sign up on SoundCloud with a Pro Plus account.

I’m a trained musician, songwriter and composer who came out to Los Angeles in 1989 (after graduating from Cornell University with a major in music and minor in business management) to pursue a career in writing music for film & TV. But once I got out here reality set in on how many others were trying to pursue the same thing and while I continued to pursue this, I needed to do an annoying thing called paying the bills! 

So I started taking temp jobs in the entertainment industry while answering classified ads for music-related jobs. The first job that I got this way was being the office assistant for Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.  That was my first exposure to music publishing as they handled his solo works out of that office and every 6 months I would see the big checks he would get for all the Beach Boys songs and I wanted some of that! 

My next job was at a company that supervised the music for independent films and also managed film/TV composers.  They had a publishing deal with Virgin Music at the time (which is now part of EMI Music Publishing) so I got more exposure to the field then. Then lastly, a friend I’d met while temping referred me to a music publisher named Don Williams who at the time handled the Jimi Hendrix catalogue and was looking to expand his staff. At this point I was intrigued enough about music publishing where I took the job and spent 3 years there learning everything I could find about music publishing and fell in love with the field as I could combine my creative side and my business side. At the end of the 3 years, I wanted to start my own company and in April 1994 PEN Music Group, Inc. was born. 

We are a full service independent music publishing company with a worldwide presence that is known for our personalized service and attention and our efficiency at administering music publishing catalogues (which includes negotiating and issuing licenses, collecting royalties worldwide, etc.). We were also one of the first indie companies to really focus on placing music (especially indie music) in film, TV and ads. To this day, that creative focus is the main generator of income to the company.

We also look after songs that are on records by artists such as Selena Gomez (we also have her current single), A Fine Frenzy, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Santana, KD Lang, Luther Vandross, Kenny Rogers and numerous others. A music supervisor friend of mine – Andrea Von Foerster – referred me to SoundCloud as she had become a fan and I was looking for a platform where we could pitch our music easily and permit supervisors to preview music before they downloaded it. I needed the Pro Plus account as we have a big catalogue and I needed the unlimited number of files option.

What’s your main use of SoundCloud in your daily work? What features do you use most and why?

We now use SoundCloud for not only pitching to music supervisors but also to power all the artist playlists on our newly redesigned website and we offer our artists the ability to use the SoundCloud widgets from our account on their social networking platforms like MySpace, Facebook, etc. We love SoundCoud! And we’ve had a great response from the users of the playlists as they love the look of it all as well as the ease of use. I also love the ability to turn on and off the download button and it’s instantaneous.

I noticed you and Pen Music represent close to 50 artists and additionally several composers and producers. What sort of artists and music styles are you looking for and what are the three main attributes you’d like to see to help making an artist successful.

We are involved with the artists on varying levels. There are some (like Sara Haze and Hypnogaja) that we have invested in and are involved in all aspects of their releases. There are others that we love equally well but that we mainly just pitch their music to film, TV and ads. Then there are songwriter/producers that we work with (like Gina Schock of the Go-Gos who has the Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus cuts and legendary producer John Farrar who worked on pretty much all of Olivia Newton-John’s hits from the 1970s) that we collect their royalties as well as pitch their known songs for use. We are always looking for new music – our main criteria as clichéd as it sounds is that we all in the office have to feel that it’s GREAT. There’s lots of just good or even mediocre music out there, but we need the GREAT music to set ourselves apart from the pack. That said, we also try to balance it where we don’t have too much of the same kind of genres so that our own clients would be competing amongst themselves for the same spots we’re pitching to. Right now, we’re especially trying to increase our catalogue in the areas of indie rock, electronica and R&B.

As to what we look for in an artist, the main thing for me these days it is has to be someone who is working hard on what they do and have the motivation and energy to put in the hard work that advancing a music career involves. The days of an artist turning their career over to someone else to do all the work on is over – with all the social networking that is needed now, the artist has to be fully engaged in what they are doing and we want to come in as the partner to compliment that – not be the sole source of activity.

