Why I left SoundCloud

September 4, 2026

and what it might mean for you too

I used to really love SoundCloud but in truth i was using it as a dump for all my audio. Recently as in about year ago SoundCloud decided that they would force users to login to simply listen to tracks. This doesn't work for me as the music for Fluxture is actually available for listening free of charge.

The other weird thing that kept happening was I was getting e-mails from SoundCloud when uploading new tracks about Copyright. Now some of this might have been due to enabling Pro Features i'm uncertain. However then i started getting e-mails randomly about things that were already there. It turns out this was due to AI.

The problem is. Early on yes i did do quite a bit of sampling but all the samples were from sample banks that either came with software or were purchased as sets at some point. This was a LONG time ago and it was mostly because real-time synthesis meant having really beefy systems and lots of fan noise. It's not like today you fire up Ardour and load up your favorite VSTi or LV2 and it “just works” no fan noise hardly touchs the CPU. This was not the case back then although when i started I was using csound for awhile which if you've ever used csound you understand it's real-time features only came about very recently history wise. It's an audio compiler which means you have to wait until compilation finishes to preview your WAV file.

Today i just use synthesis for everything and I've sort of settled now on using Ardour as my DAW but also strudel.cc (which is an amazing language) to produce all the electronic portions of my electronica tracks. So what this means is these claims are unfounded. But it also means something else.

Your music is being used probably without your consent to trains models you are not even aware exist. Then music is being produced using those models. The other problem is that other AI are being trained to detect people who break the covenant of Content ID. This is hands down the worst AI dystopia I can imagine just on the grounds that it's just so lame and stupid.

I guess the good news is any time this has happened SoundCloud has reacted in a way that was favorable but it doesn't make me want to stick with a service that does little to nothing for me. Now that my already small audience is dead there and people are actively training AI off it. I'm good.

Anyway this is why I'm now self-hosting Fluxture. I don't care i want to spend money on hosting in a way that isn't offensive to me or my wallet. Which brings me to one last thing I really enjoy Faircamp. It's a static site generator and it's what i'm currently using to get that “band-camp alike” feeling out of the Fluxture website.

Anyway y'all have a nice day :D