I've seen a lot of DJs post links on subreddits like /r/mixes to their 2-3 hour sets on Youtube. Why? I listen to DJ sets while doing active things like going for a walk, making breakfast, doing chores etc and I can't listen to anything on Youtube without having the app open because I don't have Youtube premium, plus I would imagine Youtube commercials will pop up often in a long set.
I don't get it, why not just post your mix on Soundcloud or Mixcloud instead?
SoundCloud only allows so much free uploads until you have to start paying a large monthly fee to post. YouTube never has that issue.
I uploaded a few mixes to hearthis dot at, and never had an issue, whether with copyright, bandwidth, or space. I don’t know if it’s still the same for newer accounts, but their player is awesome, and it’s possible to listen live in a mobile browser on the background.
almost any dj uploading tracks or sets is paying anyways though and then its unlimited
$16
Large fees? It's only 8.25€ per month for unlimited uploads.
Interesting. I understand that Youtube is way more popular than Soundcloud, but having to have the app open is a dealbreaker for me. Maybe I'm the only one with this issue.
YouTube premium and YouTube music don’t require the app to be open. Same with running YouTube through safari or chrome on mobile
zero shot i pay for youtube premium LOL
I use it on my desktop with ad blocker.
Though those days might be numbered.
You can put as many mixes as you like on YouTube too without having to pay, if you can steer clear of copyright bs.
Ah, gotcha.
Nah i am right there with you, I dont like having youtube open when i drive, but i want to hear the tunes. Im at the point where i might spring for youtube, I already sprung for soundcloud pro.
If you just use a mobile website, firefox will keep playing a youtube vid in the background. Also, NewPipe, an alternative youtube app has that functionality.
Will try it out.
If you get premium the music is included iirc
I got rid of my Paramount plus and went with YouTube. I love it. The amount of DJ mixes and skate videos I watch it makes it worth it. Also I just learned a few weeks ago that you can stream movies with Premium as well. They have a lot of free movies to watch. Just got done dorking out on Big Trouble In Little China.
I pay for Soundcloud pro as that's where I share my 50+ tracks, though I also have a Mixcloud Pro profile that gets 0 traffic lol.
Link to my Soundcloud if you're interested :)
Unless you pay for SoundCloud, you are limited to 2 hours of uploads.
I believe there are a few different apps that do this, but I use Musi. It allows you to listen to YouTube audio without having the app open.
Thanks!
You on iOS ?
Yes.
You might be sofl, but you could try brave browser you might still be able to listen to YouTube whilst your device is locked, if not you want to get onto android & check out revanced
With yt premium, it’s pretty convenient to be listening to something on the TV, then switch over to my headphones, continue that set in the car, and continue the rest on my computer. Idk, SoundCloud doesn’t really have this capability
Revanced
Look for revanced it gives you yt premium features
You on iOS ?
I can leave the app open and screen unlocked on my iPhone and as long as I put it screen out in jeans pocket it still plays for me?
open in browser desktop view and it will play in the background with a bit of fiddling with display off
On some mobile browsers you can visit the web based YouTube site and set the browser to play audio when the tab is inactive, even when the browser is minified. It's a bit of a hacky workaround but seems to work for me.
Edit: spelling
A lot of people have youtube premium, it's not the majority but it's a lot
I actually subscribed to YouTube because a mix I liked was there and I wanted to listen while on the go
SoundCloud sound quality is abhorrent and the platform is shit. YouTube Premium is best streaming service on the planet.
How do you really feel?
I’m just happy to have access to so many people’s sets. It wasn’t always like that.
Yah, it's nice to have so much music available. I started DJing in 1999 and used to post my stuff on various DJ forums. Much easier these days.
Look up how to use Revanced, an apk modification tool on Android, to replace your stock YouTube app with a reconfigured one that allows pocket play, skips all ads, skips all sponsors, and does tons of other cool shit. I haven't seen an ad in about two years and I listen to mixes constantly
How easy is it to set up and use? I'm beyond scunnered with the amount of adverts on YouTube these days . Would pay for premium but not at those prices . Too greedy YouTube .
it's a piece of piss
Incredibly easy if you're familiar with navigating your phone and are ok with reading instructions. This guide walks you through it step by step and is pretty simple.
