Equestrian Beats

[Freewave]

Soundcloud has gotten more clunky since they rolled out that new site design. Its only working fully on the top 3 browsers and even then, there may be one or two features that forces a switchover from one to the other.

I want a lightweight sharing service that is happy with FLACs and so forth but isn't limited to pony music (most of us do more than that, right?).

Well pony.fm will do flac but again its intended for pony music. Not sure they'd truly delete any non-pony but ya never know. It's still free and a good interface and on the verge of going live and also allow album groups. Plus their forum kicks ass (spending mroe time there then mlr tbh)
https://pony.fm/freewave

[JSynth]

lol. awesome.
It kinda ticks me off that EQbeats doesn't accept WAV

Seriously?

[Nine Volt]

lol. awesome.
It kinda ticks me off that EQbeats doesn't accept WAV

Seriously?

What's wrong with wanting lossless formats?

[Watashig]

Another interpretation of what JSynth is saying is "Seriously? [It doesn't accept WAV?]" as opposed to "Seriously? You're ticked off by that?"

Of course, there's no need to be too hostile to each other, so I advise that you don't let yourself get too caught up.

I'm rather surprised by that too...

[codl]

Hi everyone, thanks for the kind words, thanks for the unkind words as well, have a shotgun answer post. We don't check this thread often (neither of us is good with forums) so let me remind you guys that we have an email address to which we usually answer within a day, and an IRC channel on which we are most of the time.

stats

Yes, done, about two months ago.

/\ This, plus a feature were you can see how many people are following you.

Done, a week or so ago.

My tracks don't play on CR

They are properly being added to the directory that CR fetches, from there on it's out of our hands, sorry. Check with PHPony.

My tracks have holes in them

Very sorry, that's a known issue, please email us with details about your browser/internet connection. It seems to happen on shaky connections only.
Note that your tracks are actually fine, it is only when streaming them from a bad internet connection that they get garbled.

I've given up on EQBeats, without stats and with all the flaws that they aren't addressing there's no point using it. It's the equivalent of keeping your cd's in a box and never playing them.

Well, I don't know what flaws you're talking about, and I'm not sure your metaphor fits, but I hope you'll reconsider.

It kinda ticks me off that EQbeats doesn't accept WAV

Seriously?

We didn't at first and I assume it was still the case when this post was first posted. We do now, and have supported it, along with any format and codec you can think of, for quite some time.

[Freewave]

I'm not trying to be over-critical I'm just seeing all kinds of opportunities that you have to make your site a better one as there's quite a few opportunities. I'm hoping you'll see where I'm coming from.....

** I see that there's track hits now, but no info on downloads that i see. This also isn't shown on the artists main profile page but only when you drill down into each song. Not a big deal when you have 5 songs but a bigger problem when you have a lot more. Can you display that information from the main page too?

** I am seeing recent followers (when you turned that on) but i have no way to see WHO are all of the 30 people who are doing so. Again I'm comparing fucntionality of soundcloud (which i think we agree got less userfriendly with their recent layout) vs what you offer. There's plenty of brony musicians on soundcloud to justify not needing to even duplicate upping tracks on EQBeats especially if there's less listeners and features as well.

** The layout is as plain as can be. Have you thought about making any steps to make it more visually appealing? It's functional but it will not appeal to people expecting what youtube, soundcloud, and eqd offer. Bright and colorful and with some personality. It's also not easy to maneuver around or find what's good out of the musicians arhcived there. It's not just about the artists wanting free hosting, it's about a pretty enough site that listeners will want to use it TOO.

**We are told our tracks are put on Celestia Radio. Is there anywhere to see how much play or if that's truly the case? That was one of the draws when joining the site and i just have no idea if there's actually a benefit or not because i can't find any link or stats for that.

** The youtube function IS great. I am glad that more formats are offered now. I'm glad that large track images are allowed, description info, and embeds work well. I certainly don't dislike the site but it hasn't developed over time to truly become a thriving site for brony music that was promised. I don't see a whole lot of results in using it and I'm not sure if that's any different for others.

