Free Audio Hosting? Does it Exist?

August 27, 2009 12:16 AM

I'm trying to find a way to stream some Mp3s of songs (about 60) on a website (completely self created) from a host/website but I am unable to find anything similar to Flickr or Youtube or ad infinitum for music. Is there something similar for audio?

My husband is a musician, and the mp3 hosting he had previously changed avenues and dropped his files. Now the website doesn't work, and unfortunately there isn't enough server space on the domain to host the Mp3s ourselves or we would.

I was wondering if there's any such thing as free mp3 hosting, I've searched, and haven't been able to find anything. I find it hard to believe that photos and videos have tons of places but not music? Thanks in advance for any hints. :)

(I know, it's a tough arena due to RIAA, but I'm talking about honest user created content)

posted by spacelux to technology (15 comments total)

I don't totally know how it works, but maybe Grooveshark? I know you can both upload and embed music from there, so you might be able to make it work.
posted by brainmouse at 12:20 AM on August 27

PS: I want to "hotlink to the files" so it;s transparent.
posted by spacelux at 12:21 AM on August 27

Have a look at SoundCloud. On the surface, it's social networking for musicians much like Flickr for photographers, but it allows you to host songs (5 tracks a month, 10 lastest viewable on the free account; the first Pro account is $9 a month but would give you all 15 songs) and embed the SoundCloud player in your own website.

I know you said Free, but you might find that the added facilities offered by SoundCloud make it worth the fee, or that the free offering is enough for you in the end.
posted by benzo8 at 12:42 AM on August 27

It's not entirely transparent, but it does seem to fit the rest of your criteria: MediaFire. The link goes to the FAQ entry explaining how the downloading process works.
posted by Brother Dysk at 12:49 AM on August 27

...naturally, that wouldn't have a fancy embedded flash player (a la myspace or youtube) but most modern browsers default to just playing back an mp3 when directly linked to one.
posted by Brother Dysk at 12:50 AM on August 27

Free and completely transparent are always going to be at odds, because if it's invisible, what will the provider be getting out of the deal, exactly?

(Heck, paid and transparent is hard enough.)
posted by rokusan at 1:17 AM on August 27

Not enough server space for 60 MP3s? Might be best off getting some new hosting, initially for the MP3s then move everything over. You get gigabytes of storage for a few dollars a month nowadays.
posted by malevolent at 3:26 AM on August 27

The Betty Nickells link from yesterday has two of her songs hosted on Box.net -- not transparent but not difficult, it does have a (very simple) built-in mp3 player. Free. Possible problem -- you're given the option to either download or play the song, possibly (probably?) you'd not want anyone/everyone downloading the songs freely and easily.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:37 AM on August 27

bandcamp is tops as far as streaming music for unsigned bands and offering digital downloading (free or paid). you will need to upload full quality tracks (i.e. not mp3s) and then people can download as mp3, flac, ogg, etc (without you doing extra work). they have all sorts of embed and sharing widgets both at the song and album level.
posted by noloveforned at 6:17 AM on August 27 [1 favorite]

ReverbNation seems similar to bandcamp mentioned above. I don't think you can put up 60 songs... but realistically, who'se going to *listen* to sixty songs?

Checking my sister-in-law's classical quartet site does show that you can put up at least 20 songs on Reverb. Reverb also has a widget that lets you put a player on your Facebook page, and offers a single source for entering and updating gig listings.
posted by omnidrew at 7:18 AM on August 27

Archive.org will host them for you if they are completely original works and the copyrights are absolutely yours. I'm not sure if they allow you to use them as a hidden source for streaming offsite, though.
posted by rhizome at 7:39 AM on August 27

You might check 8tracks you can upload music and create mixes for people to listen to.

This probably violates their EULA, but the songs are hosted on the Amazon cloud and it's pretty easy to stream songs out of the 8tracks website not using the 8tracks interface.

I second malevolent's comment. You need a new hosting plan. You should check out GoDaddy. For about $60 dollars a year you get 10GB of space and 300gb of monthly transfer. Or for about $170 a year you get unlimited space and unlimited transfer.
posted by gregr at 9:30 AM on August 27

Seconding new hositng. Sounds like you've got a crappy account.
posted by toomuchpete at 9:35 AM on August 27

If the traffic wouldn't overwhelm your connection, would you consider streaming them off your home PC? There's an open source program called edna that will do this. A description from the home page:

'edna allows you to access your MP3 collection from any networked computer. This software streams your MP3s via HTTP to any MP3 player that supports playing off a remote connection (e.g. Winamp, FreeAmp, Sonique, XMMS, WMP). ' Note that WMP = Window's default Media Player.

Instructions to install are here.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 10:44 AM on August 27

You might also want to look into imeem.com.
posted by onich at 6:38 PM on August 31