Sharing music with bandmates, but not paying for another service.

May 9, 2010 6:57 PM

I'd like to share recordings with bandmates. So, an HTML5 or Flash player, and comments. Optionally private. And not SoundCloud - but I have 50 gigs of Dropbox space and also an S3 account.

Is there anything like this? Basically, I can bring the storage (work bought me a Dropbox account! Hooray! I underuse it, though - 3%.), something else provides the interface - flash player, comments.

Note that, if there isn't something like this already, then I will write it. I estimate that it's a two day task, with pretty much any framework/language.

posted by tmcw to computers & internet (11 answers total)

Get your bandmates to install dropbox. Since work bought you 50GB, have your first bandmate who joins generate a code for the rest - then he will get a 250mb bonus per bandmate. Then share a folder with all your bandmates. Drop your files there. Done.

You can also drop files into your public dropbox and generate public links. Those public links should generate a player widget in any reasonable web browser.

However, if work bought you 50gb, should you really be using it for your band?

SoundCloud is free for the first hour of tracks, so I'm not sure why you want to avoid them.

You could build something on S3, but there are a million services that already do this.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:07 PM on May 9, 2010

For comments, you really want soundcloud. Why are you so against it?
posted by b1tr0t at 7:08 PM on May 9, 2010

My husband's band uses Google Docs to share the files he makes of their recordings. Free. Simple.
posted by wwartorff at 7:10 PM on May 9, 2010

Actually, Google Sites + Dropbox could be a great solution. Google Sites is a simplified wiki, so it is very easy to post text and links. You can host files at Google Sites, but the last time I used that feature, you could only host a total of 100mb per site. If you are dealing with uncompressed multitrack audio, a single project can go way over that.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:13 PM on May 9, 2010

A JungleDisk license is good for one S3 account, not just one computer. So buy one license for JungleDisk, have everyone install it and use it for the single S3 account, and you're done.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:50 PM on May 9, 2010

You could keep mp3s in your Dropbox public folder, then copy and paste the public link for each as an audio post in Tumblr. Tumblr will create an mp3 player for each mp3, and bandmates can leave comments via Disqus.
posted by indeterminacy at 7:55 PM on May 9, 2010

b1tr0t: definitely not a problem using this account for other things than work. My work is cool.

SoundCloud is indeed free for the first hour of tracks, but I'm looking to upload way more than an hour. I have an account and only have about ten minutes left. Mainly I just feel like it's overpriced, in comparison to other services.

I'll try to get my bandmates to do the Dropbox thing, but they're very non-tech savvy. One doesn't really know how to do anything other than email, word processing, and chat. So, a web player would really be superb for this scenario.

I'll definitely check into google docs / google sites for this, and check out how well tumblr will handle it. Thanks for those tips!
posted by tmcw at 8:17 PM on May 9, 2010

Once you have Dropbox installed (which is very easy, as you know), it is dead simple to use - you can tell your non-tech-savvy bandmate that the recordings will magically appear in his/her Dropbox folder (put a shortcut on his desktop?) and he/she can go from there.
posted by rossination at 8:37 PM on May 9, 2010

You could take a look at this javascript setup too. Pretty slick looking...
posted by circular at 10:57 PM on May 9, 2010

1) Put music in a Dropbox folder.

2) Share that folder. You can now grab an RSS Feed of said folder.

3) Have your contacts subscribe to said RSS feed using Google Reader and/or Buzz.

Alternatively, pull the feed into Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress, or any other comment-enabled blogging platform of your choice.

If you want an embedded player, you could use Pipes and a Regex to wrap JWPlayer around each RSS entry containing an MP3.
posted by schmod at 12:30 PM on May 10, 2010

I would recommend drop.io

Dead easy interface, built-in RSS feed generator, iTunes integration, etc.

To get fancy, choose your own unique URL, eg. drop.io/bandname
posted by sunexplodes at 1:55 PM on May 10, 2010