Soundcloud is an awesome service. They're from Berlin and their (co)founder Alex Ljung is a great guy. We've had some good times in Amsterdam last month.

We've stolen a lot of their UI tricks in our webapp. I love they way communicate with their users. Great inspiration for any startup that likes informal communication with their clients. One example is their beta release version they have ear the bottom of every page. Now on 'KATE' release...

They are one of the best examples of new UI I've seen in a while. They've clearly done a lot of work here — it looks nice and feels very responsive — especially in avoiding the pitfalls of unfamiliarity.

The interface looks pretty kickass. I figured their media player would be slow/jerky because they include a visual of the entire sound wave of the song but I was wrong. It was fast and effective, as it intuitively starts playing the next song in queue. Also really like that you can add notations at certain points of the song, very cool.

Wouldn't compare this to Dropbox exactly (a Dropbox for music would allow me to upload any song and play it back reliably from anywhere on my computer). This is more like a discovery engine for music. It's not meant to store or backup your music but for bands and musicians to share their music.

Does anyone happen to know of a service like you describe - Dropbox, but made to back up music, with playback/playlists in browser?

I like how they enable multiple ways to use the service... I know this has been said so much it is probably a dead horse by now, but there is a huge activation energy required to sign up. I would much rather try SoundCloud by sending a track to a friend or even myself then going through a signup form, no matter how short.

The tour is also very well done, and not slapped together at the last minute like some applications...

Berlin is a hotbed for music related startups. I know of at least another half-dozen here plus a handful of semi-established companies.

I can see this becoming a good place for professional bands to release music....the end of the RIAA, in the distant future.

Simple idea, I hoe it thrives. Could no dowwt build a strong communities of.musicians and hackerrs around this......

Great Idea, very well design site; but search needs more work. It’s too slow and inaccurate.

59 euro per month? are you kidding me?