SoundCloud seems to be the all-around, easy to use, drop-and-play solution for any digital audiophile around. It supports a majority of uploadable file formats, including aiff, wave, mp3, ogg, flac and aac. It’s widget is even easier to use, point and click the share button and in no time the widget is implemented on your website. Their file uploads and streaming are raging fast which is based on the KISS principle.

There are three widgets available:

1. “sets” which will show the active waveform and album art; together with a “buy now” link (example)
2. “track” which will show the tracks waveform, comments and “buy now” link; (example)
3. “dropbox” which can be put on any website, which is an universal portable way to move digital music without any hassle at all! (example)

The RESTful API of SoundCloud seems to be simple and yet sturdy, aimed towards open-standards. It’s API (console) supports oAuth, XML and JSON to give the smallest details of the SoundCloud owner. They encourage hacks and apps towards their audio platform, because their believe lies that audio is a key part of the web. The SoundCloud developer team has an open transparant foundation which encourages feedback and suggestions to improve it’s platform. Their file storage is based on Amazon 3S. There are extensive examples available through the website like A Javascript player; Python, Ruby or Cocoa API wrapper and more!

SoundCloud has a Developer Manifesto on-line, which states “we aim towards a platform where artists, labels and music professionals from around the planet can host, share and receive music in the smartest and most efficient way imaginable”.  This platform will complement the VisualDreams platform towards portable music for music professionels around the planet without breaking any bank beforehand!

Their application was first not supported by Wordpress before going through hoola-hoops; although I’ve changed that a few days ago with the visual-sound-plugin-for-wordpress which also supports the ArtistBlog.ME and ArtistPlug.ME (VisualDreams) API immediately. More examples about this plugin is available at development.artistblog.me/visualsound-plugin

I’ll be looking forward to implement this application through ArtistBlog.ME with the VisualDreams engine, so it’ll be the added glue towards the users convenience to get their hard-labor heard, discussed and promoted.

As a last nice thing … Check out this!

The VisualMIX engine is a combination of hard labor, industry research and sleepless nights together with a dim screen with white letters. Welcome to the engine written in Perl, created over the few years and implemented so tightly it’s an event on itself! It’s technology supports (but not limited to) a full customizable templatable website, virtual domain support, advanced VeXX (XML) script language supporting dozens of on-line services and feeds, advanced protection system with granular security, download protection, diverse on-line media and document formats are supported on-the-spot, API supporting raw-import for iframes and RPC:XML for exporting filesystem details.

This engine is currently on-the-move, under construction and deconstruction. The sites below could be down because of this migration.

I wouldn’t be promoting something if I wouldn’t be eating my own dog food .. right? Some of the websites I’ve created with this engine:

• GoWildchild (with licensing)
• Guild of BoB (WoW guild)
  
• My WoW page through Wordpress
• RealIdent (for YubiKey support)
• ArtistPlug.ME (preliminary reviewing & promotion platform)
• Dreamdisk (file hosting)

The name wasn’t always VisualMIX; it used to be VisualDreams; and had the unpublicised name VisualART, which was merely an audio/visual file manager with support for easy uploads and userfriendly (or SEO friendly) url’s. I needed a system myself which was able to get a load of files while processing them automatically towards my website. It’s support for that many file-formats and features is more a fanatic rage of programming and sleepless hours. Either I could be lying in bed staying awake or be productive and fix some (more) code …

You could think about it as the “new-age filesystem”, maybe a File-Content Management System, to stay with the buzzwords. It can be tweaked to the maximum and it supports dozens of graphics formats which are converted real-time after upload. Last development includes a licensing system which is backed up by the JW-Flash player and heavy CPAN module support. A wordpress module is available with direct support towards the VisualDreams engine, straight from the programmer.

If you thought that was all? Nah, it has a very extensive form engine which hides the e-mail of the recipient, a doc & xml-to web reader and extensive password modules supporting both tickets and (encrypted) logins. Multi-language support, SEO friendly links, rss feed & podcast is available at the fingertips for anyone around. Upload your file and it’s on-line, it couldn’t be easier than that!

There are no real storage limits because each file is a seperate object without the database overhead. It’s based on open-source, Linux, Apache and Perl. FTP, Webdav and a scarce web frontend are currently the only supported protocols to get files uploaded; although this will be changed as the front-end is not so important to keep a VisualDreams engine disk managed; it would just relax the user with it’s many supported (and undocumented) options.

It’s development in the mind is 24/7/365; features are getting added 24/7 while speed and security cannot be comprimised. Some of the upcoming features will be:

• Front-end management interface;
• Automatic conversion of .MOV/.AVI & other large formats to Flash;
• Feeds for all files supported by the VisualDreams engine;
• SoundCloud Widget & API support;
• Add static-website support for super-cachine;
• Seamless integration towards the ArtistPlug.ME network (including ArtistBLOG.ME);
• Template Widget Support;
• Plug-in and Yubikey support;
• release of parts towards the oss world;
• …. and it won’t stop here!

Admin Screen v1.04

Welcome to VisualSound, the WordPress (MU compatible) plug-in with built-in SoundCloud & VisualDreams support.

After searching for a long time on the Internet, I’ve not found any clue for any SoundCloud widget available; so I’ve started development of VisualSound; which is currently in use at some of the Wildchild pages. The applet has a natural interfacing towards SoundCloud & other multimedia providers.

Later support will include direct API support towards SoundCloud and VisualDreams/VisualMix.

The configuration screen allows easy access to a few applet options, available to the users convenience.

* (this SoundCloud widget should autostart!)

WARNING !!!

v1.10+: The standard soundcloud URL can be used as command like {soundcloud play url} and {soundcloud autoplay url}.

pre-v1.0: This plug-in has been simplified with commands.

• Double check your previous posts/page syntax if you upgrade from pre-v1.0!
• Disable/Re-enable plug-in for full support to upgrade from pre-v1.0!
• For Soundcloud: use [keyword] soundcloud and [provider] soundcloud in the configuration screen!
• If your plug-in does not work, try as [provider] beta
  

Old syntax: [visualsound username mode location] – New syntax: [keyword mode username location]

Newest Syntax: [keyword mode url] where keyword is soundcloud for SoundCloud!

Syntax line:

[keyword mode username location]