Ditch Spotify, you’re already paying the same prices for less than half the content- but YouTube’s prices are too high? Hilarious!!!
“Spotify” is a catch-all term referring to any of the major streaming services that aren’t YouTube. You don’t use any of them? Cheers bruv
Ah nice, you have my respect then because the streaming services are a joke. YouTube is the only one I’d even consider paying for today. And yes, ads are out of control.
I'm on an iPhone, but thanks.
uYou+ and AltStore
I use Musi on iPhone. The ads became worse in the last year but they’re still easily avoidable if you put the app in the background. Easy to make playlists as well.
Or just pay up
not everyone has/uses/or familiar with soundcloud
I listen to mixes on youtube all the time
SoundCloud is crap. I was a paying customer for many years and over time they completely ruined the platform. Tailored it toward listeners rather than creators. Completely nerfed the sound quality, blew up the visuals - half the time artwork looks all pixelated now because of how zoomed it is. And now on the off chance that I do happen to use it (for convenience) to listen to some of MY OWN material uploaded YEARS ago, SoundCloud plays ads on it. SoundCloud sucks. I have replaced SoundCloud with Google drive.
Cool...
I don't experience any if your issues.
You’re just not listening closely enough
I'm a dj...
I do t have to.
I post my mixes on to it.
Share the link on my YouTube
People listen.
It's working for me... got 250 plays this week
I’m not saying it won’t get you plays people will listen where they have to. I’m just saying that SoundCloud by far has the worst quality of any of the platforms. Like I said I was a long time customer so not sure when you first started uploading to SoundCloud but everything was better around 10-15 years ago.
And I'm saying it's not giving me an issue and serves it's purpose for me.
Go somewhere else about that
I don’t see how you could be pleased with SoundCloud but alas, have a Merry Christmas fellow dj
I literally just told you... go make a post if it really bothers you that much. Like I've stated multiple times. I have no issues.
Tbh, YouTube is the number one search engine for music. Most ppl look there first since it's available as an app on literally every entertainment device on the market (phones, TVs, computers, game consoles.. etc).
If they are smart however, they will post mixes to multiple places.
cause sc and mixcloud are so fucking bad since Spotify. There's literally no exposure to people that dont know you on SC at this point. Its ridicolous.
With youtube you have at least the small chance to hit the algorhytm.
I go to YouTube for everything. I have it on every TV in the house via a fire/Roku stick and on my phone and always open on the browser on my PC.
I pay for YT premium because a streaming service costs £10 a month anyway and for the extra £3 I pay for YouTube I get the full audio app but then all adverts removed and for 10p a day that's a bargain. Other than a small sweet there is nothing as cheap as 10p. Even a little fucking Freddo bar is 25p.
I use YouTube for most of my entertainment from travel shows, to video games, to hobby advice and like I said 10p a day for no ads.
The only time I swap is if I'm having a spell using my Serato vinyl DJing and I get Tidal instead so I can DJ with the tracks I stream.
Just to add, the YT music web page is awful but the actual app works perfectly fine. It's much better than it is in a browser.
Soundcloud you need a subscription to upload more than 3h of music, Mixcloud imo has noticeable bad quality. Youtube is easily reachable and searchable by everyone, and everybody who is sane is using an ad blocker. I've never ever seen an ad on Youtube while on my own devices.
But you're right, to have that on mobile devices, you have to be a bit smarter and technically skilled than the random internet user.
I don't listen to much music, when I'm not home. Except in my car. For that I download the sets i want to listen as mp3 and put it on my phone. Don't have a reliable mobile internet connection for streaming in my mountainous area anyway. At work, I just play in the browser from youtube. But I'm aware I have a different use case as probably most people.