We also look for artists and writer/producers who work fast yet produce high quality music. Film & TV (especially TV) moves REALLY fast and when we need custom songs or music written for something, we need to know that our clients can turn it around quickly and make it look effortless and sound incredible. That way, the music users keep coming back to us when they need music. Lastly, I would say that the artist needs to have what I feel is the “right personality” – and for me that is both someone who is outgoing and comfortable in social situations but yet someone who is also humble about what they do.  For the most part, when someone tells me that their music is so amazing and that they are the next Lennon/McCartney, it usually turns out that their music is not good at all.  But those that are more humble about it – “this is what I do and I’d really like your input and feedback on what I do so that I can improve” – are usually the ones that have the best music.  They are also the best people to have as work partners – they are open to suggestions and other opinions yet still have a secure sense of who they are as an artist and/or writer/producer.

Dealing with music and the web every day, what are the main services you use and are you still missing some killer applications to improve your work?

It’s no surprise that everything is going to the web and the mobile world. Though some music supervisors still prefer to receive physical CDs, that is becoming more the exception than the rule. And given the massive amount of music out there vying for attention, we need tools that set ourselves apart and that look visually appealing and are easy to use and interact with.

We’ve found that SoundCloud does more of what we need/want than any other service out there and look forward to working with you guys in expanding the capability and reach of the service. There are always things we’d like to do but the fun of this time right now is that no one knows what the future will be so the best ideas that are going to power the future are yet to come and we’re all going to try to be the ones to bring those to market.

You’re based in Los Angeles. How important is an artist’s location in today’s connected world? Does technology and web services affect a decision in any way?

Location is not important for the most part these days – sure, being in Los Angeles and getting the opportunity to meet with and perform in front of the licensing community definitely has its benefits.  But music supervisors’ jobs are to find the BEST music that they can find for what they need. Most don’t care where the artist is based – it just needs to be GREAT music.

The internet has definitely leveled the playing field where I feel that we now have just as much of a shot at getting the spots that the major record labels used to be the only ones considered for. Technology has become the great equalizer. But then the challenge for us all is to use that technology in new and interesting ways such that we set ourselves apart in what is now a VERY crowded music world.  You have to be seen and heard above the noise – that’s the challenge for all of us now. But the rewards can be great – financially and artistically.

Thanks for taking the time for this extensive and highly interesting interview!

Follow PEN Music on Twitter, Facebook and SoundCloud.

Long-time SoundCloud users The Knife are at it again with quite a monumental new album called Tomorrow, In A Year featuring Mt. Zims and Planningtorock. You can stream the full album – actually the studio version of the opera – on SoundCloud and make sure to show our favorite Swedes some love.

From their website:

Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme. They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds.

The album is out on March 1st and you can place your pre-orders here.

A big hej hej from the Doberman HQ in Stockholm. We are very excited to be a part of Music Hack Day Stockholm. We have temporarily “moved” our office from Berlin to Stockholm for the Weekend to join the fun and excitement. (It’s a shame Alex couldn’t join us. We miss you!)

the SoundCloud team at the hackday

SoundCloud, along with other grrrreat companies (Spotify, Last.fm, The Echo Nest, Playdar, and more) and generous sponsors (Sony Ericsson, Spotify, and more), is in Stockholm for “the best #musichackday eva!!“.

In  spirit with other Music Hack Days, we are here to explore, conceptualize, develop and present top-notch music applications. Woot.  Join us by following the live-feed provided by Doberman!

I (jc) will keep you guys updated with our progress through out the hackday.

Also check out some pictures: here and here.

With a lot of new integrations on the way and Music Hack Day coming up in Stockholm this weekend, we wanted to shed some light on what we call Connect with SoundCloud. The idea is to make it really easy for users to connect third-party apps and services to their SoundCloud accounts and thus get an even better flow for handling audio on the web.

Connect with SoundCloud is built on OAuth - “An open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications” – also used by Twitter and YouTube among others. The main benefit is that you don’t have to store your SoundCloud login credentials in any third-party app or service.

