For uploading audio files (podcasts) and then embedding them in blogs and the like.
18 Answers
SoundCloud without a doubt.
- No headaches on file sizes
- Statistics on who viewed it
- Fast Uploads
- Track Storage
- Customizable widget for embedding
This is the YouTube for audio :D It’s the stuff.
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6No soundcloud isn't the youtube of audio because it only lets you put x amount of storage and asks you to pay for more.– user23373Commented Aug 16, 2012 at 0:19
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You also can't update an existing track with a new one unless you pay them money. It is a bad choice.– MarkCommented Mar 5, 2015 at 21:05
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While SoundCloud isn't exactly a match, it certainly is the closest to YouTube you'll probably find on the Internet in terms of adoption and selection. There are many smaller such sites out there, but they don't have nearly as many songs (well known or not) on them.– Caleb XuCommented Apr 13, 2015 at 1:04
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The 3 hours limitation forever kill it all. Uploading and destroying tracks is the only solution. We need a new service.– QuidamCommented Jun 21, 2016 at 10:21
People seem to use YouTube all the time for audio-only content as well...
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You can actually provide the audio and in the mean time show some pictures rotating or something like that.– fretjeCommented Aug 23, 2009 at 22:24
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4Either pictures rotating (like a slideshow) or a fixed "title" screen detailing the name of the recording, date, etc. By the way, if you're going to upload church recordings to Youtube, you may want to disable posting comments. Take a look at any religious video's comments to see what I mean.– T PopsCommented Aug 24, 2009 at 14:52
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3Youtube's length limit makes this answer inappropriate for the poster.– NelsonCommented Aug 25, 2009 at 16:30
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Depends if you're talking about user created audio or licensed music. As for licensed music there are a huge number of options (some of these also have user created content mixed in):
On the other hand if you are looking user created content:
- Houndbite
- Audio Share community is small but everyone's a musician
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(Nitpick: Spotify is currently available in a couple of European countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, United Kingdom, France and Spain. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Cost_and_availability)– JonikCommented Aug 24, 2009 at 21:05
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also pandora don't work everywhere either (us only ?)– Joakim ElofssonCommented Aug 24, 2009 at 23:15
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I recently discovered that archive.org has a huge library of audio files, podcasts, etc. AFAIK it's pretty simple to upload, too.
I'm not sure about uploading music, but what about Groveshark for music streaming?
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While it's tailored for muscians, Sound Cloud is a really good tool for sharing audio on the web.
If you're looking to post messages from your church, check out SermonAudio.com.
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1Looks pretty expensive to me. "Like youtube" suggests free, or somewhat close to free.– bradlis7Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 17:49
If you sign up for a free account you can send 5 tracks/month and use most features on SoundCloud.
Manage your youtube audio :-)
Negative on the uploading, but Pandora lets you keep playlists and is pretty good at recommending new music based on what you "like."
Lala plays music, enables you to match your own music library (and upload the actual files if there's no match), and creates and maintains playlists. It's an iTunes-like interface, which is even more appropriate now that Apple control them (as of December 2009).
You didn't specify whether you wanted a strictly free site. Lala offers a lot for free, including uploading your own library, but adding new songs is 10 cents each and buying downloadable MP3s is around 79 cents each. Their download prices are competitive with Amazon MP3 and iTunes and are DRM-free, but be sure to check the encoding quality if that matters to you.
So, I found a very similar question over at webmasters.stackexchange.com. I quickly gathered most of the relevant and non-broken answers here and answered that question. Here is that answer.
Here are my favorite answers:
- Youtube - Works just fine for audio. You can have a static image as a background or get creative and make a slideshow or something. Drawback: length limit
- SoundCloud - This would be my favorite if not for a limit on minutes of audio per account (120 minutes I think) Its got a really nice and easy embedded player too
- Archive.org - If you don't already know about this site, go now.
Others I haven't had the chance to scope out yet:
I would also add last.fm even though it is more like a personalised Internet Radio and doesn't work in every country anymore, but I still really like using it for discovering new Music and Events.
The problem is always the copyright thing (e.g. YouTube had trouble with the German Copyright Agency and now they must remove Music Videos under their license for German YouTube visitors... don't know if they actually did yet). Most services are only localised (like Pandora and Spotify mentioned by William). So probably YouTube is still the best and most popular source for playing Music.
One service that doesn't have that problem is Jamendo. It only offers music that is published under free licences. You won't find popular artists but browsing there might bring up some really cool stuff.
Entertonement Is very similar to youtube but only for audio. Plus it has amazing collections of soundbites that are fun to browse through. They don't mention any limits on upload lengths either, although they still might exist.
http://freesound.org has a ton of free audio files available for playing online or downloading. I think it's better than youtube.