PS: On soundcloud you can upload more than 3h, if it is one set 🤡 So I have a 4h long set there 😂 but no more...
SoundCloud: create one main account with playlists, then upload from new accounts whenever you run out of space and repost + add to playlists on main account. Use your main account to comment the track list on the dj set’s timeline.
too much of a hassle can't be bothered with that. But thank you for the smart suggestion
That hassle is spent to avoid your listeners from having to deal with a hassle on their end.
What do you mean by Mixcloud being lower quality?
It sounds compressed as fuck like a 96 or 128 kbit mp3 when I stream from there
Soundcloud was using 64kbps for streaming last I looked at it. not sure what they stream at now but have never had a problem with mixcloud's audio, it's just not as good for organic exposure
However, when I listen to it on any of my good speakers (means... any except my phone's internal speakers) it is too awful to listen to it for my ears.
PS: And I am not any of those audio nerds... Mp3s 192 kbit upwards are OK... but on the good speakers anything above 256 I can not notice an improvement.
I was thinking you might know off hand how their current converters and bitrates compared, for an objective comparison. Looking at them now -
- Our Standard audio streaming quality is 64kbps AAC+
- HQ audio is at least 160kbps Opus - around three times higher quality than the standard rate
I didn't find a similar page on SC's standard quality (iirc it used to be 64opus? 128mp3 equivalent). They're HQ is 265aac
Because no average music fan is using SoundCloud or MixCloud
Real pros post to all platforms.
Open firefox on your phone > go to youtube > activate desktop mode on firefox > watch videos > lock phone if you want
Brave browser also works well out of the box. No ads, lock phone works.
I don't get it either, perhaps for more exposure?
I can tell you as a Mixcloud user that it's very limited unless you pay. You can only have 10 shows posted at a time.
The only one I can think of that I listen to on youtube is My Analog Journal.
I'm a newbie bedroom dj that record his set every satuday afternoon. I upload my mixes to both Mixcloud and YouTube. After the presentation I can answer to your question:
On mixcloud for my niche I get 10-20 listen per mix, on YT I get 100-10000 listen on the same mix. Here your answer.
Yes YT need premium to only listen while on mobile but YT is not only on mobile, there is many TV Apps and the desktop version, also is the most widely used platform for music media.
It's a matter of exposure.
Soundcloud has 175 million monthly listeners. Youtube has 112 million per day. Even something like Twitch is 'only' at 31 million per day, whereas Mixcloud is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than all of those at around 6 million per month.
In other words, you'll get the most potential eyes on your mix by uploading to Youtube. Doesn't mean it necessarily will happen, but the potential is greater. Could you do all of them? Yeah, but it's time, and that's a precious commodity.
I like putting mixes on on YouTube. My living room tv is hooked up to a PC so I just use it as a big monitor amd put mixes on when im doing something like cleaning the house, or sometimes even just scrolling my phone. I pay for Premium as for $15/month it's worth it to skip ads, which are horrendous these days. I got it free for 3 months with my phone and never canceled it, but that was largely due to these mixes to be honest. Every 5 mins there'd be 2 ads, first one maybe 90 seconds but it started making the second one an hour long, so I'd have to stop what I was doing to skip it.
It's cool to see how these DJs esthetically produce their mixes. You get to see funky set ups and cool landscapes. It started with Boiler Rooms where I could drink at home and still feel like I was out at the club! But now I also like chill ones, like that couple that play chillout house with ridiculously dope Luxembourg landscapes behind them.
Tube Pro for iPhone. Massively improved my YouTube experience.
I’ll try that, thanks.
YouTube gets more “plays”. Don’t question whether they’re legit, ppl care about bigger numbers
You’re right that Mixcloud is better.
SoundCloud is garbage for djs. They’ll ban you even if you’re paying them money, with their shitty inaccurate copyright detection. They’ll get you eventually, and they won’t always do a proper review. Don’t use SoundCloud.
That's weird what you're saying about soundcloud. I have like 50 mixes uploaded, and none of them were removed (i've been uploading for at least 3 years).
