Send Music is WeTransfer for musicians, it's really as simple as that. And it's 100% free to use. You can upload any kind of audio file. Select whether the recipient can download and stream the file or just stream it. A player much like Soundcloud is visible in the link that can be used to skip through the audio. Download speed is quick and files are sent and received almost instantly. If you have not checked out this amazing new service, I strongly recommend you do.
I was contacted back in September 2018 by a guy called Kemal who is the co founder of Send Music. He pitched to me the idea of Send Music and what he was trying to achieve and it actually got me thinking. Is there a service like WeTransfer that is specifically for musicians? I came to the conclusion that there really isn't and there is a gap in the market for this. There are of course services such as WeTransfer, Dropbox and Hightail etc but these are not specifically for musicians and are not designed for the sharing of music oriented files alone.
"I've worked at BBC Radio 1 for over ten years and have always struggled with the amount of music I get sent. These always come in a million different ways (box/dropbox/wetransfer etc) that take the fun out of just clicking on listen and seeing if the music is any good.
So I decided to build SendMusic to help people share music in a quicker and easier way. Think of it as 'wetransfer for music' at this stage - I've tried to keep it as simple as possible and am looking for people to try it out - would you be up for giving it a go?"
I explained to Kemal I am currently using Hightail for all my file transfer needs, for clients to send to me. Simply because I can embed an iframe into my website which allows instant delivery of files direct from my websites upload page. To send my clients files I use a secure server of my own which is essential for me as it ensures the security of my clients work. Even though this was the case for me personally this is the perfect file sharing platform for anyone who is a musician, composer, producer or Dj.
Current Features
- You can send music (or any file type) for up to 7 days with no login or registration straight from the site.
- Signing up for a free account expands that expiry for up to 30 days (twice as long as wetransfer!)
- A free account lets you have a dashboard you can log into to see what’s been sent and received (you’ll see that it comes with each transfer as a clickable link - we’re going to change this so that the audio player shows up and you can quickly go through the tracks like you currently do on your soundcloud feed)
- You can also have a public profile with your own personalised link which you can add a profile image, a bio and also some other links (Instagram / Spotify etc etc)
Future Features In Process / Coming Soon
- A personal plan (likely to be $5 a month but not confirmed yet) - based around customising the background image and your profile in general
- A secure plan (likely to be $10 a month but again not confirmed) - which will include all the features of the personal plan plus focusing on security... we’re looking at things like watermarking, restricting the number of plays / downloads... that type of stuff
- The personal plan will launch before Summer, the secure plan before the end of the year fingers crossed!
Next I am going to review the step by step process of creating an account all the way through to receiving and sending a file. I have used the industries standard WeTransfer for many many years and will compare the entire process to this throughout.
Step 1 - Creating An Account
Although this is not required and just like WeTransfer you can upload and send files as a guest user, I would recommend creating an account for a number of reasons I will go through once I have created an account. It only takes 30 seconds to do and doesn't ask you for any information that you wouldn't want to supply.
Step 2 - Update Your Profile (optional)
Of course this is an optional step but it's well worth taking a minute to fill out. If you are planning to use Send Music regularly I would recommend taking the time to fill out the bio and add a picture of yourself. It gives the receiver / sender a nice bit of info about you that they will most probably read whilst initiating the upload.
Step 3 - Add Links To Your Profile (optional)
Another optional step but one that is well worth noting. If you direct yourself to your profile you have just created you can add links to your social media accounts. This is a nice option and clients or friends may not be linked in with your social media accounts and can easily access all the links you supply.
Step 4 - Send A File
Now with my profile complete I can start sending files. The great thing about this service once you have created your profile is that you can give your Send Music link to anyone and they can go to your profile and easily drag and drop or click to upload files directly to your account. Lets test this by sending myself a file from my desktop. I am going to drag a cymbal hit from one of my sample packs to upload to myself via Send Music. Once you have dragged your file in to upload the screen pictured below appears. Now this is where Send Music becomes a music specific service. Like WeTransfer you can add a message but unlike WeTransfer you can select to stream and download or stream only. Additionally you can select the expiry date from 1 day, 1 week or 1 month. These two features are great and below I will explain why.
Being a file sharing platform specifically designed for musicians having the option to stream or to stream and download is great. This allows the user to share their work but not allow the recipient to download and keep the file. Or you may not want to download the file, you may just want the recipient to stream the file and give feedback privately. I really like this feature this will come in handy especially for my free mix evaluation service I provide.
Being able to choose the date that the file expires is a really cool feature too. 1 day is ideal if I just want to send a file to someone who is ready to download straight away. 1 week is ideal as a standard measure of time that if the person wants to download it they will surely do it within a week. And lastly a month is a long enough amount of time that it'll be accessible all month and allow the user to return to download if need be. If I was sending files I would go with the standard 1 week time frame. If I was to improve this feature a little I would like to set the date I want the file to expire. This is not essential but could be a nice feature to have.
Step 4 - Send A File (as guest user)
I wanted to test this service as a guess or someone who doesn't want to sign up for an account. It works in exactly the same way as the above step. Very much like how most of us use WeTransfer. Only difference here is that you can not select the 1 month expiry date. You can only select the 1 day or 1 week option. This is fair enough though. If you aren't planning on signing up, why should your files be held on a server for what is considered a premium amount of time. Another good reason to sign up.
Step 5 - File Delivered
As soon as you hit send the recipient is sent an email almost instantly. I was surprised how quick I received the email. We're talking 5 to 10 seconds from clicking send I received the files. A lot of these files transfer services online can take a number of minutes. Not this one it's pretty much instant. So once you have clicked send an email is sent to yourself and the recipient. The recipient will also receive the file in their Send Music account. As a sender you can also see what you have sent and how long ago it was received.
The link that is sent to both the sender and receiver is a simple short link that you can share with anyone to give them access to download the file if need be or keep it private between sender and receiver. On this page you can now play / stream the file you have sent, or download the file by clicking the download button. If multiple files have been sent you can click download all files and download everything that has been sent to you.
Conclusion
It's simple, effective and does exactly what you want. The whole process is easy and quite honestly a joy to review. There are no improvements I'd say are essential. I'd love to be able to embed this into my website and have a paid monthly subscription set up that is exactly what I have set up with Hightail. Me being probably 0.001% requesting that feature I'm not sure it'll be happening any time soon. It was put to me as the WeTransfer for musicians. Is it that? Yes it is 100%. If you are a musician and you send files to and from clients or friends, check it out. I love to support good projects and this is up there with the best and most useful projects I've seen this year.
If you enjoyed reading this review and want your product reviewed by the Audio Animals team please contact us via the contact page here. We are open to reviewing anything music related and will of course be honest. We will find the positive and hopefully won't find the negatives. But if we do we will highlight these in a positive way.
