My Space is dead. And judging by it’s current front page I’m not surprised.
Why not rent your own space?
I use that now for web pages and you could whip up a music site with it in about 30 minutes. If you buy the jukebox component it will upload all of the music files automatically for you. All you need to do is have FTP access to your web space which I assume you do.
I meant dead as in umpopular. It’s had it’s heyday. What helped to kill myspace is the total HTML tweaking. Most people cannot program a website and most of the Myspace pages ended up looking like dog sick on a pavement(sidewalk). And unlike facebook there was a craze to get as many (non)-friends as possible. pretty fake really. I hope Murdoch lots millions!!
I can built something like that into your website. (It’s what I do.) 
But as it is my day job, I charge for it. (I have to. It’s the only way I make money).
If you can afford it, hire a pro like John. If not, just use consumer software. Below is a quick music page I threw together from scratch using VSD. The sample picture was low res so the edges are jagged but you get the idea. Put some text and links in those gray areas and you’re good to go.
http://www.dawsession.com/fogal
It’s pretty much like using a graphic application, creating shapes, drag them where you want them, import images, choose a music player, load the songs (which of course I didn’t do here but they’d upload automatically when you publish), and typing in your text. It took about 40 minutes and I made a /fogal directory on my server to host it.
I’ll keep this and use it for someone else.
No, you can use those for free. Some are suggesting that you can get your own webspace cheaply and then you have full control. That’s what I did. @ about 5$ a month.
That a looks pretty good for 40 minutes work. The guy with the shades and no hair looks like a DJ I know. 
Programming webpages can be fun once you get to grips with HTML, Javascript and PHP, etc, but it can take over from making music.
You should consider something like that Steve. Sets you apart from being lost in a crown on those big music hosting sites
And yup it’s easy to create your own domain … www.zapaxe.com or www.stevefogal.com, etc and rent some server space with a few Gigs of space for onyl a few shekels a month
I just Googled “guitar player” and grabbed the first reasonable image that came up.
Honestly, if all you want to do is post mp3’s for people to hear or download use DropBox… http://www.dropbox.com and you can share the link to your songs with anyone you want.
I think Bandcamp is pretty good. Its free, ad-free, with nice clean customizable interface, and they have facilities to handle the commercial side of things if you want to sell your stuff. I’m not one for reinventing the wheel. 
Check out the various Bandcamp pages I have in my sig for an idea of how it can look. 
Bandcamp has two GREAT features:
nice aesthetics
various file format download options, incl purchases
And one TERRIBLE feature:
streams at an abysmal 128kps
I wish they had a higher bit-rate capability at a nominal fee
That’d be pretty standard for most free services though wouldn’t it? Soundclick’s free accounts certainly are 128k MP3 only - and you don’t even have the option to upload/download at higher bitrates as with Bandcamp. Interestingly… I reckon Bandcamps 128k streams sound worse (most of the time) than the 128k MP3’s I usually hear.
Another popular OMD is Reverbnation - not sure what specs their streams are though… ?
No idea why they do that but Soundcloud does the same, only streams at 128k, the free part anyway. I don’t know if that changes when you upgrade to a paid account.
It doesn’t really make sense to me personally. A 6 minute jazz or new age song at 128 would probably be just as large (file size wise) as a 3 minute pop song at 256k or similar so I don’t get the reasoning behind it unless they’re also restricting the length per song.
It’s probably the best reason to pay $150 or so every two years and have your own server. You can do whatever you want. Nothing to do with the OP per se, but I really don’t get musicians that will literally spend many thousands of dollars on music gear and software and then not be able to afford a $5 a month website… about the cost (per month) of a pack of smokes and/or a couple of beers.
Makes no sense to me. I mean, you can still put songs on Bandcamp or whatever if you think people go there to search for new music but most artists have their own website.
He already does that. He just doesn’t know how to use it.
Different CODEC probably…
Just to add, dead or not, the quality of Myspace media player is very poor. Actually even distorting recordings as well as having to occasionally stop/pause mid flow to catch up with itself. As a place of demonstration for all your quality recordings, IMO, its at the bottom of a long list.
Steve,
If you want, I can emulate a private section of my site and send it to you. It has a script to upload files to your website, and add an entry in a player called the JW Player. Since I’ve already written this script, I would just have to modify it for your site. I’d do this without charge, but it would have to take a back seat to paying clients. So it may be weeks, even months before I have the time available to modify it.
Cheers!
So, sounds like a personal website is probably not for you, in the immediate term anyway…
Like many, eventually I may want to post it on more than one site …and someday have/use my existing site where maybe I could use the free one’s to then direct people to my own site.
…but might be something you would consider later?
I certainly am not crazy about the idea of having my music which is really sub-par to that of commercial released ‘pro music’ in many ways to begin with, sound and performance wise, to be listened to in a crappy > audio quality> . But beggars can’t be choosers.
Well, they’re not THAT bad. Still quite listenable for general listening, and certainly to the iPOD generation the quality is the probably norm for them.
A side question > - Is it recommended that I offer only as a stream? A stream AND a download? From what I’ve read comments on, it seems that these FREE sites offer stream at low quality, but also offer a download. Do you all offer only FREE mp3 or other streaming, but only offer a ‘pay-for’ download? I ask because, though I may be too old (50) at ever realistically becoming an ‘artist’ … I’m not going to completely rule out the possibility of ever selling any of my songs for a real artist to do…I say ‘real’ artist…otherwise there’s no point in bothering IMO. My point/thought is, in this case by offering only a streaming I would potentially be protecting myself…or is this not really a concern to worry about? I mean, NOT just because it’s a rare and unlikely event that I would actually sell my songs, but in the RARE event that it would happen…thoughts? >
>
It’s pretty much a personal choice whether you give your work away or not. Given music sales globally have plummeted to an all time low it almost seems somewhat futile these days to try sell your songs. It may well be that’s become a luxury now reserved for the rich and famous only, and even for them it seems that it’s under threat.
So… in my quest to find a place to put up this one song for now, which is at least ready to be listened to, and as I said it’s not entirely finished…with the above considerations, and no money to spare, to put up and share with others what I’ve done musically as well as getting feedback for various aspects, I’ll be looking at a FREE solution for now, but aesthetics is also a slight factor even now of course >
Back to my original recommendation then… Bandcamp.
Yeah, my mistake. I have a paid account at soundclick, which allows up to 320kps streams. I had actually forgotten I was paying for it!
Whether you consider yourself an “artist” or “hobbyist”, you’re STILL a MUSICIAN. And a good one at that. THAT appellation is much more important than anything else, IMO.