There are two common use cases:

• Export to SoundCloud: upload tracks to SoundCloud account from a third-party application. Case study: FiRe Field Recorder
• Import from SoundCloud: transfer tracks from SoundCloud account to a third-party service. Case study: Abbey Road Online Mastering

The authorization flow is similar in both cases:

• Click “Connect with SoundCloud” in the third-party app.
• This opens up the connect page on our server.
• You can login (or sign up for a new account) and allow access.
• An authorization token is sent to the third-party app.
• The app can store the token and access the account until the user revokes the access in the SoundCloud account settings. That way you’re able to revoke the access without changing your SoundCloud password and also to change your SoundCloud password without affecting the third-party authorization.

So when you see this button on a web page, you know that you’re only two clicks away from connecting the service to your SoundCloud account and let it accessing to your tracks.

To get started with the implementation:

• Check out the general description of Connect with SoundCloud.
• Try connecting with SoundBoard.
• Read the guide for implementing and the API documentation.
• Make sure you get the right buttons.

We’re huge fans of the The Hype Machine at SoundCloud. And we have a sneaky suspicion that you might be too. Put simply, the The Hype Machine is the best place on the web to discover all the kick ass music that is being blogged about right now. They already use SoundCloud to host their fantastic radio show but we wanted to find a way to work more closely together. And we’re quite excited by the results.

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’re excited that Kieran aka Four Tet chose yours truly to premiere his new album There Is Love In You one week before its official release. The album is out next Monday, January 25 via Domino Records, click the album cover below for pre-orders.

Update: Four Tet made the album private again. The album is officially out now, so why not consult your trusted record dealer and get it

There Is Love In You by Four Tet

A while ago, we stumbled upon a video on Emusician.com in which producer Aaron Albano talks about using SoundCloud to send and receive files during the production process of Youth Group’s upcoming album. Remote collaboration, NYC-Sydney-style, united by the Cloud.

Wanting to know more, we reached out to Aaron with a couple of questions about how he uses SoundCloud. Here you go:

Ming, you’re a SoundCloud Pro Plus user: how did you get to know SoundCloud, when and why did you join? How have you been enjoying so far?

I noticed these really cool SoundCloud audio players appearing on other people’s sites.   After learning about all the features that SoundCloud had to offer, I thought it would be a perfect addition to my music production process as well as a traceable means of sharing my music.

Tell us a little bit more about you, what you do, what your background is and how you use our service in your daily work? In your opinion what are the features that are the most useful to you?

From 1996-2006 I was one half of the hip hop/drum & bass duo Ming+FS.  We released four full-length albums and toured up to150 dates a year.  In the summer of 2006, I left Ming+FS to open my own studio and label, Hood Famous Music.  At Hood Famous Music I’m focused on writing songs and producing music for new and established artists such as 33Hz, Toby Lightman, Bazaar Royale, and many other artists from a wide range of genres.

In April of 2009 I opened a commercial music company with two other composers, Harold Stephan and Chad North called Habitat Music.  We focus on scoring music for film, television, and commercials.

In terms of what features are useful to me on a daily basis, SoundCloud gives me the ability to post sets privately that only the client or those with permissions can view, which is quite valuable. With SoundCloud I can keep all of the versions of a specific piece of music in one player and the client can comment right on the track instead of having to send me separate notes. This is very helpful because as the versions of a track multiply, the client often mistakes the current version for an older version. The private sets allow me to see when a client has listened to the new version and make sure they are commenting on the correct version of that piece of music.

In this Emusician video, you talk about the remote collaboration with Toby Martin from the Aussie band Youth Group. How did this work out for both you? How did you end up working with him and what can we expect?

We’re still in the process of writing this record. He’s in Sydney and I’m in NYC, so we’re working on this record using Skype and SoundCloud. Once or twice a week we schedule a writing session over Skype. We share ideas and when we have a song that excites both of us, I demo out the music in my studio. Then I’ll upload the new instrumental to our private set on SoundCloud. Toby works on lyrics and any alternate parts, demos them out and then we upload that version to the Cloud as well. Our plan is to demo enough songs for full-length album and when Toby is back in NYC, we’ll record the record together.  So far, the record is amazing and I’m really enjoying this process. It’s a mix of indie rock and electronica and fans of both styles of music are going to love this record

Dealing with music and the web every day, what are the main services you use and are you still missing some killer applications to improve your work?

