A blog with MP3 hosting. How do?

July 15, 2015 11:01 AM

I have an idea for a blog/website where I post my own music and write about the music theory/arrangement and mixing/mastering techniques behind each MP3 snippet. What's the most idiot proof way I should go about this?

My ultimate dream is "mydomainname.com" (which I am comfortable paying for, plus MP3 hosting up to $100 a year or so) where I log in, write that day's post, upload an MP3 (never more than 5mbs) and click "enter".

While not a complete web novice, I've only used dreamhost in the past for personal projects with very (very!) light css and html but I would prefer more of a "template" type site that doesn't involve uploading things through ftp servers. I'd also prefer the MP3 to be hosted locally rather than soundcloud, Dropbox or some other 3rd party.

Does such a thing exist where I can:

- hit a bookmark in my browser
- write some text
- upload an MP3
- click "enter"
- my post appears
- light moderation to delete the spam comments, revise posts

Would prefer to avoid tmblr, blogger et al, a stand alone website. I truly don't care about eyeballs or readers, I just want to move away from my soundcloud account and talk about my music motifs on a standalone site.

Walk me through this like I'm your grandpa, any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

posted by remlapm to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

Squarespace sounds like a good fit for this - they provide the blogging tools you're looking for, and it's easy to drop in any number of mp3 files into a blog post there.
posted by perihare at 11:14 AM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

If you have that Dreamhost account, you can do a one-click install of Wordpress. You can upload files within the backend--no need to FTP. Comes with plugins to help catch spam comments.
posted by JackBurden at 12:19 PM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah, with a little learning of how to make the links work the way you expect, Wordpress can pretty much do exactly what you want. Be sure whoever you sign up with (a lot of hosting companies offer a preinstalled Wordpress product) has enough file space and bandwidth for your MP3s; if you're adding a couple MB a day of MP3s and you start getting popular, you could find your account suspended for exceeding allowances somewhere.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:28 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Does Wordpress fit my needs though? I always thought Wordpress was a css template that I needed to manhandle to get in line. I'm really just looking for a: click - blog - upload - wipe hands on pants - solution with lite moderation/editing.
posted by remlapm at 12:32 PM on July 15, 2015

You can do pretty complex things with Wordpress but you don't have to. Just install, pick a theme, and go.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 12:50 PM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: FWIW, just registered and created a WordPress account/blog. There is no way to drag and drop or upload MP3's to a blog post without a 3rd party link.

So, yeah. WordPress is out.

Any other advice?
posted by remlapm at 2:16 PM on July 15, 2015

I managed to embed an audio player on a BlogSpot blog (example). But it still reqires 3rd party hosting. The same trick might work on WordPress if you want to go into the source code, copy the html player and update the link.

My impression is that tumbler may offer native support for this. But, from what I read a few weeks back when researching this for myself, SoundCloud exists because support for audio clips is nearly nonexistent. So maybe check if Squarespace or tumbler really do this, but be prepared for having to bruteforce it on some other platform.
posted by Michele in California at 2:53 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: A wordpress account at wordpress.com is not the same as a self hosted worpress install on DreamHost.

For what you describe, I'd use Wordpress running on DreamHost, or WebFaction. Dreamhost being much more user friendly. WebFaction giving your better server resources.
posted by humboldt32 at 3:06 PM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

I initially suggested Wordpress because you mentioned Dreamhost and you sought something you'd own rather than a third party blogging platform. As humboldt32 mentioned, a self-hosted Wordpress account is different than a wordpress.com site. The self-hosted site, on Dreamhost or wherever, will afford you the functionality and ownership you seek.
posted by JackBurden at 9:16 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

FWIW, just registered and created a WordPress account/blog. There is no way to drag and drop or upload MP3's to a blog post without a 3rd party link.

This is absolutely possible but you must install Wordpress on your Dreamhost account.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:40 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Look into soundcloud? Free MP3 hosting for up to 3 hours of content. 6 hours if you pay for pro, and you can even go unlimited.

https://on.soundcloud.com/overview

Combine it with a free blog and you're 100% free.

You can migrate both to paid hosting later... if you want to. A domain only (forwards to your blog) is only like $15-20 a year. Scale it up later.
posted by kschang at 11:32 PM on July 15, 2015

I've built a couple of podcasts on self-hosted Wordpress, one using Podpress and another using a different plugin which I forget, and I'm currently on mobile, so checking is too complicated. If memory serves, uploading the files to the server was a weak spot for them.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:38 PM on July 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ok, checking, one uses Podpress - possibly defunct - and the other uses Blubrry PowerPress.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:59 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Just checking back in and I apologize for the questions.

My site is up and running with a .wordpress domain name, all sound files are embedded Soundcloud links, as you can see.

I love the editing functionality and ease of use, it really is pretty brainless...but it could be nicer. Wordpress offers to lop off the .wordpress extension and have a dedicated domain with 13gb of storage for $100 a year, which sounds reasonable.

Dreamhost offers Wordpress hosting for $250 a year, which seems unreasonable.

Really I would just like the dedicated domain and MP3 hosting while still retaining all the Wordpress editing and posting ease of use.

So, yeah, I'm going to look in to cheaper hosting options if I can't confirm the 13gb WP offers includes mp3s and people listening to them.

Thank you everyone for getting me this far!
posted by remlapm at 11:53 AM on July 16, 2015

Best answer: You can get Dreamhost for $8.95 a month (not their dedicated WP hosting, just a regular shared hosting account), and for a tiny percentage of that using any of the millions of affiliate codes that are out there, for the first year. Other large hosts will cost around the same, but many of them are less user-friendly for nontech people to get started on.

I can't recommend Dreamhost, though (I once did, but I think their service has degraded significantly over the years). I spent more than a decade with them, and for hosting at the scale I needed (not huge, but largeish in terms of traffic), they just kept getting worse and worse, support started to get ludicrously bad, and the value for money wasn't there any more. I switched to ASmallOrange and couldn't be happier, but getting things set up with them was a little more complicated, at least coming from DH.

Also, yeah, you totally can add mp3 files to your self hosted WP media library and embed them painlessly in posts or pages (just as you would with images). It's way slicker and easier to use than it was even a year back.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:09 PM on July 16, 2015

If you're cost-sensitive, DigitalOcean's $5/month and up.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:06 PM on July 16, 2015

Digital Ocean is great, but it's definitely Advanced Level in terms of getting stuff set up if you're not familiar with managing servers.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:46 AM on July 17, 2015

Response by poster: just wanted to update for those that stumble on this with the same question. This was so ridiculously easy to set up after the pointers here I'm kind of embarrassed I had to ask for help bringing me in to the 21st century.

My Blog is now hosted through Dreamhost, running Wordpress, MP3's are embedded and locally hosted. This is EXACTLY what I was looking for.

I haven't really had a chance to fully play with themes and customize, but from starting the registration process to publishing my first post took all of about 20 minutes. MP3 were as simple as dragging and dropping, no coding or ftp nonsense. I've even already received two spam comments for a tree trimming service (which were easily deleted).

Thank you all so much for helping me bring this silly little idea to life.
posted by remlapm at 6:20 AM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]