Audio.com

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

The thread below is all about audio.com, which was originally set up as a place to store music for FREE .. and FOREVER. If you are outside of the UK, then you can read my explanation (below) as to what has been going on here, and see all the illustrations I have posted with regard to using this platform to store music and then LINKING the music to listen to in this Forum. As a result of audio.com's new policy I have now moved all my music clips to box.com.

I also needed a place to store all the images/illustrations I have used to better explain all this .. only to find that the storage area I was using (imgur.com) is no longer accessible for UK viewers. So if you live in the UK, all you get are rows and rows of 'blue' rectangles like the one below, which of course makes a nonsense of trying to read what I have put up.

   

So I have spent most of my time these last few weeks moving all these images into Chello's storage area and linking them directly to my explanations so that all my topics in Chello's Forum are still available for UK viewers to read .. apart from this one topic as I no longer have the images I had uploaded to imgur.com.

Hugh

Audio.com

When audio.com was being set up at the very beginning it was a great place to upload your music to, and give out SHARE LINKS for others to listen to your music. They even asked us what we would like to see on their Platform; and the Members of the team were individually contactable by email. I even have some of the original advertising material they put out to persuade you to join; and this is what I had said about them at this time:
 
This is their new storage area ...

 

Note that everything the Audacity Team do is always FREE, and FOREVER.  They believe that one should not have to pay for programs or storage space when creating music.
 
But now their demeanour has completely changed. They are wanting money for using their services. After all the effort of uploading music to their platform for some considerable time, and inserting pictures relevant to the music uploaded, I am now confronted with this when trying to upload new tracks:
 



They have a ‘FAQ’ section on their Home Page.
Here’s one of them.
 
11.  What happens if I cancel my subscription?
 
If you choose to cancel your subscription or your payment methods fails, access to your projects will be temporarily suspended. You will still be able to use your projects under the Free tier limit, but any access to the remaining projects over that limit will be disabled until you re-activate your subscription or delete the number of projects.
 
So although they say in their Subscription Packages, ‘Cancel anytime’ .. this looks to me like you have to pay them ‘for ever’ as ‘access to your projects will be suspended until you re-activate your subscription’ ... so no one will have access to them.
 
If anyone has been having trouble with listening to any of my Audio Com LINKS in this Forum, please let me know via a PM. In the meantime I am changing all my Audio Com LINKS to Box LINKS.
 
And for anyone thinking of joining Audio Com, my advice is ... DON’T!
 
Hugh

[♔Chello]

⚅Hugh
Thanks for bringing this up.

I'm also an Audio Com user, but have only uploaded 58 tracks so far.
Many of these are in FLAC format, which takes up about 10 times the space of a full resolution Mp3.
FLAC is a full replacement for WAV, and is my preferred format, because I'm hysterically concerned with sound quality.

If I choose FLAC for all my tracks, there won't be room for many before the 1GB limit is reached..!
A really big flaw with their site is that the user has no access to any overview of the space consumed.
So we never know when the limit is reached and we have to start paying.

I downloaded my files to find out how much data I've used, and the result shows almost 800MB, because 11 of the files are in FLAC.

So I've also almost reached the limit ?

There are several things about their layout that surprise me, and one is that the maximum file size is 1GB - 1GB when the total is the same..?!

Another negative thing is that there is no built-in feature to detect duplicate files - I found 3 duplicates when downloading.

And they do something that is extremely unprofessional, namely that several of the files I have uploaded as Mp3 can be downloaded as WAV - what in heaven's name is the purpose of this ? Mp3 converted to WAV has no purpose, because the resolution will be the same as the Mp3 file..!

Do they really know so little about sound ?

Obviously, because I hear that they use a lot of compression that ruins the sound, while promising professional quality.
Hah !


I will look for another provider.

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

Chello,
 
Thanks for posting that.
 
What I am not happy about is the way they are ‘hassling me’ to pay them. As I said, when I tried uploading another song I got the message come up as in my post above .. which luckily I was able to close down as there was an ’X’ in the top right hand corner. Now I can sort of understand them interrupting what I am uploading and trying to persuade me to pay if they consider I have exceeded their ‘allowable’ FREE usage of their platform. But as you have pointed out, they do not give you a figure telling you how many MB you have put up so far so you can make a judgment of where you’re at.  I have got 189 Audio files ...
 