But I guess it depends what you are uploading.
My sets are usually progressive house, techno, melodic techno, house.
I had been a pro ($150/year) member for 8 years when I collected my second, invalid copyright claim from Sony. The first was from… Columbia? Yeah I don’t own a single song from either record label. I had closer to 100 (edit: it was 75 not 100, my bad) mixes - house, techno, trance, trip hop, downtempo… list goes on…
Anyways, they denied both of those repealed. As a side note, there was a first (third) I had received a different time they repealed.
After the second, they said they were going to torch my account (delete everything) and ban me PERMANENTLY from the website.
I removed all my content and unsubscribed the same day and moved to Mixcloud.
Fuck sound cloud. I cant emphasize enough that neither claim was valid. It was a different song entirely. I even linked to the actual song I was playing all three times, on beatport, which was also listed in my track list. Yeah. The sound cloud copyright reviewers are incompetent
Edit: Just to add some more context, I had something like 250,000 plays and a thousand or two followers (I don’t remember the exact number, it was inbetween). So yeah. It was fucking painful to have an algorithm and a literal moron destroy all that I had built. Again, fuck sound cloud. Don’t use them.
Edit2: since I’m being questioned I went back in my emails. The first tike was 2014 and was appealed. Then I got two strikes in 2015, for two different mixes, one month apart. Both were from Sony. Neither were correct. Both appeals were denied. The strikes “expired” in 08/2018, 3 years after I left the platform. Shit service. Shit company. Fuck sound cloud.
Not had a problem with Soundcloud in 12 years, uploaded more than 200+ mixes and only ever had one flagged. Mixcloud is garbage for traction, listeners, comment engagement and just making friends.
congrats. I guess that invalidates my experience then 🙄
They key is to wait out the probation period after a strike. I think it’s three months with SoundCloud. It sounds like you were racking them up in a short timespan.
First, fuck that dude. How can you even say that. I was paying them money.
Second, it was not always three months. In fact, it was not a rolling basis at all, when I left. They implemented that policy in 2018, years after I left. The least they can do is a proper review.
wow, that really sucks :/.
I tried mixcloud in the past, since it was free, but I just don't like it haha.
And there aren't any good services to be honest.
Soundcloud always seemed the most used service, but I've been noticing a LOT of bots and problems. Also, the insights have been broken for like a month now (at least for me, but i've seen a lot of people complaining).
Anyway, I have Pro until May, but I don't think I'll renew it. It's really expensive for what they offer. Also, I'm from Argentina so 150 USD is a lot here.
Only on music forums. It was close to a decade, so not that much. Many djs have way more. Imma nobody
As a bedroom DJ with very little social media presence, I have had exactly 0 views of anything I've posted on Youtube. I have, however gotten organic hits on my mixes that I've posted to Soundcloud. Mixcloud has also been pretty disappointing.
I did have a couple issues with copyrights on a 2 mixes that I posted to Soundcloud, but that was years ago and most of the stuff I use in my mixes is on smaller labels anyway.
I have had exactly 0 views of anything I've posted on Youtube
sadly YT need "social media expertize" to get views.
You need to use well titles, thumbnails, description and hashtags, and need to follow rules that are not even present in the YT Guidelines otherwise the algorithm will "hide" you.
Is a lot of work if you do it as an hobby like me, but I like it somehow as a way to create my "DJ image". All stand on how much effort you want to put on it.
Yah. I'm not really interested in all of that, lol. I'm happy getting my 100 listens per mix on Soundcloud.
I like the bbc essential mixes on YouTube that are a recording of a guy driving around d for 2 hours as it plays lol.
Does anyone here uses Hearthis.at? It’s great, but has little exposure. It lets you download the mixes
The simple answer is upload capacity. You can upload as many mixes as you want to YouTube without paying a dime
The problem is guys don't want to pay to promote their DJ mixes all though they want the benefits of what comes with having a level of notoriety. So they risk getting their mix taken down on Youtube for free exposure. So many DJs on here claim how good they are or ask how can they get booked at clubs but very few if any are putting any money behind what they do in order to get heard or be taken seriously.
