| |
| |
|
Audio Streaming Information |
|
|
|
Adding Sound To Your Web Site - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Many webmasters like the idea of adding background music to their web sites but most shy away from doing it worrying about slow loading pages and large file sizes. There are many different ways to add background music to your site and some of them don't require large files to achieve professional results. Let's examine all the different ways to add background music to your site and rate them to find the best solution for you. 1) MIDI Files MIDI files are very small because they actually use your sound card's built-in instruments to create the sounds. The problem is that most sound cards don't have any decent sounds to start with, plus no two sound cards sound alike and therefore the results are very unpredictable. MIDI files usually sound like they're coming from one of those cheap Casio keyboards. Using MIDI for background music is very likely to make your site seem amateurish. Want to know how to do it anyway? Just add the line to your site. (Replace xyz with the name of the MIDI file you want to use!) The Autostart command will play the file automatically when the page is loaded. PROS; Very small file size, easy to implement CONS: Unpredictable results, amateurish sounds 2) WAV Files Using the WAV file format allows you to add professional sounding recordings to your site but the problem is that even if you use a low quality setting like 11k/8bit, the file sizes are still very large and it will take a long time for your music to load. And slow loading pages are the worst thing that can happen to a site. Implementing a WAV file on a web page is easy. Just add the line to your page's HTML code. There's an additional command to loop the WAV file but WAV files do not loop cleanly with the embed command. PROS: Many Quality Levels, Easy to implement CONS: Large File Sizes, WAV Files do not loop 3) MP3 Files MP3 files are highly compressed and don't take that long to load but the problem is that MP3s need to bring up an external player program and which in some cases takes your visitors away from your site altogether. Also, MP3 files don't loop cleanly. PROS: Smaller File Sizes, Good Quality Possible CONS: Needs external player software, not loopable 4) Flash If you own a program that can create Flash files, you will have lots of flexibility in adding sound to your site. Flash lets you import WAV as well as MP3 Files and then creates quite small files from these sounds that will load automatically on your site. You can set the quality level and therefore decide how large you want the Flash file to be. Flash also allows you to loop short pieces of sound to create 'continuous' background music files that can be quite small. But please note that only imported WAV files can be looped in Flash, MP3 files will not loop cleanly. PROS: Great Flexibility, Small File Sizes, expecially when looping sounds CONS: You need to buy expensive Flash software to create Flash Files 5) Pre-Made Flash Loops The newest thing on the market are pre-built Flash Music Loops. These files are professionally recorded, loop almost indefinitely and most of these Flash Music Loops are only about 20k in size so they load almost instantly. Flash Music Loops are available at http://www.flashmusictracks.com and currently there are three different loop packages available in all kinds of music styles from classical to techno. Using these pre-built Flash files is easy. Simply upload the "xyz.swf" Flash file to your server and add a few lines from the corresponding "xyz.html" file to your web page and presto...instant professional sounding background music. PROS: Extremely small file size, professional quality music CONS: None As you can see there are many different ways to add background music to your web pages and you don't have to worry about slow loading pages if you choose the right file format. (c)2004 Alan Steward About The Author Article by Alan Steward, a professional recording engineer and producer who worked with many Grammy award winning groups and musicians. (c)2004 Alan Steward - http://www.musicleads.net
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
What The Muscle Power of Audio Can Do for Your Site How Audio can Influence SalesAudio can enhance your website by letting your visitor listen to your voice, which is the next closest form of marketing besides a face to face meeting.Who can use Audio?Anyone can use audio, it all depends how knowledgeable you are when it comes to designing your site. DVD Audio: An Introduction DVD Audio is a music format that is designed to offer improved audio performance over CD. The new audio format can be used to provide listeners with Advanced Resolution stereo and/or multi-channel (up to a maximum of six channels) music. How To Record Streaming Audio, Internet Radio And When it comes to music on the Internet, you have two legal choices: you can stream tracks, or you can purchase them as individual downloads.Replay Music can record streamed songs from most applications, break