[codl]

** I see that there's track hits now, but no info on downloads that i see.

If you click on "Detailed stats", you'll get a detailed view of views, listens and downloads.
I'll admit that there is no download total, only a representation of them over time, but I can look into adding that if you want.

This also isn't shown on the artists main profile page but only when you drill down into each song. Not a big deal when you have 5 songs but a bigger problem when you have a lot more. Can you display that information from the main page too?

Sure. I'll see what I can do.

** I am seeing recent followers (when you turned that on) but i have no way to see WHO are all of the 30 people who are doing so. Again I'm comparing fucntionality of soundcloud (which i think we agree got less userfriendly with their recent layout) vs what you offer.

I don't see the point of that. EqBeats, unlike SoundCloud, is not trying to be a social network.
It might come up as a side effect of something else I have planned, but don't count on it.

** The layout is as plain as can be. Have you thought about making any steps to make it more visually appealing?

Of course not. I hate nice-looking websites.

It's functional but it will not appeal to people expecting what youtube, soundcloud, and eqd offer. Bright and colorful and with some personality. It's also not easy to maneuver around or find what's good out of the musicians arhcived there. It's not just about the artists wanting free hosting, it's about a pretty enough site that listeners will want to use it TOO.

YouTube

Bright and colorful and with some personality

hahaha

Seriously though, having a clean, no-bullshit layout was a goal from the start, and I like to think we achieved that pretty well.
Now of course, we're coders, not web designers, and if someone with better ideas / a better grasp of UX would like to give it a try, make yourself at home.

**We are told our tracks are put on Celestia Radio. Is there anywhere to see how much play or if that's truly the case? That was one of the draws when joining the site and i just have no idea if there's actually a benefit or not because i can't find any link or stats for that.

We are currently talking with CR to see if they can provide an API for us to retrieve stats. Sadly, most of the process is entirely out of our reach.

** The youtube function IS great. I am glad that more formats are offered now. I'm glad that large track images are allowed, description info, and embeds work well. I certainly don't dislike the site but it hasn't developed over time to truly become a thriving site for brony music that was promised. I don't see a whole lot of results in using it and I'm not sure if that's any different for others.

Not sure how you expected it to develop exactly, but I'm sorry it doesn't meet your expectations.

Oh, since you keep comparing EqBeats to SoundCloud and YouTube, keep in mind that EqBeats is not trying to be either of those two websites. And that we are just two students with a bit of free time to spare, not a team of twenty developers with a hefty paycheck.

[JSynth]

Another interpretation of what JSynth is saying is "Seriously? [It doesn't accept WAV?]" as opposed to "Seriously? You're ticked off by that?"

Of course, there's no need to be too hostile to each other, so I advise that you don't let yourself get too caught up.

I'm rather surprised by that too...

Clarification: I referring to the [it dosen't accept WAV]

I found it odd that they didn't accept that kind of format.
But, It looks like that is fixed.

Also, I can't seem to find a "disable download" button.
Its not something that I am terribly worried about. But artists, who sell their music might.

[Freewave]

** I see that there's track hits now, but no info on downloads that i see.

If you click on "Detailed stats", you'll get a detailed view of views, listens and downloads.
I'll admit that there is no download total, only a representation of them over time, but I can look into adding that if you want.

This also isn't shown on the artists main profile page but only when you drill down into each song. Not a big deal when you have 5 songs but a bigger problem when you have a lot more. Can you display that information from the main page too?

Sure. I'll see what I can do.

** I am seeing recent followers (when you turned that on) but i have no way to see WHO are all of the 30 people who are doing so. Again I'm comparing fucntionality of soundcloud (which i think we agree got less userfriendly with their recent layout) vs what you offer.

I don't see the point of that. EqBeats, unlike SoundCloud, is not trying to be a social network.
It might come up as a side effect of something else I have planned, but don't count on it.

** The layout is as plain as can be. Have you thought about making any steps to make it more visually appealing?

Of course not. I hate nice-looking websites.

