Soundcloud has teamed up with LANDR, a cloud-based service designed to automate track mastering, and Stagelight, a music creation suite designed to help people who don’t know the ins and outs of making tracks, in hopes of seemingly democratizing music production skills.
As previously reported, LANDR uses algorithms to master tracks — the final stage after a track has been finished, where sound volumes are adjusted — optimally, tweaking each song in the way that benefits it the most. Considering that hiring a professional audio engineer to do this for you could run costs up into the hundreds of thousands, LANDR provides a solid deal.
“Creators are at the forefront of everything we do at SoundCloud,” Soundcloud Creators Product & Content Operations Vice President Matt Fenby Taylor said. “LANDR has created a great tool, which allows anyone to achieve professional quality sound. We’re excited to partner with them to bring this easy-to-use, cost-free solution to our community of creators, enabling them to enhance the music they upload to SoundCloud.”
Stageligh , on the other hand, is an app-based music production software that allows someone with no prior knowledge about mixing, sampling and splicing tracks together the ability to create music easily. The app supports itself with in-app purchases featuring sounds, loops packages and also comes pre-loaded with song templates and tutorials. Any tracks created with Stagelight, which is available for either Windows or Android, can be upload to Soundcloud directly from the app.
While professional use of Stagelight and LANDR will cost a penny or more, depending on what the users decides to buy à la carte, both services offer free tiers. LANDR is offering all Soundcloud users the ability to master tracks in “a new format specifically optimized for SoundCloud streaming,” while those on a free plan can download one mastered track in a high-quality WAV format.