them into individual files (either as WAV or 128- to 320-Kbps MP3 files) and even tag them with the correct song and artist info. Heres Exactly What Makes Web Audio So Powerful Have you ever tried to communicate with another person using just actions and sign language? It gets pretty frustrating, doesn't it? Especially when you know that if you could just SAY a few words, they'd get the picture, almost instantly.Well, imagine if the website you've put up on show. Dont Use Web Audio The Wrong Way Have you ever wrestled with a set of instructions, but then got so frustrated with it all that you threw them aside in a fluster and tried to figure out how to do it? yourself?Resulting in?Making a great big mess of it all?Similarly, if you really want to use Web Audio the right way, the way that WORKS, then you need to know what DOESN'T work.Here's what many people do, pretty systematically? to hinder their marketing and audio responses:1. Adding Streaming Audio to Your Website Adding streaming audio to your web site can help you enhance the message you send to your customers and can serve as a wonderful confidence-building tool. In the past, audio was used primarily as a decorative effect, but advances in technology and the increased use of the internet by consumers have made it easy for you to add streaming audio to your web site and create a personal bond with your clientele. Internet Radio: A Sanctuary in the Rubbish Tip The internet, it's a whole world of information and entertainment, but every day it fills up just that extra bit more with complete trash. At every corner, popups, banner ads, viruses, spyware, the list goes on, well I've had enough and I'm sure you share my opinion. Five Tips to Become a Soundbite Genius 1. Speak in soundbites to everyone. How to Create Professional Audio Books from Scratch My name is Alan Twigg and I'm writing this article to offer advice to anyone thinking of creating their own professional audio books.In the New Year I came up with the idea of creating professional children's stories and offering them for download on the internet. wav; Recording Voice or Instruments A graduate student in Belfast wrote to me about a project he was doing. It is an inter-active instructional CD on the Tin Whistle. MP3 vs. WMA There are just a few audio compression formats out there, just like there are only a few image compression formats (you may have heard of them: JPG, GIF, BMP). Two of the most popular audio formats are WMA, or Windows Media Audio, and MP3 (Short for MPEG, Moving Pictures Experts Group, Audio Layer 3). How to Use Your Computer as a Recording Studio A few years ago there was a revolution in recording technology. As computers became more powerful, they started to replace traditional tape recorders that were the heart of most recording studios. Get Personal by Adding Your Voice to Your Site Many customers in today's online business world are shopping around online for a reason; either they are too lazy to go to stores, do not like the masses of people, or they might just want to shop in the comfort of their home. What ever the reason might be, we can conclude that they are not in a store, but rather they are on your site. Creating Web Content Using Audio Recordings of Expert Interviews Creating Web Content Using Audio Recordings of Expert Interviews The easiest way to create content for your websites is also one of the best ways to create value for your clients. It's a wonderful technique that when used well can make a big difference to how professionally your work is perceived in the marketplace. Jingles - What Constitutes A Successful Jingle Campaign? What constitutes a successful jingle campaign? In this article we will examine and listen to 4 successful jingle campaigns and look for key ingredients to their success.Jingle Campaign #1, Mr. WAV; Useful Applications; Recording Your Tapes or L.P.s to CD My first article about digital recording that I have had published in various places on the net for some time, talks about the two main audio formats midi. and wav. 7 Ways to Use Website Audio in Your Marketing Arsenal Most visitors to your website are using computers with audio capabilities. Recently introduced techniques make it easy to take advantage of this capability. 7 Ways to Use AUDIO to Increase Your Web and E-mail Sales Thought about adding audio to your Web site yet? You should. While great copy does a good job of selling your services and products, audio will amplify the effect of your words. Adding Sound To Your Web Site - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Many webmasters like the idea of adding background music to their web sites but most shy away from doing it worrying about slow loading pages and large file sizes. There are many different ways to add background music to your site and some of them don't require large files to achieve professional results. Teleseminars, Audio Downloads, Podcasts: Listen Up So You'll Learn and Earn More Internet Marketers love audio. You can't blame them.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
