Music soothes the soul, inspires greatness, broadens your mind but it also is a way for the musicians to express themselves and make a living from it. But as with any other profession, finding an audience to showcase your work is an uphill task. Thakfully, the widespread integration of internet technologies in people’s lives means that the reach of your musical creation can be amplified tremendously.
Loopcast.fm is a music streaming service that seeks to democratize DJing so that musicians world over can broadcast their creation in real-time, gain audience and recognition without having to pander to the whims of popular clubs.
Tryst with the Turntable
Necessity is the mother of invention and it was necessity doused with frustration that drove Thomas Amundsen to create Loopcast. While DJing in London, he faced difficulties in streaming his music live to connect with audience larger than what a club could provide. Having studied Music Technology and Music Industry Management in London, Tom was keen to fuse the science with the art and his own experience as a DJ provided the impetus to create a technology infused tool for musicians. The market was ripe for a live music streaming service that would greatly benefit budding and established DJs alike but building it meant investing in a considerable developer muscle, which Mr. Amundsen says was their biggest challenge, “We have long been looking for ideal candidates who have extensive experience in web application development, knowledge of audio programming as well as a decent understanding of DJ culture and the electronic music scene”. Consequently, making the service beta-ready took a long time but Tom is confident that they are finally on the fast track with the addition of a veteran audio programmer who has also taken the role of co-founder.
Loopcast.fm is created and maintained by an international team, currently based in London’s technology hub in Old Street. The team consists of a talented bunch of music students, designers, consulting artists and seasoned developers.
Taking SoundCloud Head-On
SoundCloud is a popular music service which Mr. Amundsen acknowledges as the biggest competitor to Loopcast.fm but while SoundCloud focusses mostly on being an online music repository, Loopcast is geared towards providing live music streaming for DJs but there are also recording and networking features making the service more comprehensive. There are two pricing tiers for the service, with the Pro Plan offering unlimited storage space for just £10 ($15) a month. There is also the Premium Plan for £5/month which gets you 14 hours of storage for recorded sessions and a higher audio quality for live streams.
Glimpse of the Future
Loopcast hopes to appeal to big record labels and artists to set up their own brand page (or virtual room as Tom puts it) on the website and engage in a symbiotic relationship where the ultimate winner will be us music lovers.
Readers of StartupDope can sign-up for an early beta access on:
http://www.loopcast.fm