Products Used
Timecodes and Cue Points API
The Challenge: Overcoming Music Discovery Fatigue
Whether you’re a casual listener, A&R, or DJ, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when searching for new music. With so much content, you can find yourself struggling to find tracks you like, let alone those stand-out musical moments that make an emotional impact.
For artists, the huge volume of music uploaded each day presents a different problem: how do you get heard through the noise? To grab a listener’s attention, artists need to immediately showcase their music’s best hooks. But it’s a challenge to balance the audience’s instant gratification with the integrity of a complete work.
These growing challenges facing listeners and artists alike call for a music discovery revolution.
The Solution: SoundCloud’s Innovative AI-curated Feed
Enter SoundCloud’s new Feed, which is designed to reinvigorate and simplify the music discovery process.
The Feed uses listening history to curate a selection of tracks that a user can swipe through, much like a social media story. Each swipe reveals a new track, but these don’t just start from the start. Instead, Musiio’s Timecodes & Cue Points technology determines which 20-second segment listeners are most likely to enjoy, and plays that.
This not only ensures the best first impression but also enhances the likelihood of a listener engaging with the full song.
Users can then tap on the play button while listening to the preview to hear the full version. There are also shortcuts to like the track or add it to a playlist.
The result is a personalised and seamless experience, turning what was once a multi-click process into a single, fluid interaction. This encourages listeners to embrace a more active method of music discovery.
The Benefits of User Experience
Artists can take advantage of this technology very simply. When uploading a new track, there’s a new ‘Advanced’ tab, where artists can see the track segment that will be displayed to users on the SoundCloud Feed.
This clip is chosen automatically by Musiio’s AI, but an artist can also customise the selection if they have a different segment preference.
Harry Manion, Product Manager at SoundCloud says:
"We know there is so much amazing, undiscovered music on the platform. This new Feed is a major step forward for our adventurous listeners looking for something new, as well as emerging artists looking to be heard and find their fan base. The Segment Selection makes it easy to pick the most attention-grabbing clip from the track they’ve worked so hard to create, increasing the likelihood they’ll catch the ear of a potential fan.”
The Feed benefits users across the board:
- For artists looking to stand out from the crowd and capture attention, the Feed helps them hook in new listeners. Segment selection allows them to serve the best parts of their music to the listeners who are most likely to enjoy it.
- For curators and A&Rs regularly listening through music, the Feed makes this process more efficient. They can listen to more tracks and get to the hooks quicker. The more tracks they can listen through, the more chance they have of striking gold.
- For listeners unsure how to describe their own musical taste, the AI will help by providing suggestions based on music they have interacted with. They can enjoy a tailored, DJ-like discovery process, finding their new favourite track or artist with a simple swipe.
By streamlining the listening process with AI for Good, SoundCloud has created a more active music discovery experience for its users.
To learn how the Timecodes & Cue Points API can revolutionise your music business, schedule a demo with the Musiio by SoundCloud sales team by emailing sales@musiio.com.
