Octave Is...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Listen to the album “009909” by Chris Randall.
For those of you that don’t follow me on Twitter, I let it drop the other day that me and the missus and our long-time web collaborator Mark Beeson made a thing.
From the embed above, it should be readily apparent what it does. And long-time readers will know exactly why we made it, so I don’t need to go in to any lengthy explanation about that. Suffice it to say that we’ve been working on it for about a while now, and Octave is now open for business. We’re addressing user wishes as they come in, so its purview is adjusting (and rather rapidly, it must be said) to the use cases that we, as professional musicians, need.
Happy to field any questions/comments here. One further thing: in conversation about the service with someone that didn’t fully understand the point, I quipped the following: “Soundcloud is for musicians with fans; Octave is for musicians with clients.”
18 comments
Octave - Because SoundCloud is a garbage service for garbage people.™
Hello !
I remember you have talked several times about issues of SoundCloud services. But I can't remember the specifics...
Basically, what you tried to achieve with Octave is more speed, less social media, and a better sound quality ? Something else ? I might need some audio samples hosting services next year, that's why I ask ;)
@Wolfen: That's it exactly. Also, it has a more sophisticated sharing mechanism, for people that need to send tracks to collaborators / clients / what-not. (And it's getting _more_ sophisticated. We're adding some features shortly that were requested by the early adopters.)
We'll have the Twitter and Facebook cards within the next few days as well. That's a big deal. As you all know, Soundcloud got rid of their Facebook cards in order to drive more traffic to their site. Our purview is to provide a platform for you to embed anywhere you need it, rather than a platform for Fetty Wap to get burned in to your fans' and clients' brains.
-CR
This looks fairly interesting and for users who have a need already and are ready to move on from soundcloud or other services. However I'm surprised there's not an 'entry level' option, even though you're obviously trying to position this above soundcloud rather than compete on even footing.
Also a note: Your 2nd track wraps over to a second line in your posted example, and note that the ability to 'seek' is only working on the first of these 2 text-lines. Could be a tad confusing for novice computer users (fans) as the playback indicator is below the second line, and only clicking on the top line of text seeks.
Ah, good eye.
-CR
Octave Status might just be my new favorite twitter feed.
I'm not sure if anyone else mentioned via some less public forum, but the main Octave page could do with a little proof-reading. I do know it's difficult to proof-read your own work or something you've read over and over and are quite familiar with. Anyway, there looks to be an incomplete sentence: "And our encoding technology, we don't even."
Good luck with Octave.
That's what I get for trying to be cool.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I+don%27t+even
I've received so much email about that, I'm tempted to make it an html link to the above.
-CR
Whoops, sorry. Don't worry about it, I'm obviously so uncool I should be banned by climate treaties. So that fact it went over my head just further reinforces that I'm not your target audience.
I'll mirror the comment from valis - I'd love a tier below $20 US/m. For comparison, Adobe CC is my standard for SaaS applications like this, and they charge $40 US/m for their entire suite.
Say what you like about Soundcloud but there's a reason they've had a free tier for so long.
I recently just let my paid SC account lapse to a free one. This is timely and good.
@blurk: Communication between the Audio Damage corporate officers occasionally breaks down because Chris keeps up on current slang and Adam doesn't.
--Adam
True story: a couple weeks ago Adam asked me why everything was dope again all the sudden, when it hadn't been dope for some years.
I responded "dunno. Shit is dope. Whatever."
-CR
Shouldn't that be "Whatevs" or am I still soooo last week?
"Octave - Because SoundCloud is a garbage service for garbage people.™"
SoundCloud is industry standard, you like it or not. Even at 128kbs streams it's what people prefer it as even their cat know how to use it.
Octave is for people with clients. If you send octave link to radio/press they will not open it as they don't know what it is. Hope one day they know.
Protip: they won't open your Soundcloud link, either.
-CR
Protip from label owner: They do and some even play music direct from soundcloud. A bit more advanced media people and clients know how to click Dropbox link. Then there is broadcasting scene that only understand FTP uploads. Good luck trying to get that crowd to adapt new service.
Who embeds tracks to website for clients?
I know many production companies that embed stuff, but they have their custom systems.
A suggestion, if I might, would be some more obvious links to user content. As someone coming in with no preconceptions my thought was "great spiel, but what's it actually look like, where's the stuff?" It took me a few minutes to figure out I could click on the name of your example track to go to that page since the other graphics are not interactive. I couldn't click on the "Chris Randall" name there to go to the Chris Randall page though.
Is there not going to be a big button on the home page to go to content?
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