SoundCloud Gets A Major Makeover, But Only Private Beta Users Can See It (For Now)

Most people probably don’t stick around social music service SoundCloud’s site to ogle its design, but apparently the team felt there was plenty of room for improvement.

To that end SoundCloud, who not long ago raised a $50 million funding round led by Kleiner Perkins, officially pulled back the curtains on their handsome new interface in San Francisco earlier today.

Here’s the thing though — chances are you can’t see it yet, as it’s only open to users in their private beta. So what will SoundCloud users have to look forward to when the new interface makes its official debut? A whole slew of new aesthetics tweaks, for one — the the waveform players that have long been a focal point of SoundCloud’s design have been revamped to be smaller and slightly less intrusive, but with more social controls at the ready. Situated right below the player, for instance, is a repost button that lets users quickly spread their favorite tunes around. Profiles have also been redesigned to be much cleaner than before, and put greater emphasis on your actions — what you’ve liked, and what tracks you’ve commented on.

Also new to the mix are real-time notifications — you’ll be notified whenever a user reposts or likes your content, while other users can keep tabs on your activity as well. Throw in support for continuous playing of tracks in your stream, enhanced search functionality, and the thoughtful addition of keyboard shortcuts, and you’ve got the next SoundCloud in a nutshell.

A more widespread release is expected to come in a few months once the kinks have been worked out, and if everything goes to plan we’ll see this redesign take center stage by the end of the year. According to GigaOm, SoundCloud hopes to get the updated interface in front of as many pairs of eyes as possible in the mean time — they’ll be bringing an additional 10,000 users into the beta this week, as well as everyone who takes part in their upcoming SoundCloud global meetup.