When I happened upon each of these three sites, those old feelings came back, although the compilation of the mixes do not take nearly as long this time around.

MixTurtle

Mix Turtle is among the first of these sites that I came across, and I feel that it’s still one of the better ones. Once you’ve signed up you can fill playlists with tracks found by Mix Turtle’s search engine, which appears to hook into YouTube and Google Video as well as index audio files from around the Web.

Results tend to contain duplicates, and some turn out to be broken links, but it’s quick and easy to find a good copy of a song.

Clicking the “live” light lists recently-played tunes which are one click away from your own playlists, which are in turn listed at your username.mixturtle.com page.

You may take a listen to my Mix Turtle playlist here.

8tracks

The makers of 8tracks seem to subscribe to the Apple school of Web design. The Flash-based interface is clear and simple. You’re just about guaranteed to find a good file for the song of your choice, but if not, 8tracks accepts uploads.

Playlists require a minimum of 8 tracks, or about a half-hour. It’s easy to browse and play other users’ mixes, and follow your favorite mixes and DJs.

Spin my 8tracks playlist here.

Maestro

I have been looking for a service like this for some time now. Some of the sites I’ve used have come close, but Maestro.fm surpasses them all.

First, a downloaded client uploads your iTunes library. As long as that client is running, you may access your library from any browser. In an effort to save bandwidth, your songs are NOT uploaded to Maestro’s server until the first time you play a song. Mac and Linux users, I’m afraid you’ll have to take the manual upload option for now. Playlist creation and library browsing with the highly-responsive interface is swift; you may add tracks individually, or save search results as a new playlist.

Finally, my extended “Ridiculous Beats” mix on Maestro, which has already been played by site users 75 times, is right here. You’ll end up either banging your head, bopping it, or scratching it.

How do you roll your playlists? Tell us what we’ve missed in the comments. Be honest, but gentile, and above all, enjoy the music!

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In fact, I would not describe actionext as a music discovery site. It’s different and maybe even better than that. I would say it’s a music lyrics search engine. You don’t have to listen to random tracks based on a pattern you seem to enjoy. Rather you can search for what you like yourself and create a custom music playlist. Additionally, actionext offers lyrics that anyone can edit in a wiki-like manner. Dive in to see more…

I know, there are other music search engines. However, this is the best I have seen in a long time!

Without signing up you can go ahead and search for artists or songs, browse lists of artists from 0-9 and A-Z, pick a featured album from the frontpage or browse the Top 100 list.

The best thing is that while you’re looking for music and adding tunes, the music player will stay with you and you can listen to what you have collected so far continuously, with only minor interruptions to to page loads.

A search will usually return a long list of results. The quality of songs greatly varies, the volume is not equalized, some songs are live recordings, others are album versions. You can’t necessarily tell the quality by the title the creator gave the song, so of course you can test play tunes before adding them to your playlist. Just click the play instead of the plus button.

Results always come back with two rows. On the left are the audio tunes and on the right you’ll see available lyrics. This is where the wiki-like system comes into play as you can edit the lyrics and submit your changes for review.

As you see you can download tracks and get them as ringtones. But don’t get too excited, both links will take you to services that will charge you for the favor.

To save and keep your playlist, you have to sign up. From there you can copy the code and share it through your website, blog or even myspace profile. That’s right, you can easily add actiontext music player with your playlist in it to your Myspace or other social networking profile. The code will be available when you save the playlist and at the bottom of the page when you’re playing it.

Interestingly, playlists can only be deleted when they’re open. You’ll see a “Delete this playlist” link in the top left above the player. A delete button next to each playlist in the “My Playlists” section would certainly be more comfortable. Also I’m not sure whether the amount of playlists you can create is limited. For this test I made 20. That’s plenty and the site probably allows a lot more.

Here for example is a playlist of artists I have seen live during the past two years. Not all of them, just the best of course.

What is your impression? Is it worthwhile? Are you gonna share some songs with us?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Soundflavor combines well known music discovery formats with a few more features to make it even more interesting. Basically it is Last.fm or Pandora spruced up with videos, advanced discovery options and easy social network integration. Does that sound good? Let’s dive in and see how it works.

The website is very clear cut and easy to use. On the start page you can enter an artist or song to find music the traditional way. Alternatively, you can browse music by genre, lyrics, decade or go through a list of songs that can be downloaded for free.

Let’s say we’re browsing music by lyrics, which seems like the most unique option. You can select music by lyrical subject or mood. Mellow sounds good. Once you made your selection hit Go.

In the next step Soundflavor will present a list of matching tunes and even more filter options. To fine-tune the results you can now really go into details and combine all sorts of specifications. I specified the genre, instrument and mood. Et voilà, the tool came up with one of my favorite songs from Coldplay as its number one suggestion.

Once happy with the result, click “Play This Page” and Soundflavor will launch its Video Jukebox (Flash required) in an extra window and begin playing the playlist you still see on the website.

The videos are streamed via YouTube. Hence they can be anything from homemade video clips, live recordings, to the actual, original artwork. Nevertheless, all videos appear to be of high quality and most are in fact original music videos or at least live recordings of the original artist.

Should you like a song, you can make a one-click playlist based on the sound of that song. Should you dislike a video, you can simply skip it. Thankfully there are no limitations as to how many times you can jump straight to the next song. Besides, you can play a song directly from the playlist on the website.

Should you decide to sign up with Soundflavor you can add songs you enjoy to your favorites or save playlists. Within your profile you can access this information and replay the songs or playlists later on. Additionally, you can upload your iTunes playlists and Soundflavor will convert it into video playlists.

You can connect with other users, browser their favorites and playlists, leave comments on their profiles and add them as friends. And you can “Grab Widget”, implement it on your homepage, blog or social network profile and share it with your existing friends.

Certainly established services like Last.fm and Pandora retain unique features and are not endangered. However, Soundflavor opens up a new niche and enhances music discovery by several more options and degrees of freedom. Definitely a great tool!

Try it and let us know what your impression is.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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