   
... and to find out how many MB I have used in total I have laboriously clicked on the Download for each one in turn, where they tell you the MB of that particular upload (and then pressed the Cancel afterwards so didn’t actually download anything). Most of my uploads are DEMOS, so individually are under 1MB.
 
Adding them all together, my TOTAL is under 400MB (so way less than yours), and nowhere near the 1GB you mention. I would also say, where did you get that figure from anyway? It’s 2GB, not 1GB?
 
Top left of my screen I see the word Pro ...
 
   
 
... and when I click on that I get the details of their Subscription Plans, of which the first tier is the FREE one:
 

We then come down to the question, “What is a Project?”.
 
From my understanding, a project is when you use Audacity to create your music, and invite other musicians to participate with you in doing it. The ‘project’ is uploaded from Audacity and stored in their cloud in such a manner that all those invited have access to your work in Audacity.
 
Now we are not doing that. Our keyboards create the music (or rather, we do by playing our keyboards .. or using a DAW). We are just ‘storing’ the music in their cloud and giving out a LINK for others to listen to it. So does this constitute a Project? If so, then I have 189 and you have 58. That is way over the 5 they say they allow for FREE.
 
At the top of my Page I have tabs AUDIO, COLLECTIONS and AUDACITY PROJECTS. When I click on AUDACITY PROJECTS I get this:
 

 
.. which is advertising for taking out a Subscription Plan to do more than 5 AUDACITY PROJECTS.
 
As I said earlier, what I object to is the pressure making me think I have to pay them to do what I am doing. Do I, or don’t I? The last time I went to listen to one of my uploads that I had put into another Forum I was confronted by this:
 

 

This is no way to treat the people who have supported them from the very beginning!
 
Hugh

[♔Chello]

Chello,
 
Thanks for posting that.
 
What I am not happy about is the way they are ‘hassling me’ to pay them. As I said, when I tried uploading another song I got the message come up as in my post above .. which luckily I was able to close down as there was an ’X’ in the top right hand corner. Now I can sort of understand them interrupting what I am uploading and trying to persuade me to pay if they consider I have exceeded their ‘allowable’ FREE usage of their platform. But as you have pointed out, they do not give you a figure telling you how many MB you have put up so far so you can make a judgment of where you’re at.  I have got 189 Audio files ...
 

... and to find out how many MB I have used in total I have laboriously clicked on the Download for each one in turn, where they tell you the MB of that particular upload (and then pressed the Cancel afterwards so didn’t actually download anything). Most of my uploads are DEMOS, so individually are under 1MB.
 
Adding them all together, my TOTAL is under 400MB (so way less than yours), and nowhere near the 1GB you mention. I would also say, where did you get that figure from anyway? It’s 2GB, not 1GB?
 
Top left of my screen I see the word Pro ...
 

 
... and when I click on that I get the details of their Subscription Plans, of which the first tier is the FREE one:
 

We then come down to the question, “What is a Project?”.
 
From my understanding, a project is when you use Audacity to create your music, and invite other musicians to participate with you in doing it. The ‘project’ is uploaded from Audacity and stored in their cloud in such a manner that all those invited have access to your work in Audacity.
 
Now we are not doing that. Our keyboards create the music (or rather, we do by playing our keyboards .. or using a DAW). We are just ‘storing’ the music in their cloud and giving out a LINK for others to listen to it. So does this constitute a Project? If so, then I have 189 and you have 58. That is way over the 5 they say they allow for FREE.
 
At the top of my Page I have tabs AUDIO, COLLECTIONS and AUDACITY PROJECTS. When I click on AUDACITY PROJECTS I get this:
 

 
.. which is advertising for taking out a Subscription Plan to do more than 15 AUDACITY PROJECTS.
 
As I said earlier, what I object to is the pressure making me think I have to pay them to do what I am doing. Do I, or don’t I? The last time I went to listen to one of my uploads that I had put into another Forum I was confronted by this:
 

 

This is no way to treat the people who have supported them from the very beginning!
 
Hugh

⚅Hugh

One thing is for sure, and that is that Audio Com has everything to learn when it comes to neat marketing.

Their layout is, to say the least, confusing (and misleading).

I have now transferred all my files to the forum, but have not deleted them from Audio Com or done anything else.

