Skip to main content

Hands on: Latest SoundTracking update combines the joys of Instagram and instant music

soundtrackingOne of the most reliable and enjoyable ways for music discovery is to get input from your friends. Although we’ve covered a slew of apps that give you a sneak peak into your social circles’ music playlists and help you improve yours, we haven’t really tackled the app that basically allows you to create a “soundtrack to your life” in real-time and share it with your friends – basically, you can be the tastemaker in your group through SoundTracking.

SoundTracking has been around since 2011, but the music app recently got a pretty great upgrade. What used to be a simple curator of personal music taste now has a variety of visual elements that can enhance your overall aural experience. 

How it works (the basics)

SoundTracking Android (1)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Consider this a bit of a refresh on how SoundTracking works: Upon booting the app on your phone, you are asked to select a social media account to use for sign up. After choosing, like most phone apps, you are then required to authorize the connection and provide a username for the service.

SoundTracking Android (2)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Once you’re in, you are led to your Feed, which is initially populated by SoundTracking’s own posts (which is good – you don’t want to feel friendless and open an empty app stream).

SoundTracking Android (3)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

You can immediately explore other people’s music by checking out what’s trending worldwide and locally.

SoundTracking Android (4)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The SoundTracking profile page sort of looks like Facebook, but it also feels like Twitter at the same time – you can find out how many people you’re following, how many people are following you, and your popular and favorite posts. Mine currently says I have 0 soundtracks, so let’s go ahead and try adding a new one.

SoundTracking Android (5)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Clicking on the note icon will bring up three different options: You can either look for a track through Song Search, activate Music ID so the app can ‘listen’ to a song, or access a song currently playing on your phone or device through My Music.

SoundTracking Android (6)
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The option with the least amount of hassle is of course, Song Search. Upon typing a song title, the app generates a list of possible songs.

SoundTracking Android
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Once you select a song, the app prompts you to say something about it as well as append tags. Additionally, you can also tag your friends in the post (they’ll get a notification about it – perfect for song dedications!) and choose to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare. Every post includes your current location (which can be turned off in Settings) and an option to post a photo sourced from your device camera, your gallery, or an artist’s image.

The good

What’s great about this app is that it is fully integrated with other popular apps. You can watch a song’s Youtube music video without having to exit the SoundTracking app. You can play a song’s full track on your Spotify or Rdio apps. You can listen to music inside tweets. In addition, you can also browse your iTunes music library within the app, further increasing your music choices.

soundtracking-instagram
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Its most recent two-way integration is with photo-sharing app Instagram. Not only can you now select a photo from your Instagram feed to accompany your SoundTracking post, you can also share any SoundTracking post to Instagram accompanied by a postcard.

Also included in this recent update is a collection of better looking icons for every action possible on your account and bigger profile photos and thumbnail previews for better perusal.

The bad

For this hands on, I used Facebook to sign up. When I tried linking my Twitter account, the app told me that it is currently associated with another SoundTracking account; I totally forgot that I had already signed up for SoundTracking long ago! To remedy the situation, I re-logged into my Twitter-associated SoundTracking account so I could delete it and re-link my Twitter handle to my new account. That didn’t happen – there’s no obvious way to delete your SoundTracking account, which would suck for absent-minded people like me. Before signing up (again), make sure you haven’t already done so in the past – that will make cross-posting a lot easier (and in my case, possible).

Another unfortunate fact: Instagram integration doesn’t seem to be available for Android phone users. Hopefully Android Instagram users (of which there are many) will be invited to the photo-filtering, soundtracking party soon. 

Jam Kotenko
Former Digital Trends Contributor
When she's not busy watching movies and TV shows or traveling to new places, Jam is probably on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or…
X rival Threads could be about to get millions of more users
Instagram Threads app.

Threads -- Meta’s rival to X, formerly Twitter -- has just launched in the European Union (EU), a market with nearly half a billion people.

The app launched in the U.S. to much fanfare in July, with Meta hoping to attract X users disillusioned with the turbulence on the platform since Elon Musk acquired it for $44 billion 14 months ago.

Read more
X (formerly Twitter) returns after global outage
A white X on a black background, which could be Twitter's new logo.

X, formerly known as Twitter, went down for about 90 minutes for users worldwide early on Thursday ET.

Anyone opening the social media app across all platforms was met with a blank timeline. On desktop, users saw a message that simply read, "Welcome to X," while on mobile the app showed suggestions for accounts to follow.

Read more
How to create multiple profiles on a Facebook account
A series of social media app icons on a colorful smartphone screen.

Facebook (and, by extension, Meta) are particular in the way that they allow users to create accounts and interact with their platform. Being the opposite of the typical anonymous service, Facebook sticks to the rule of one account per one person. However, Facebook allows its users to create multiple profiles that are all linked to one main Facebook account.

In much the same way as Japanese philosophy tells us we have three faces — one to show the world, one to show family, and one to show no one but ourselves — these profiles allow us to put a different 'face' out to different aspects or hobbies. One profile can keep tabs on your friends, while another goes hardcore into networking and selling tech on Facebook Marketplace.

Read more