
Show HN: Music sharing site that allows listeners to support artists - dubme1
https://soundrat.com/
======
dubme1
Hey HN

I listen to a lot of music from small and independent artists. People who just
do music for the fun and love of it.

I have always wished there was a simple way for me to show my appreciation for
their work and support their projects. Sure I can buy their digital music
(which I do!) but I was hoping to support them in a more personal way.

That's why I created SoundRat. On SoundRat anyone can upload their own music
and let their fans listen to it without requiring listeners to have an account
or pay for something up front. Fans can stand out and support their favorite
artists through payments. When sending a payment they can attach a personal
message to the artist and supporters get some "perks" such as being able to
download songs and get access to lyrics.

I was planning to highlight some more artists and add a couple more feature
before announcing the website. However, seeing as Spotify recently announced
their way of letting fans support artists (US & UK only) I thought I shouldn't
wait longer.

Let's be upfront about the most important points of the terms and conditions:

\- Artists own their music. I only need the right to host the music.

\- SoundRat takes 6% on all payments. This is used to pay for the servers. I
believe this is a fair number

I have been working on SoundRat for the past few months and doing it learned a
lot from audio encoding to payment integration (It is way easier to accept
payments than processing payouts to users!)

I hope to offer artists a different way of sharing their music and connect
with their fans.

Let me know what you think!

~~~
Freak_NL
> SoundRat takes 6% on all payments. This is used to pay for the servers. I
> believe this is a fair number

If you really want to be fairer than the competition, be transparent about
costs and profit margin. Just stating that 6% seems fair reeks of rent-
seeking. This might not be what musicians and fans want, and it won't
differentiate your service from Spotify.

> perks […] get access to lyrics.

You will need to come up with better perks than that. The lyrics for any
moderately popular song can be found on-line at a click.

~~~
dubme1
Thanks for your feedback. I believe 6% is lower than selling on iTunes,
Bandcamp and co. With this number I do not think I can run this (any time
soon) as a full time business but that is not my goal right now. I hope to use
this percentage to cover some or all of the costs.

I did this for fun and for my interest in listening and discovering small
artists.

~~~
lucideer
> _I hope to use this percentage to cover some or all of the costs._

I don't think the commenter above was trying to make out that 6% is not fair,
just that they'd like to see the breakdown of this percentage covering some or
all of the costs.

iTunes, Bandcamp and co. might not offer that breakdown, so you're definitely
not worse, but it would be a really nice differentiator.

~~~
have_faith
I disagree about the breakdown. I think the vast majority of people are going
to go with their gut feel in whether or not the cut sounds reasonable.
Reasonable and fair being the goal but evaluation of what is reason and fair
from consumers is almost always subjective. The breakdown is going to change
when features of the service change, maybe quality is upped and costs rise or
a host of other things change. I think from a marketing perspective "this is
less than anyone else takes and it allows us to provide the service" is
enough.

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truckerbill
Maybe you think it's a bit too late to change it but: I'm not sure about the
name! Rats don't have a great connotation with most people. Even SoundMouse is
a bit friendlier.

~~~
deeblering4
Came here to say this as well. Have a look through the link below and see if
any definitions accurately describe your service:

[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rat](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rat)

------
rayuela
This is terrible branding. At first I thought it was called soundART, which
would be a million times better. Hell, I'm pretty sure you could get away with
switching those two letters and nobody would notice. Rebrand ASAP! How many
artist are really going to want their own personal brand to be associated with
the term rat?

~~~
deeblering4
Exactly, who trusts a rat?

~~~
jstummbillig
Certainly nobody whose life is a 90s mafia movie!

------
8bitsrule
Well done site, simple layout, stuff just works the way you want it to.

Except: I liked it enough to trying clicking on the icons 'For Fans' and 'For
Artists' to see the details: nothing. These days, I'd be very unlikely to
register _for anything_ without having seen them first.

~~~
dubme1
Hey you can browse the platform without registering. The "discover artist"
button takes you to
[https://soundrat.com/discover](https://soundrat.com/discover) where you can
listen to some of the highlighted artists. Or you can also click on any artist
profile on the landing page.

You can do and see most features without an account. Hope this helps

------
_bohm
How does this differ from SoundCloud's newly added feature to support artists
directly?

~~~
pierrec
This is actually the perfect time to launch a competitor, since SoundCloud
recently announced it is no longer free for artists. You now need to pay if
you want to publish more than 15 tracks. I would link to a public announcement
but I don't think they made any, they just emailed artists directly.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/e51gwn...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/e51gwn/soundcloud_implementing_15_track_upload_limit_for/)

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royosherove
How would you deal with bad actors? Someone who just uploads the latest Adele
album onto soundrat to enable it to be fully streamed for free?

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1337shadow
That reminds me of hearo.fm, except it features decentralized music streaming
micropayments between artists and fans

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mgkimsal
I would suggest losing the large picture and move up info 'for artists' to
above the fold.

~~~
Freak_NL
And make it _For Artists_ instead of _For Artist_. (And have people proofread
your texts.)

~~~
dubme1
Can't believe I didn't notice this before. Thanks I fixed it :)

------
bsenftner
How does this compare to Bandcamp.com? Bandcamp is fan-fucking-tastic.

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mcrwfrd
> Listen to your favorite music for free on any device.

Do you plan on adding a paywall when a listener has heard a song a certain
amount? I’m a huge fan of Bandcamp, and I love that I hit a paywall when I’ve
heard an album a certain number of times. Reminds me that there’s an artist
behind the music and that I obviously like the album enough to buy it. Often
I’ll buy the album on Bandcamp but then find it on my streaming service and
listen to it there (easier for adding to playlists, etc).

~~~
dubme1
One of my core points is that listeners can enjoy the music for free and
without requiring to sign up for something. I do not see myself enforcing a
paywall after a certain number of plays on a song or album.

However, I could see adding a notification or achievement after listening to
an artists music a lot. This way we could remind the user to support the
artists work.

~~~
mcrwfrd
A notification seems like it would be a great idea. Users could ignore it and
carry on with with the free listening premise. But the very existence of the
platform seems to be based on the fact that listeners will choose to support
artists, so a notification to support will probably appreciated and heeded by
listeners.

------
sixdimensional
Ah, memories of the old mp3.com days.

