Recording Song Samples

Input and output are integral to the services I want to deliver with this project. One of the key features I want to offer is the ability for musicians to upload music samples displaying their work. An integrated music player would be placed on profiles, and searchers could hear work done by individuals before even contacting them.

Uploading music samples should always be fast and easy, with the music player optimized to load and play quickly. For that reason, users would probably be limited to uploading only mp3s, as they are much smaller than lossless formats like wav files. The loss in quality in an mp3 should be acceptable, especially since in this case, one is listening to the quality of the musician, rather than the audio.

An interesting feature would be to allow musicians the ability to record right onto their profile. Because this service is meant to be used by both amateur and professional musicians, there should be no reason that a user is limited to purchasing or downloading a Digital Audio Workstation or other recording software to be able to use one of the main features of the service. Again, to optimize for fast load times, a recorder would not be integrated into the profile itself, but would be featured as a separate in-browser application available through the website. A full-featured DAW would take too many resources. Instead, a simple recording interface would be set up, allowing one track to be recorded at a time, and featuring a built-in metronome and pre-click. The user would have to set up their input device, be it a built-in computer microphone, or an external one plugged into the line-in jack. Afterwards, they could choose to monitor the input in real-time while recording, requiring them to utilize earphones or speakers. The last step would be to turn on the metronome if the user desired it, and press record. The recordings would automatically export as mp3s, and the interface would give the user the option of downloading the recording and saving it to their local hard drive.

With a feature like this in place, more users would be able to make full use of the service, without being forced to invest time or money into acquiring a potentially difficult-to-learn DAW. At the same time, those who have these resources would be able to use them without resorting to the simplistic in-browser recorder.