Announcements

Product Updates and Upcoming Releases

March 27, 2023

We’re always working to make Soundtrap better through our teacher-centered approach. Today, we’re happy to announce that Soundtrap’s up-and-coming feature releases provide more ways for you and your students to create, connect, and collaborate like never before! We’ll also go over our releases from previous years, so you can see firsthand how we’ve improved the Soundtrap Studio based on users’ needs and their feedback. 

Whether you’re a Soundtrap Storyteller or Music Maker, we’ve got you covered! Plus, if you think you’ve got the next big idea for Soundtrap feature, we want to hear from you. Let our support team know what you would like to see!

You asked, and we delivered these stellar new features. Now, let’s get started!

Why Do Your Students Need Soundtrap for Education?

There are plenty of DAWs available, but none of them are quite like Soundtrap. Soundtrap for Education is made especially for students and teachers to experiment with sound recording in new, exciting ways. 

Soundtrap empowers students and educators by allowing them to collaborate and connect from any wifi-connected device. For instance, students can begin working on their projects in the classroom and finish up in the comfort of their homes. 

But that’s not all Soundtrap has to offer! Soundtrap for Education has plenty of features for Music Makers and Storytellers to create incredible audio projects. With Soundtrap for Education, your students can experience the cognitive, emotional, and social benefits of self-expression through the power of sound.

Soundtrap is Bringing Even More Value to Your Classroom

In just a few short years, Soundtrap has released almost 20 new features that you can use to empower and educate your students in new, engaging ways. These new releases include tools like live collaboration, where students and teachers can work on projects together in real-time with auto-saving and commenting. We’ve also released cutting-edge AI-powered Beatmaker and interactive transcription for podcasting!

When it comes to product releases, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Our ultimate goal is to provide Soundtrap users with the best value platform that’s centered on their goals. As a result, the Soundtrap team has invested years to provide the ultimate online cross-platform studio intended to educate and excite its users with the highest functionality possible. Let us handle the heavy lifting, so you create, collaborate, and connect with Soundtrap! 

Soundtrap Product Releases

We launched Soundtrap for Education in 2015, and since then, we have been working to give you the best new features for the classroom ever since! We’re always listening to your feedback to provide Soundtrap users with the features you desire and deserve. Let’s dive in and go over our product releases from the past few years, along with a few that are on the way.

 

2023-2024 School Year

ClassLink Integration

Soundtrap and ClassLink have partnered to support schools in fostering student voice and creativity through audio creation. The ClassLink integration is Soundtrap’s most seamless, efficient rostering and account management solution yet! This partnership will support more than 18 million students by combining Soundtrap’s collaborative, web-based audio creation studio with ClassLink’s widely-adopted access, analytics and identity management platform. Speak with our sales team to determine if our new ClassLink integration is right for your district.

Vocal Cleanup

Student Voices are now easier to hear! With newly developed AI technology, Vocal Cleanup eliminates unwanted background noise like other classmates talking, computer sounds, and street traffic more accurately than ever before and without compromising the integrity of the original recording.

The Vocal Cleanup presents an intuitive interface allowing users to easily reduce disturbances with a single click of a button. It also comes with a real-time A/B testing feature, which enables a smooth comparison between the original and improved vocal signal.

Delete users

If you are the EDU account Owner and if your EDU account is set up without an LMS integration, you can delete unseated users yourself! We have received countless requests for the ability to delete students and it’s now possible. To learn more, please follow the steps in this support article to delete users from your EDU account.

New culturally responsive software instruments

Soundtrap is continuously evolving to meet the educational needs of a diverse, global student body. One of the most exciting developments is the introduction of Soundpacks and software instruments specifically designed to facilitate cultural exploration and discovery. We now offer instruments like the sitar, tabla, taiko, xalam, and timbales, as well as Soundpacks for students to explore a variety of musical cultures like: Senegal Sounds, Taal, Impact, and World Percussion. These resources are not merely a collection of sounds; they offer a comprehensive musical experience that provides a window into rich and vibrant cultures.

