Song Hosting That Doesn't Suck

I’d like to suggest a couple of options for people want to to host songs, but feel the urge to turn to horrible sites like rapidshare or megahost… the kind of sites that make potential listeners want to shoot you.

I will make this an ever-growing list of decent, free places to host your tracks. Feel free to post high bandwidth, ad-free, wait-free sites with decent free hosting. (Man that’s alot of "free"s) … and note, when I say ad-free, I mean “doesn’t have annoying popovers or confusing ad placement that makes you click the ad instead of the file you want to download” … obviously most sites have at least a few google ads these days.

Bandcamp
Pros
Allows you to post individual tracks or entire albums for streaming, download, or sale ($$ collected via paypal) … allows download in whichever format the end user prefers. Autotags songs for you. In short: Kick ass site.
Cons
Can’t customize the raw html… and you have to upload either FLAC or WAV…other than that, none as far as I can see.

Google Pages and Google Sites
Pros
Google’s website makers. They host various filetypes, have lightning fast connections. Guaranteed access worldwide. Free as in beer. If you have a gmail account, you’ve already got access to these!
Cons
I don’t think there’s a flash music player… though you could upload your own

Virb
Pros
Musician profile /w flash player. Highly customizable profile. Great alternative to myspace. Song downloads from in-player link.
Cons
Can’t link to an individual song. Flash player is non-embeddable.

Archive.org
Pros
Archive.org is an archive of free content on the web. They also host audio for people, in a single song or album format. Includes great embeddable flash player.
Cons
I’m not entirely sure if it hosts creative commons music, or if they allow you to list what license you want to use. Can someone clarify this for me?

Microsoft Skydrive
Pros
Microsoft’s “Google Pages” contender. Allows 25gb of storage. If you have MSN Messenger, you’ve already got one!
Cons
Again, no flash music player

If you’re specifically looking for ones which allow stream as well as download then these may be worth investigating for your list.

http://www.divshare.com/
Pros:
Upload audio and video
Password files and folders as you wish.
Built in player.
Embedded link for sharing.

Cons:
10GB/Month bandwidth (and 5GB total storage.)
Not very pretty or audiocentric.

http://www.icompositions.com/
Pros:
Unlimited storage and bandwidth (I think?)
Community/feedback.

Cons:
Mainly Mac Garage Band users as that’s what it was initially set up for.
Although you can set songs to be non-downloadable it’s easy to do so if you’re vaguely technically minded.

thanks for the info on these services. really appreciate that.

sadly, “Google Page Creator is no longer accepting new sign-ups.”
or is it just in my country?!

Try Google Sites.

soundclick
http://www.soundclick.com/
elctrobel ( which ever country you choose …lots of good artists out there
http://www.electrobel.be/

Thanks magOwl… didn’t realize google had another such service =D

That most definitely does not suck Bantai! Thanks :)

Here’s mine:
http://cid-58e741052a4f6f9c.skydrive.live…owse.aspx/Music

Also, thanks for the pin! … just noticed there’s another thread with hosting sites… I’ll go through those and quality test a few later ;)

they allow creative commons and public domain:
http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php#223

Good thread, thanks BYTE.

http://drop.io/

it supports direct linking and some other stuff too.

I got tons of webspace so anyone that needs me to host their songs just email them to me or PM me here.

rockfistus AT gmail.com

Someone ban this Waqas Noor dude please… he’s a spambot

I think you guys will really like this one… SoundCloud

Yes, I like soundcloud! :)

SOUNDCLOUD
http://soundcloud.com

Pros
Musician profile /w flash player. Clean interface. Streaming and download (optional). Good bandwith and sound quality. Can link to an individual song. Widgets.

Cons
Some limits with FREE accounts. Not so much customizable.

I have not seen http://last.fm yet…
Pros:
-No song limit
-No play limit
-No space limit
-Embeddable player (you have to steal the code from their pages though!)
-Single songs can be played with an embeddable mini icon.

cons:
-You can only decide to go fully commercial or offer all your stuff fully free. No license scheme per song or per album basis.

Other cons: Not really that good for previews :P

Bandcamp:
http://bandcamp.com

Pros:

  • player embeddable in other sites
  • easy payments for downloads in various formats
  • no social networking B.S.

i use box.net
it is free and easy to use you can share files giving people the option to download or play it (if its an audio file)

this is what the share page looks like:
http://www.box.net/shared/cnssasv5qb#

I use http://zshare.net because it has a flash player but Box.net looks a lot better.

www.zippyshare.com very nice and fast for audio & video! (with preview)