SoundCloud 101

Whether you’ve got samples to share or are looking for samples to use for your next project, SoundCloud’s the place to be. We’ve got all the right features to make it the best platform for what you need.

Before You Start

SoundCloud has full support for Creative Commons licenses, which are a great way to let people know how you want to share the samples you upload.

Licensing Options

If you want, you can use a permissive license like CC Attribution, to let the world use your samples in any way as long as they give you credit — or you can use a license with a Noncommercial clause and allow only non-commercial uses.

Haptic Audio, for example, is a professional group that releases free top-quality sample packs under a non-commercial license on SoundCloud. Check out what they've got, and if you like it, donate!

Share

When uploading samples, our "Sample" set and sound types make it easy for others to find and use them in their music and apps. And depending on what you want to allow others to do with your samples, you can make them downloadable, accessible to apps, or even just streamable.

Once your samples are uploaded, you can show them off in different groups on SoundCloud. You can try Sample Collections / Instruments / Loops, or hardware samplers, or find one that's even more appropriate for your samples.

Integrate with Apps

Throughout the whole process of uploading, downloading, and using samples, SoundCloud’s integration with different applications will make your life not just easier, but more fun. When you’re uploading, the desktop uploader Scup is so helpful, we’ve made a tutorial about it! If you’re looking for samples, managers like Sample Manager and Audio Finder are great tools to order, edit, and post new samples to SoundCloud. See Audio Finder working:

And of course, there are some fun apps too, like the visual sequencer Gliss, which can use samples from SoundCloud. Check out Gliss in action:

Another sample maker, Looploft, used our open source tool Social for Download to get followers and promote their samples even more.

If you've got an especially large sample library and want some help uploading, or if you've got other questions about samples on SoundCloud, contact us at samples@soundcloud.com.