It's functional but it will not appeal to people expecting what youtube, soundcloud, and eqd offer. Bright and colorful and with some personality. It's also not easy to maneuver around or find what's good out of the musicians arhcived there. It's not just about the artists wanting free hosting, it's about a pretty enough site that listeners will want to use it TOO.

YouTube

Bright and colorful and with some personality

hahaha

Seriously though, having a clean, no-bullshit layout was a goal from the start, and I like to think we achieved that pretty well.
Now of course, we're coders, not web designers, and if someone with better ideas / a better grasp of UX would like to give it a try, make yourself at home.

**We are told our tracks are put on Celestia Radio. Is there anywhere to see how much play or if that's truly the case? That was one of the draws when joining the site and i just have no idea if there's actually a benefit or not because i can't find any link or stats for that.

We are currently talking with CR to see if they can provide an API for us to retrieve stats. Sadly, most of the process is entirely out of our reach.

** The youtube function IS great. I am glad that more formats are offered now. I'm glad that large track images are allowed, description info, and embeds work well. I certainly don't dislike the site but it hasn't developed over time to truly become a thriving site for brony music that was promised. I don't see a whole lot of results in using it and I'm not sure if that's any different for others.

Not sure how you expected it to develop exactly, but I'm sorry it doesn't meet your expectations.

Oh, since you keep comparing EqBeats to SoundCloud and YouTube, keep in mind that EqBeats is not trying to be either of those two websites. And that we are just two students with a bit of free time to spare, not a team of twenty developers with a hefty paycheck.

Thanks codl for replying back. Appreciate you'll look into a few alterations. Wish layout was one that you'd look into but i also understand that its intentional that way.

[codl]

Also, I can't seem to find a "disable download" button.
Its not something that I am terribly worried about. But artists, who sell their music might.

Hmm, we've had requests for such a feature early on, we added it, and one month later only one track out of a few hundreds had its download disabled. So we scrapped it.

[Flinckie]

I was checking out some stats from one of my tracks on EqBeats, and I found something really weird. The track had 17 unique downloads, and 100 total downloads. Was someone actually downloading it 83 times or are the stats wrong?

[Paianni]

delete

[Freewave]

This really isn't a thread designed to drop your eqbeats track at. Use the music subforum on mlr for that. This WAS a thread about that site and discussions about it.

[Ricky Denzel]

I really don't like the Upload To YouTube feature because it extends my videos

[Freewave]

does it? i wasnt under impression it did. what specifically does it do?

[Ricky Denzel]

It makes the song extend from 3 or 4 minutes to 11 minutes

[Freewave]

did this happene to you once or every time? sounds like a one time glitch.

just so you know the eqbeats team only answers questions in their irc chat, they don't visit this thread or mlr at all.

[Ricky Denzel]

It does it EVERY FUCKING TIME!!!

[Pulse Wave]

Just found out (yeah, slowpokey me) that EqBeats is looking for new maintainers because its creators lost interest in it. They don't shut it down, and they keep fixing bugs for now, but they won't give it any new features.

I really hope that it'll find new maintainers who keep its character as-is and who don't cut its killer features just to make it cooler or more lightweight or something.

Yeah, sure, there's also Pony.fm, but Pony.fm is lacking certain features EqBeats has. For example: You can give your songs whatever tags you please (ID3 tags, Vorbis comments...), and EqBeats doesn't change any of them upon upload except for artist and title. This also means that EqBeats supports each and every genre out there, even multiple genres per song. Pony.fm, on the other hoof, has a limited choice of genres hardcoded into its point-and-click surface, one of which (AFAIK) you always apply to your songs. I don't know what Pony.fm does with other tags like composer, lyricist, date, comment etc., but I have been told by EqBeats' maintainers that EqBeats doesn't alter any tags except artist and title.

[-dubstep—dweeb-]

I remember having the windows phone app as a elementary school kid. I miss it. The site is gone so I can’t see it anymore…

Edit: oops. Old thread