Smart Drummer

Smart Drummer is a time-saving and helpful complement to Soundtrap’s popular drum sequencer Patterns Beatmaker. The auto-generative Smart Drummer opens up a world of possibilities for both producers and songwriters, allowing them to effortlessly generate MIDI drum patterns and innovative grooves across a variety of genres. Smart Drummer lets you generate editable MIDI sequences with incredible ease from your favorite styles and genres, including Hip Hop, Reggaeton, Jersey Trap, and House.

Chords

As part of our continuous mission to simplify music creation for everyone, we’re thrilled to unveil a much requested feature: Chords. This offers a dynamic solution for students seeking to effortlessly generate professional-grade chord progressions. Chords in Soundtrap empowers students to construct captivating chords that sound great and with ease.

Restore deleted projects

As former educators, we know that mishaps often occur in the classroom. Sometimes students delete their project, or worse, their classmate’s project. With our new feature, users can restore their Soundtrap projects within 30 days. Learn more about this feature here.

Create with Tinashe

The first collaboration of its kind. Coachella performer Tinashe released an exclusive vocal pack in Soundtrap. The pack includes 25 royalty-free samples of Tinashe’s vocals. Your students can sit in the producer seat with Tinashe’s sound pack exclusively on Soundtrap! Check out our lesson plan that guides students through a study of musical genres for a unique song inspired by and including Tinashe.

 

2022-2023 School Year

Live Collaboration and Auto-Save

The Soundtrap Studio is all about collaborating with others to create something great! We took Soundtrap’s collaborative abilities to the next level with our Live Collaboration feature. 

Students and educators can use our Live Collaboration feature to work on projects together in real time. Whether your students are creating a song, podcast, or another type of audio project, they can collaborate without syncing.

But we didn’t stop there! The Live Collaboration feature works in unison with our Auto-Save feature, meaning that any changes collaborators make will automatically save, so you can stay connected throughout the creative process.

Sampler

We want to make sure that students have every tool at their disposal to create mind-bending audio projects. Our new Sampler feature allows music makers to upload and manipulate their unique sounds when creating songs. With this release, we are also offering 5,000+ pre-made one-shots for easy remixing.

Students will be able to dive even deeper into the music production process. Our cloud-based Sampler is based on industry standard samplers used by hip hop producers so students get hands-on experience with sampling as well as sound editing, looping, sequencing, and sound synthesis. 

Comments

At Soundtrap, we want to make sure that your students have all the tools that they need to create, collaborate, and connect, so it was only natural to release our Comments feature. Our Comments feature is the best way to communicate with collaborators about specific project parts in the Soundtrap Studio.

Our Comments feature enables users to comment in the following areas:

  • Timeline area. You can add a comment in the timeline area by clicking the comment symbol and adding your feedback. You can also drag the comment along the timeline to move it to your desired timestamp.
  • Region area. If you want to comment in a particular Region, simply right-click on the region and select “Add Comment.”

Your students can use this feature to get feedback in real time without disrupting their creative flow. It’s easy as ever to access our Comments Panel and see every comment on any project at any time! 

Sections

At Soundtrap, we know that preparation is the first step in the creation process. Music makers need to experiment with song structure and podcasters must identify which interviews work best and when they will be most impactful. 

Since this is an excellent way for students to prepare their own creative projects, we’re rolling out Sections, which allows students to add structural elements to their audio projects. 

We’re also working on teaching resources that offer students song and podcast structure templates to utilize predefined entry points for specific genres. This is a great way for students to learn more about structure and composition. Keep an eye out for those resources!

2021-2022 School Year

Dark Mode

You asked, and we delivered! We got tons of requests for a Dark Mode feature, and in February 2022, we made this feature available on our platform. With this awesome feature, your students can give their eyes a rest during long hours in the Soundtrap Studio. Dark mode lets your students experiment with sound in their way.  

Demo Projects

When your students need some help getting the hang of music-making, our Originals Demo Projects feature is here to save the day. This feature will help students deepen their knowledge of music creation by introducing them to a wide variety of genres and trending music styles. 

