Last month, Mixlr launched our beta service making streaming high-quality live audio easy for musicians and DJs.
Since then, we’ve been knocked over by the amount of feedback and support we’ve received, and because of this we’re offering all of our users (old and new) a special summery gift by way of thanks.
More details below, but first of all: let’s quickly recap Mixlr’s philosophy. Mixlr is a web-application which aims to simplify sharing live music. If you are a DJ or part of a live act, you may have already found that it can be surprisingly difficult to broadcast yourself live on the web. Essentially, there are two options. Firstly, set up your own streaming server and share the streaming URL with your listeners. This route will give you total control over what is streamed, but is technically difficult to do. Sharing a link for iTunes or VLC isn’t ideal either (most users will find it easier to visit a web page). And let’s be honest: most DJs and musicians are far too busy practising, performing and shmoozing to be a Unix sysadmin wizard on the side.
Secondly, you could attempt to use one of the existing services which have attempted to commoditise the process of internet broadcasting. Too many of these services, however, apply the advertising model heavily to their business, meaning that the user has their listening experience compromised by audio adverts, popups or irritating Flash ads. This is simply not acceptable for many performers, or listeners — especially now that we have moved from the MySpace era where such behaviour was de rigueur, into the conspicuously ad-free epoch of SoundCloud.
Mixlr wants to solve this problem for musicians and DJs. We offer:
- A simple way for musicians to share live performances on the web. Simple means that a musician with the humblest amount of computer proficiency should be able to use it with ease.
- A business model focussed on modestly charging the content creator for distribution, and not the consumer for listening to the content.
- An interface which does not distract the user, or devalue content, with advertising.
So.. what does it let me do?
- Broadcast live audio. Download our simple Mac OSX application. Select an audio input and hit “Share”. You’ll be streaming high-quality live audio on the internet instantly — with no adverts, interruptions or messy configuration to have to battle with. (Sorry, Windows and Linux users: we definitely have you in mind, but we want to get our Mac application perfect before we release for other platforms. Follow us on Twitter for updates).
- Publish live sets to the web. When you’ve finished playing live, it’s just one click to save the recording of your performance on the web — no extra uploading required. Anybody can listen back to it immediately. Use SoundCloud? No problem: it’s just takes a click to export your recording there too.
- Even if you’re not running OSX, you can still upload your pre-recorded sets easily, and host them on Mixlr.
- Get feedback from your listeners. Mixlr’s experimental real-time comments (kind of like Campfire: instant messages which are saved forever and timed against a broadcast) help to recreate the natural feedback cycle between audience and performer which occurs during a live gig.
Mixlr also integrates tightly with Twitter and Facebook, to help make it even easier to share live performances with your friends and followers.
Mixlr’s Summer of Streaming starts now.
By way of thanks for all of the feedback and support we’ve received over the last few weeks, Mixlr would like to offer a summer’s gift to all of our users, old and new. We’re throwing open the doors and offering free high-quality audio streaming all the way through July.
This offer is for users old and new. All we ask is that you tell your Twitter followers or Facebook friends about our Summer of Streaming celebration, and you’ll be broadcasting live for free this summer. You can sign up here.
(Mixlr’s live broadcaster application is only for Mac OSX at the moment, but whatever platform you’re running we’ve still got a gift for you: we’re also offering 10 hours of MP3 upload space for everybody who signs up for the Summer of Streaming.)
There’s more information about the promotion, and some basic terms and conditions, here.
Once again, thanks to everybody for your feedback so far, and we’re looking forward to getting even more. And we hope you enjoy your Summer of Streaming.
The Mixlr team