Ask HN: What is the last song you discover? Where and how did you keep it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the last song you discover? Where and how did you keep it?

4 pointsonuryavuz7 comments

Hello HN!

I want to understand what you do when you discovered a new music ? Do you left browser tabs open ? do you download it as a MP3? or do you search and try to find it on your own streaming service of choice ?

I'm asking you about this because I've built a browser extension to let people keep the music you find on any web page, and web-application on the baseline to let you stream what you've kept.

Why I build this :

I've stopped downloading MP3s a while ago, and I've started using & paying different streaming services like Soundcloud, Spotify and Youtube. But know, all my music data is scattered over different services and I'm not happy. I had a single go-to destination in the past: Winamp. It was a simple yet efficient solution to keep up with all my music in a single place. And this was my inspiration.

I'm basically trying to create a next generation Winamp, powered by streaming URLs instead of MP3s.

I'm interested in monophony and plainchant, i.e. songs that only have vocals and no instruments and feature only one melodic line. Recently I've watched a documentary about flamenco and discovered the term "cante primitivo", which is a form of flamenco "sine guitarra" - without a guitar accompaniment. After searching "cante primitivo" I discovered another documentary featuring a couple of artists who perform cante primitivo, but it's not the whole video I am interested in, just parts of it.

Have a look: https://youtu.be/OvYPB_1oPos?t=18m14s

So what I am going to do now is to record this piece on a Mac using QuickTime and SoundFlower, which allows me to capture any audio output. If I am lazy I'd record the entire video and later cut it into pieces with Audacity. The thing that this method is lacking is a way to keep notes about the sources, such as the address, performers' names etc.

I hope it helps (and enjoy the music :)

The last new song (read: piece of music) I discovered was the soundtrack to the film Gravity. I discovered it by watching the film. I then did a quick search on The Pirate Bay, downloaded one torrent, and started enjoying it in actual Winamp.

The generic case for me is: hear something, possibly search for info about the music used, download it, enjoy.

Mind if I asked why you stopped with offline music and the world's best player?

Thanks for the detailed answer. Have you get a chance to try cubic.fm ? I'd love to know your views on it, since you are a llama lover :)

There is a sad story behind. I stopped using winamp, when my PC and hard-drive got stolen. I couldn't download all the music I had. Then I started using streaming services on a regular basis.

I haven't even heard about that before. Visiting their website doesn't fill me with hope (just a blank page with a nice NoScript logo). I will allow it, see what happens, and possibly report back.

And I am sorry to hear that. I was pretty devastated when my old PC died but I at least had all my data.

[EDIT] There is almost no information about the "app". A slick promotional video on youtube shows 5 seconds of it. A not so dense list of a dozen songs and a mouse clicking on one. That's all you get to see of it. I can't see whether it has good separation between its concept of a Media Library and Playlist. This is the largest thing that keeps me on Winamp.

That doesn't even go on to mention technical features. Replay gain? Gapless? Decoder quality? (I assume it uses whatever you browser has). Does it have ratings, playcounts, visualisations?

Hey man, here is the detailed video of the app : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kUPbZfhN8

By the way, it's the product that I'm currently working on. It's currently in private beta, I'd love to give you a direct access, just drop me an email onur at cubic dot fm

Here is what I built :

https://cubic.fm is for all those who discover music all around the web; on Youtube, on Soundcloud, on Pandora, on their Facebook feed, on a music blog… cubic.fm extension gives you a “save” button wherever you come across new sounds. One click will add them to your personal library.

You can easily add tracks from different music services. cubic.fm finds the best available sources, and lets you stream all on the same player.

The extension currently works on 20+ websites including Facebook, Shazam, Youtube, Soundcloud, Pandora, 8tracks, HypeM, Beatport Pro, Reddit and any blog with embedded audio content. The cubic.fm player can stream content from Spotify, Deezer, Rdio, Youtube and Soundcloud.

Here is the demo video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kUPbZfhN8

It's not ready yet and currently in private beta. But If you send me email on onur@cubic.fm, I'd love to give you direct access and get some feedback.

Thanks!

Found on Spotify. Added to a playlist. Easy!

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