Soundcloud is ok if you own the rights or have permission to the tracks in your mix. If not, youre playing Russian roulette. Mixcloud sounds terrible and the majority of traffic they get comes from artists and producers, not fans.
Guys are better off putting their mixes up on Bandcamp, X and IG and paying to get the traffic you need to hear it. That's the best way to break into this game as a DJ.
No one is listening to hour mixes on Bandcamp, X and IG. Literally no one. I've uploaded 200+ mixes to Soundcloud and had maybe 1 flagged 8 years ago.
Not for free they aren't. Hence why I said what I said bro. Stop being cheap and put your money behind your work if you want to be taken seriously.
What are you talking about? How can you upload a mix on IG? You can't upload mixes to bandcamp either? That's more for tracks and producers and you run into more permission rights by monetizing, not that I've ever seen someone do that on Bandcamp. And I've not seen a single hour mix on X ever?
Your opinions are such utter shit lol 😂😂😂
Exactly. Which is why I didn't give opinions here. I stated the facts.
mix taken down on Youtube
thats depend on many factor:
1)total number of view on your channel
2)total number of subscriber on your channel
3) total hours of view in the lifetime of your channel
I'm on YT and I put my mixes there since June 2023, except from artists from Warner Music only on the first months I get some kind of strike where I had to mute the song, and even with Warner's artist I only get geoblocked in Russia and Belaruss now.
On YT all depend on who you are: I think that Tiesto or Carl Cox can play on YT whatever they want without any kind of issue, while a new channel for a mix with the same tracks will get a strike.
Just get premium brother. Comes with a free youtube music membership, and of all the streaming services is by far the best value. Would solve all of your issues. Blows my mind people are still willing to deal with ads on youtube.
Bit more difficult now, but still possible to avoid ads on YouTube without paying for anything.
Yup YouTube links are an automatic no go for me…. I’m way too ADHD to just have one app open
The A L G O R I T H M
just download the mix from yt, i guess
I upload to YouTube cause there’s no cap on upload length or amount of sets, for free
Valid question. When YouTube/Google releases a subscription-free app that streams mixes with the phone screen off - without ads - then I will check it out. But when I really want to hear a dj mix, I’ll search SoundCloud, first. Once my YT premium trial ended, I went back to using it for background work music.
Then, when you considers the ever present possibility of ip content blocking, the practice becomes even more puzzling. Do we know any dj’s who became successful primarily because of YouTube sets? Do we know any dj’s who gain decent revenue from it? Or, is it more of a vanity thing? Or, is it more of a budget thing, as SoundCloud charges creators for hosting more than a couple mixes?
Go download revanced and save yourself some pennies
I was able to upload my mix but I can't monetize it. So the royalties go to the artists
YouTube music
Because Soundcloud has a really short limit on total hours before you have to upgrade to premium. Plus, the exposure on Youtube is much higher than both Soundcloudn and Mixcloud.
i work at a computer all day so i can leave youtube running in the background if i want.
Lots of people work on their computers, and YT’s algorithm is great for podcast and musical content.
... ReVanced / uBlock / Brave
You name it, being iOS or Android or PC, if you still have ads it means you don't mind them.
I use Fourthwall, people have downloaded my mixes for free and then bought merch, either stickers or shirts. Probably the best thing I've done.
I just upload them everywhere.
Is it something to do with copyright? Since it's pretty hard to upload any mix to SC these todays without getting a strike
I got you!! I'm on all three, you just chose the platform :) www.rogerstones.com 🫶🏻👾
IMO you should post your mixes everywhere you can. For my most recent I made a music video using AI
What AI did you use?
simple. YouTube doesn't have upload limits and it's easy to be discovered. Copyright does suck tho.