I have tremendous catalog of music – around 900 titles – and it can get very hard to keep track of everything. I’d love to be able to store the music in multiple formats (aiff, mp3, etc) in the Cloud, tag it with key words, and be able to create public and private sets for my clients and fans. I do a lot of pitching for film and television so I’d like to be able to search my catalog for let’s say, down-tempo, happy, instrumentals, etc., and create a set using those search terms. I could then send a link to the set to a client or post the set to a web page. I’d also love for the set to be able to be downloaded with a single click instead of each track having to be downloaded separately.

We’ve seen the music business change in the recent years. In your opinion, what does it take for an artist to get out there and become successful. What are the key things you look when working with an artist, what are no-go’s?

First and foremost, artists must have a creative vision and a true desire to get their music out to the public. Its not enough to write great songs, you have to want to share those songs or you’ll just be a bedroom composer.

It’s so incredibly hard to get noticed that you need to be firing on all pistons. You need to link the whole picture together – touring information, your latest press, radio, blogs, websites, and all your social media sites. Fans need a place to connect with you and you need to keep connected with your fans or they’ll pulled toward musicians who make it easier for their fans to stay informed. I’m looking for artists who create great music but also understand how important touring and promotion are to the artist’s success.   Labels are your partners and you need to keep working on your career constantly and not depend on a label to make you a star. If you’re not willing to tour, I’m not interested.

With recent technology helping music creators, how important is the location for an artist?

Digital technology helps make your brand global but nothing can replace the face-to-face connections and interactions like doing a press tour or live shows.  If you’re from a tiny town and want to have a large audience then your only hope is to spread your music through all available means.  I can’t stress enough how important touring is for getting the word out about your music.  I’ve been based in NYC for my whole musical career but I also had record deal with OM records in San Francisco. Having a base in NYC and San Fran helped us connect the dots throughout the US. As you tour, you’ll have more places to call home and if you’re lucky and really work hard (meaning all the fucking time!!), soon the rest of the country will know how great your music is as well.

At the end of 2009 I signed with Stephanie Laferra at Little Empire Music for management. I’ll be launching my Hood Famous Music label in a few months and I’m going to be coming back out as a solo artist in 2010 as well. I’ll be doing more indie rock/electro house music as an artist but fans of my old work with Ming+FS can expect the same quality and attention to detail. I’ll be launching my artist site soon but in the meantime you can check my monthly video blog on emusician.com and my artists blog at my label site http://www.hoodfamousmusic.com. Look for records from 33Hz, Toby Martin, and First Movement soon.

I’ve also just posted a new electro house DJ mix to my SoundCloud account  and remixes I did for Lady Gaga, plus I’ll be posting a number of new tracks soon, so start following me on http://soundcloud.com/ming check hoodfamousmusic.com or on Twitter @MingsMusic to see what’s coming next.

Lady Gaga remix of Telephone:

Facebook is making some major changes to the way applications work on profiles and pages so we had to update our own application to meet the new (and ongoing) requirements. In short, Facebook is moving all in-page apps (aka boxes) to the tabs section of personal profiles and fan pages which means that you’ll need to update your SoundCloud Player and Dropbox apps.

Here’s how it works:

1. Find the SoundCloud Player App, search for the artist name and select the artist/track you’d like to add. You’ll get the best results by adding the direct URL of the user, track, set or group you’d like to add:

2. Click ‘Save’ to add the player to the tabs section of your profile or page.

3. Go to your profile or page, ‘add a new tab’ and select ‘Tracks’ to add a proper tab. You can also move around the Tab to the spot of your choice:

That’s it, done (if you don’t see Tracks in the above box, type SoundCloud into the tab search field):

Note: Facebook will make some changes to its overall design (current ETA is late January postponed to February) and the Tracks tab will look much nicer than it does today. Also, we might add some other cool stuff to the Player app. Stay tuned.