Just as the headline says, music discovery is about to welcome one of the newest mode changes it has seen in quite some time. Soundwave, which SoundCtrl reported on and reviewed back in April during its beta, has finally arrived in full, official force. Much like actual surfing, waiting for the right wave can be really taxing because time and patience are key. This wait felt especially trying, as Soundwave’s mold-breaking method of drawing on a map for song discovery really incites curiosity. After all, who wouldn’t want to be able to peruse the world’s trending songs right from their living room or local coffee shop?
For those that are just getting wind of Soundwave now and are wondering if a passport is needed somewhere in the equation, here’s a brief summation of the Dublin-based company’s concept –one so innovative that it is even praised by Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, as being a “…a music product that fits [his] life so perfectly!”
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Potential for global discovery: From entire continents to individual buildings. Anything visible by the common Google Maps is fair game. Draw a circle over any place on the globe and get pinpoint results of what songs are playing there right now.
Instantaneous feedback: See what is playing and just played, with a timing margin as short as mere seconds after it occurs and even see music as it is running in the moment, if you should be lucky enough to find a song mid-play.
Hands-off but habit-forming: No one likes the stress of having to learn the mechanics of a new social platform or the work of having to create an active identity and presence within it. Soundwave is all over these two dilemmas. Letting others know what you have playing so they can admire your musical tastes requires no work past initially signing up and logging in. Play music on any native Android or iPhone music app, as well as Spotify or Rdio and Soundwave automatically catalogs the tracks, placing them in a “newsfeed” type collection for you and displaying them to every other Soundwave user around the world. Using this approach, opening and navigating the app can be just for you to enjoy and browse songs outside of your own!
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Since the beta launch of Soundwave, the platform has undergone a few changes in lexicon and in appearance but the core capabilities remain. The original four categories of “Plays,” “Ratings” (think ‘Like / Dislike’) “Humdingers” (Think, ‘My super favorite song of the moment’) and “Bucket” (Think, musical message board) have retained their role as filters for your activity feed –cutting back on the overstimulation that crowded social feeds can sometimes inflict. “Bucket” is the only label that has changed, now simply referred to as “Shares.” This is a name less quirky but far more practical and self-explanatory without full context of the app. Tracks you want to point out to specific other people or that they have pointed out to you go in this feed.
The navigational menus and location thereof are the same, except for the addition of a notification section, similar to that of Facebook / Twitter. Users are straightforwardly alerted to new followers, ratings of songs they like, shares, etc. Individual users’ profiles are where much of the aesthetic polish has been applied, as the layout of profile information is cleaner, clearer and much more to the point –visually speaking that is. The data on a user’s plays, followers and following lists, as well as their current Humdinger are the first pieces of information someone will encounter; no extra taps necessary.
Push notifications and Facebook profile integration solidify the ease of beginner usage for Soundwave as well, so no one has to come up with yet another password, email or login. However, if a user wants to keep the two platforms separate, that has stayed as an available option too.
Personally speaking, one of the main points I had stressed as a tester of Soundwave’s beta, was the lack of an ability to obtain some privacy or control over the dissemination of information on every song that might come to play through my device. While the innate idea of sharing your music with the world stands against the very nature of privacy, knowing that less than popular or somewhat embarrassing favorite songs will be forever recorded in one’s feed was unsettling.
The developers at Soundwave listened and their solution comes in the form of a “Guilty Pleasures” option that hides all songs played through a user’s device for up to 60 minutes. Given that the idea of Soundwave is to let everyone see what you play in real time, full privacy options would seem counter-intuitive. This temporary filter is a great compromise and shows that Soundwave took its beta development stage very seriously and far beyond small bug tweaks –truly taking open ended feedback into consideration.
Up to this point, Soundwave has steadily worked to gain momentum before launching and they definitely dug their heels into the matter. Recent appearances at gatherings like London’s Music Tech Fest and the EBN Congress saw the team highlighting the uncommon potential of Soundwave’s music tracking method. One such highlight illuminates how global location and event function can intertwine to record and display a micro-demographic: the popular musical tastes of people brought together for any given, specific purpose, which can easily include industry conferences.
All of this work, from the publicity side to the technical side, shows that Soundwave is well prepared to appeal to anyone connected to music. Factor in the ever-increasing pressures of the technology sector and Soundwave’s high-functioning, real-time and virtually limitless search / share system is apt to set a precedent and a very high standard for unique music discovery going forward.
You can download Soundwave for FREE, from the Google Play Store and the iTunes App store now.
Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1
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