Features We Wish Soundcloud Would Implement

In the past, we've been vocal about what we disliked about the "new" SoundCloud. We can't help it; if there's a service that we use more than most (wh

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In the past, we've been vocal about what we disliked about the "new" SoundCloud. We can't help it; if there's a service that we use more than most (which, if you check most of the audio posts on DAD, you'll see we spend a lot of time with SoundCloud streams playing), and it wasn't really "broken," we weren't sure why they decided to "fix" it. What's interesting is that the "fixes" they introduced have been hit or miss. Some things have been improved upon, while other bits have us scratching our head. We doubt that the SoundCloud team is done revamping the service, so instead of griping about what's there, we figured it might make sense to run down some features we feel could exponentially benefit "new" SoundCloud.

Top lists

For bloggers and for fans, it would be incredibly beneficial to have a look at who the most followed users are and what the most listened to and/or favorited tracks are. To take it a step further, it would be great if we could see that kind of info for various time periods and for certain tags or genres.

A way to automatically link to songs when making a tracklist for a mix

SoundCloud is not known to be particularly hospitable towards DJ mixes, but a step in the right direction might be to give users a simple, streamlined way to make tracklists and then link to the pages of those tracks and their artists without ever having to leave the page that they are on. Sort of similar to the way that Mixcloud does tracklists. This is the kind of feature that would benefit both listeners and DJs/producers.

Timestamping

One of the most timesaving things about places like YouTube and Mixcloud is their timespamp features. Integrating something like that into SoundCloud would be great, especially when listening to mixes when there may just be one track that we want to listen to.

Filters for the stream

For those of us who are into a wide-ranging assortment of genres and artists, it would be a godsend to have the ability to customize multiple streams to match different groups of artists and genres. Bloggers in particular are notorious for getting sidetracked when using SoundCloud. A feature like this would greatly help to narrow our focus and save us the pain in the ass of having to juggle multiple SoundCloud accounts.

Reposts to not land on artist streams

Some of us at DAD are musicians, and we don't hit the repost button.  It's because this shows up on our audio streams, and can confuse visitors as to what content is ours. Similarly, we wouldn't repost a record from the Do Androids Dance account that wasn't landing on our account.  The repost should blindly designate itself to the stream.

Accurate timestamps on reposts

We pride ourselves on having the jump on content, and certainly use SoundCloud as a resource for fresh audio.  So imagine how giddy we get when there's a dope record that we want to get up that landed freshly in my reposts that's tagged as if its two minutes old... and how disappointing it is when we realize that it's three months old.  Reposts should show how old the tracks actually are.  When the tracks were reposted is unimportant information.

A shuffle feature for songs you've liked

So we've liked 400 songs on SounCloud in the past couple of years.  We're in the mood to give these tunes a listen, and the only option that we have is to listen to them in the order that we liked them.  It seems silly that there isn't a shuffle feature to keep us engaged with the content that we've curated on the site.

Custom skins for all pro users

Why do labels and artists get cool custom skins that we don't have access to?  Particularly with pro accounts, this is a slap in the face.  DAD is footing the bill for their most expensive package, and have reached out to reputable DJs to provide weekly mixes at no cost to listeners.  Can we get a banner with our logo on it?

Ability to keep likes private

As a blogger, the thirst is real.  We spoke on the importance of keeping likes private, but as our site has effectively exploded since that was published, it's a point that should be revisited.  We don't want people to know what songs I've liked. We don't want other bloggers to get the jump on tunes or artists that I am evaluating.  Outside of creating a fake account, we have no way of moving in silence.

Charts

We'd love to go to a tab on SoundCloud and see what's trending in different genres.  Sure, it's cool that they have sports, books, and news on their "Explore" section, but to offer nine genres on a music site (one of which is called "urban," a word that should have been done away with decades ago) is a disservice.  Our issue with Beatport is that they don't have their pulse on the music that's placed on their sites, and that people simply tag different genres in an effort to claim they had a charting single.  But nowhere on these Internets can we simply see what's trending in electro or moombahton, and that's pretty annoying.

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