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

Chello,

And i was going to replace all the Audio Com LINKS in your Forum, but there's no doubt about it, the way my music is presented in Audio Com looks far more professional than a Box LINK (although Box do allow people to download the music without taking out an account with them). So I have put those Audio Com LINKS to my music back .. and wait to see if any of you are prevented from listening to them. Please let me know if any of my music LINKS no longer work .. or if you are confronted with advertising trying to get you to take out a Subscription  Package. I suspect it's only me they are doing that to.

Before Audio Com set off on this new approach to using their platform I had prepared something to put up telling you what a brilliant place I thought this was to upload your music to. I still stand by what I have said .. but object strongly to being coerced into paying for something that I was told originally would be FREE (for ever).
 
This is what I had prepared ...
 
Audio com is somewhere you can put a piece of music you have recorded .. and give out a LINK for others to listen to it.  And ditto with Box com.  But there is a significant difference between the two platforms.  For starters, the Box LINK just contains letters and numbers; in the Audio com LINK they show your Channel NAME .. as well as some wording that indicates the name of the song you are about to listen to.
 
These LINKS below take you to the same song that I have recorded on my Tyros 4.
I know which one I would rather have showing as the LINK for people to listen to.
 
https://app.box.com/s/tozyj92w0p66pzos1f3srtq26aj0o8ok
https://audio.com/hugh-ar/audio/falling-in-love-t4
I like to use Audio Com as the setup is more like YouTube .. but for audio files, not videos.  And audio files are what my keyboard gives me (not videos), so I can put them straight up into my Audio Com Channel page without the hassle of having to make videos to go with them.
 
When joining Audio Com you get an account Channel where you can upload your music to.  And once anybody finds your Channel they can listen to any music you have posted there (so long as you have given permission for them to do so).
 
Below is a brief summary of what to expect when you upload some music.
 
1.  When you click the ‘Play’ arrow the cursor follows along a ‘waveform’, so you know exactly where you are at any point .. and can see what is still to come.
 
2.  Rather than have the ‘default’ picture you uploaded when you created your Channel, you can change the picture to one of your own that better represents the music you have uploaded. You can import any picture and the software will give you a square (which you can move about) that you can use. This picture also forms the background colours of your ‘Play’ screen.
 
3.  You can choose whether a piece should be PUBLIC or UNLISTED.  If you choose UNLISTED it won’t appear in the list of songs on your Page .. so can only be listened to via the LINK.
 
4.  You can choose whether or not people can DOWNLOAD your music .. but if you choose this option then they have to have (or set up) an account in order to be able to do it.
 
5.   When anyone has your ‘Play screen’ showing, if they click on your NAME at the top they can listen not only to the piece they were sent to, but can listen to all your other uploads as well (apart from the UNLISTED ones, of course).
 
6.  You can also sort your music into COLLECTIONS. This makes it easier to find something later. I have got three .. DEMOS (I have all these as UNLISTED so they don’t clog up my main page); AR 80 Organ; and TYROS 4. You put your uploads into CATEGORIES after you have uploaded them.
 
7.  At any time, you can REPLACE a piece of music with a better one if you want to. You can’t do this on YouTube!
 
This is my Channel page.
 
https://audio.com/hugh-ar
When you visit it you will see the first two heading at the top .. AUDIO (this contains all the listings I have made PUBLIC); and COLLECTIONS.
 
   

   

When I visit that main AUDIO page I also get all those UNLISTED DEMOS showing, which really clog up the page.  But then I (obviously) have to see and have access to everything I have put up!
 
As you can see in the screenshots above, I also have a third heading, AUDACITY PROJECTS. A ‘project’ (as I understand it) refers to using AUDACITY and AUDIOCOM together; using Audacity to create your music, and storing what you are doing in the Audio Com ‘cloud’.  The idea is to invite other musicians to participate in the music you are creating.  Without a Subscription Plan you can only upload a maximum of three projects, totalling a maximum of 1GB ...
 
... which they have now changed to 5 Projects, totalling a maximum of 2GB.  Don’t think they really know what they are trying to achieve! Hopefully they will see sense and carry on with the basic use of Audio Com as before. And tell us what the Subscription option is really for! To me, joining up with others for creating music in Audacity is a non-starter. Why would I want to do that? I play my keyboard for my own enjoyment, and I am really ‘into’ finding out what my keyboard can do and using it’s features in my playing.
 
Hugh

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

I have been in contact with John Storey (a previous Member of this Forum who has just re-joined) and said to him:
 
Can you add anything to what I have been talking about? I know you have had a problem with the number of uploads you can have (I think you said it was 500). So how did you find this out?  Are they bombarding you with advertising trying to get you to take out a Subscription Package? I just click on the 'X' in the top right hand corner, which closes the message down .. and immediately uploads the music anyway.
 