I think I’m legit the only one here that does it for the simple fact that Soundcloud isn’t going to let me post my 11+ hr mixes like I do on YT
If you pay for premium you don't need to keep the app open.
I pay for premium for this very reason; so many great sets on YouTube and a lot are all vinyl mixes with very underground tracks
Watch on a TV
I know this doesn't really answer your question but YouTube Premium will probably be the last streaming service I get rid of. I use YouTube music as my main music service and that comes bundled with Premium. Or vice versa, however you want to look at it. After years of pocket play and no ads I just can't go back. And the content is stuff you can't find anywhere else. As opposed to the Netflix/Hulu/Max etc there's plenty of "other" ways to get all that.
If you can find $15 in your monthly budget I'd highly recommend it. I hate shilling for big companies but I just really like YouTube Premium.
When im at Work i only play mixes from youtube ...
-many good ones ( high view = 90 % good one)
-many diffrent genres
-good autoplay
As a DJ I can see why - you are far more discoverable on YouTube because it is a search engine. It finds people similar to the other listeners and it suggests you to them.
There are all kinds of listeners out there. Many have the browser tab open at work and while the video plays in the background the audio gets them through the day.
Going off my own stats on https://www.youtube.com/c/NasserAlazzawiTV I can see some do actually seem to watch the video and often go back to them and stuff like that. I put my mixes on https://soundcloud.com/NasserAlazzawi which is ok but I always found Mixcloud to be ridiculously weak at helping people to discover me and since music is for sharing with those who get it that’s why YouTube is excellent.
You make a good point about the phone being locked and it not playing but not everyone listens like that.
Gotta get that YouTube Premium. Trust me, it’s worth every penny just in no ad breaks no matter how long the video or mix is. And you can listen all you want without having the app open.
PSA: you can have YouTube app open and lock your phone
Play video/song Home button to make windowed mode Push window to left off screen Pull up the menu from the top or bottom depending on your phone Hit play and lock the screen before it makes the first sound
Now you have YouTube playing with phone locked :)
Here’s my DJ mix if you wanna try it :)
There's YouTube music that if you're a subscriber allows you to listen with screen off and your phone in your pocket. Also there's a thing called track I.D. built into YouTube. When I publish my own tracks my distributor also links track I.D to it so that if my songs played on YouTube it pays.
Personally I think a lot of people listen to YouTube while at home on a computer but it's free to upload stuff so any exposure is better than none at all.
How do you even upload a mix to YouTube without it being taken down for copyright?
Youtube has the largest audience (10 billion downloads), it's as simple as that.
1) no upload limit
2) more popular platform than either of the two between broad public
3) can have video
4) YT has been trying to crack down on this recently, but you can just block the ads.
Youtube allows for higher quality uploads
I fought not paying for YouTube premium for years…. Life is much better without ads on videos … and I can still play things with app in the background when the phone is off.
Just use Freetube to download them onto your device. I put a ton of mixes on my apple watch for when I go running without my phone, works great.
I am more familiar with DJs on Mixcloud, Twitch, Kick. I view YouTube for software and hardware reviews. I guess to each their own. I have used Mixcloud for years and have had some decent traffic prior to the pandemic when I started on Twitch. I think just like anything, the more your work at promoting it, the more traffic you will see on your stream.
i get no plays on mixcloud get more on youtube
For myself I've tried live streaming to YouTube but often will get kicked off stream if they detect copywritten music, so I began to stream on Twitch and record the stream via OBS. I will then upload the recording to YouTube and clip out any Blocked content ( unless it's the usual Belarus and Russia geo block) and lately they have been very lenient and I can upload a 5 hour mix with no issues. While Twitch will always let me play whatever I want whilst streaming, listening back to the stream will have over 50% of the content muted for copywrite. My YouTube uploads are ad free so you don't need premium to listen back either, as I'm sure many other small content uses do as well.
Not sure if this is true, but I heard that Youtube is the best place to circulate your content out of all of the social media's. Some of my favorite mixes are on youtube, and it does annoy me that i cant find them on soundcloud.