With this feature, your students will always have updated instrumentals, samples, and loops to let their creativity run wild! We have a plethora of sound packs for students to experiment with, including:

  • Hip Hop drum loops
  • UK Drill
  • Afrobeats
  • Vocal chops
  • 808 bass sounds

And that’s only a few sample packs students have to choose from. Our Soundtrap Originals are made with dedication and love to enhance student learning. Since every Soundtrap Original is made with instruments and loops from our Sound Packs, your students can easily get in the groove and create their own songs of the same genre! 

2020-2021 School Year

Region Time-Stretch

Music-making is an intuitive process, and the DAW that your students use should be easy-to-use so their creativity can flow easily. Our Region Time-Stretch feature is one of many ways that Soundtrap simplifies music learning and creation.

It’s important for your students to get the tempo just right when they’re creating a song. With the Region Time-Stretch feature, students can alter the tempo of individual parts of each song simply by dragging each region of the track forwards or backward.

Patterns Beatmaker

Every music-maker needs a DAW that makes beat-making as simple as possible, so we released Soundtrap’s Patterns Beatmaker in June 2020 to ease the process. Our dynamic online sequencer is powered by AI for students to start creating with more than 100 premade drum kits, percussion sounds, and drum loops.

Your students can jump in and create beats with the Patterns Beatmaker. To sweeten the deal, we made sure they could invite their peers to collaborate on group projects in real-time while they edit and mix beats with Soundtrap’s midi editor.

Soundtrap Originals

Learning to create music is easier than ever with Soundtrap Originals. We realized that audio loops and sample packs could take your students’ creative process to the next level! Since November 2019, Soundtrap has launched over 23,000 royalty-free loops, sound FX, instruments, and samples. And every year since, we’ve added even more sound packs for your students to create and collaborate in new, exciting ways.

Your students can use these audio loops and sample packs to add a new dimension to their songs. Sample packs are perfect for students that are just getting started on their music-making journey. They can use audio loops and sample packs as the foundation for a new song or an additional effect on a track they already made.

2019-2020 School Year

Unlimited Projects

Creativity is limitless, so your students should be able to create an unlimited number of projects! We made sure to include the following in our Unlimited Projects feature release:

  • The ability to create and save an unlimited number of projects
  • Access to over 950 instruments
  • Access to over 23,000+ loops
  • Audio & MIDI editing
  • Unlimited length of tracks

These brilliant features give students the tools they need to unleash their creativity and experiment with new, exciting ideas. 

Storyteller

Soundtrap for Storytellers is the ultimate tool for student podcasters and educators. In May 2019, we made this revolutionary feature available to Soundtrap Freemium and EDU users. These add-ons make our Storyteller feature great:

Complete with a handy Interactive Transcript feature, students can use the Storyteller feature to transcribe their voices, then edit their transcript to perfection! Our Interactive Transcript tool makes editing podcasts a breeze. It also tracks text when listening back to the audio- perfect for fluency and literacy learning!  Soundtrap for Storytellers opens up a new world of possibilities for educators of any subject and students of all skill levels.

Stay Up to Date with Soundtrap For Education

Soundtrap for Education is the ultimate audio production platform for students and teachers to create and edit audio recordings. Pupils and educators can easily tap into their artistic side with this intuitive audio platform that facilitates a creative learning environment for every subject, regardless of the student’s age or experience level.

With Soundtrap for Education, students and teachers can collaborate with advanced cloud technology at any time or place. In addition, the platform comes equipped with a robust resource portal, with tutorials, an external curriculum, and lesson plans to complete the educational experience. And to ensure privacy, teachers can ensure that student collaboration is safe and secure with invite-only groups in Soundtrap’s versatile digital environment. 

If you’re ready to enhance your educational experience with an intuitive cloud-based audio production platform, start with Soundtrap for Education! And be sure to share this article with other teachers in your network to help spread the joy of learning through sound