I have had this reply from him:
 
Hi Hugh,
 
I realised last November that I couldn't upload more than 500 tracks.
I had to delete tracks so that I could upload my latest.
I now have 473 files there, so I'll be looking to delete more tracks very soon.
 
With Box.net I have no limit at least for now, although they're offering an "upgrade plan" at the moment.
 
Obviously money talks.
 
John .. with regard to Box, a FREE Box account allows you to upload a total of 10GB, so with an MP3 being roughly 5MB we can upload 2,000 songs to Box for FREE.
 
Hugh

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

Another email to me from John Storey:

I've just noticed that I can no longer put tracks onto Audio.com.

So I will now forget about this source of storage.

I'll have to rely on Box.net now.

John.

[♔Chello]

Another email to me from John Storey:

I've just noticed that I can no longer put tracks onto Audio.com.

So I will now forget about this source of storage.

I'll have to rely on Box.net now.

John.

⚅Hugh


I wasn't surprised.

Audio Com has a slick marketing, trying to lure users in by promising them free space forever, and after addiction is achieved, demanding payment for continued services.

I also seem to remember that they implied that the number of GB would increase after a period of use, but it hasn't.

Their behavior is reminiscent of a drug dealer who first gives small doses of heroin for free, then demands services and money when addiction has set in..!

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

When Audio Com was set up in the very beginning I had the email address of one of the Muse Group team who was involved in it’s development .. Aleksandr Zharkov. So when these new Subscription Packages started appearing on my Channel Page I emailed him to ask him what it was all about.
 
This is what I asked him, “For what I am doing with the audio files I upload to Audio Com .. do I need a Subscription Plan?”
 
His Reply was, “As for subscription, this is mostly for your audacity files (source files of your audio), you pay for storing them in our cloud rather than on your PC. For example if your PC is stolen or broke, you can easily restore your files from cloud.”
 
Now, for starters I don’t have any Audacity ‘Projects’ as such. These end in .aup and can be saved and re-loaded back into Audacity to continue from where you left off. I don’t do that!  The ‘source files of my audio’ are the WAV files produced by my Tyros 4 .. which admittedly I have converted to .mp3 using Audacity. And as for ‘storing them in their cloud rather than on my PC’ .. I have all my original WAV files on my Tyros 4; have them all on the Memory Stick I use to transfer them to my laptop; .. and I back up everything I have on my laptop to a Hard Disk connected to my laptop via a USB Port. So why would I want a ‘cloud’ as well to be able to restore files?
 
I took his answer to be a ‘NO’. Will wait and see if the LINKS to my DEMOS remain active, or if they are blocked. Please let me know if you have a problem with any of them.
 
Hugh

[✪aprilla]

When Audio Com was set up in the very beginning I had the email address of one of the Muse Group team who was involved in it’s development .. Aleksandr Zharkov. So when these new Subscription Packages started appearing on my Channel Page I emailed him to ask him what it was all about.
 
This is what I asked him, “For what I am doing with the audio files I upload to Audio Com .. do I need a Subscription Plan?”
 
His Reply was, “As for subscription, this is mostly for your audacity files (source files of your audio), you pay for storing them in our cloud rather than on your PC. For example if your PC is stolen or broke, you can easily restore your files from cloud.”
 
Now, for starters I don’t have any Audacity ‘Projects’ as such. These end in .aup and can be saved and re-loaded back into Audacity to continue from where you left off. I don’t do that!  The ‘source files of my audio’ are the WAV files produced by my Tyros 4 .. which admittedly I have converted to .mp3 using Audacity. And as for ‘storing them in their cloud rather than on my PC’ .. I have all my original WAV files on my Tyros 4; have them all on the Memory Stick I use to transfer them to my laptop; .. and I back up everything I have on my laptop to a Hard Disk connected to my laptop via a USB Port. So why would I want a ‘cloud’ as well to be able to restore files?
 
I took his answer to be a ‘NO’. Will wait and see if the LINKS to my DEMOS remain active, or if they are blocked. Please let me know if you have a problem with any of them.
 
Hugh

I was enjoying your recording of The Story Of My Life this morning and had no problems.

https://audio.com/hugh-ar/audio/story-of-my-life-t4
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