Audio on a web page

Audio can be used in TQNYC projects. There are a couple issues to realize before getting into how to make a audio for your site.

Audio like all work is licensed and copyrighted and you must have permission of the owner to use it. Unless you made the audio yourself or it is released with a copyright free license you need permission to put it on your site. Unauthorized audio will be removed from the server.

    Audio Formats

    There are multiple formats for audio. Some common web enabled (with plugins) formats include MP3 , Quicktime , Windows Media Format (WMV for video and WMA for audio), Real Audio (RA) and MIDI . Depending on what you have or choose will determine how you can implement them.

    The file formats vary in the size of the files created. This is called "compression". The issue with filesize other than disk space on the server is user experience. The larger the file the longer it will take for the file to load and if it takes too long the user may click away.

    WAV files are not compressed and therefore the largest. Unless you have no other option try not to use this format. MIDI is the smallst becuase it is like sheet music that the player plays. MP3, RA, Quicktime and WMF are all different ways of compressing the original WAV file.

    Overview

    The process for creating audio for your website is a wide ranging question. For purposes of explaining a common process we will use an interview as an example. The steps for taking a conversation with someone and getting it on your website include the following.

    1. Record the conversation. If you have a way of recording it digitally good for you. You can skip encoding.
    2. Bring the audio into a computer. You can do this by plugging a tape deck into a sound card. This is not always simple, you may need a analog to digital converter.
    3. Some computers have a recorder built in others need additional software. A free, cross platform wonderful piece of sound editting software is Audacity . It can also convert file formats.
    4. Convert the raw (WAV) file into a smaller, format.
    5. Embed or link the file from your web page
    6. Upload the files to the TQNYC server

    Linking Audio Files

    The easiest way to have music is to simply create a hyperlink to the audio file. This will open a player in a seperate window if a compatible player is installed on the machine.

    <a href="file.mp3">Listen to this sound file</a>

    Embedding Audio

    Making the sound file simply play when a page opens you must embed the player in the page. All of these examples play without the player being visible except for the Windows Media Player.

    Embedding MIDI

    <EMBED src="file.mid" autostart=true loop=false volume=100 hidden=true><NOEMBED><BGSOUND src="file.mid"></NOEMBED>

    Quicktime Tutorials

    Apple offers a good group of tutorials that cover everything related to Quicktime and embedding the player .

    Embedding MP3

    <EMBED src="file.mp3" autostart=true hidden=true>

    Embedding WAV

    <EMBED src="file.wav" autostart=true loop=false volume=100 hidden=true><NOEMBED><BGSOUND src="file.wav"></NOEMBED>

    Embedding WMA

    <object id="winplayer" classid="clsid:6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6" width="320" height="40" type="application/x-oleobject">
    <param name="url" value="file.wma" />
    <param name="autostart" value="true" />
    <param name="uiMode" value="full" />
    <embed src="file.wma" width="320" height="40" autostart="true" uiMode="full" type="application/x-mplayer2" pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/"></embed>
    </object>

    Embedding Real Audio

    <EMBED src="file.ra" autostart=true hidden=true>