Adding Audio To Your Website

Wav is currently the most popular audio file format because it is the format defined and endorsed by Microsoft and used by Windows based computers. Today wav files are supported by most platforms and by Netscape and the Internet Explorer.

Wav files can have a range of sample rates and different sample types. Without going into the technical detail, PCM is the purest audio format, and offers much better sound quality than other compressed formats such as ADPCM or Real Audio. The downside is that file sizes are large. A high sample rate provides better quality audio but has a much larger file size. Similarly, 16 bit PCM gives less hiss but has a file size double that of 8 bit PCM. As a general rule, you will not viably be able to embed an autostart file which is longer than 10 seconds. To have longer recordings you will need to use Real Audio (see below).

For a reasonable quality short voice prompts we recommend 11.025kHz, 8 bit PCM Wav Files.

To record and edit a wav file download a sound editor. You can download the WavePad software free Download WavePad Sound Editor Software or see the Voice Record Software Download Guide.

There are many sites on the net where wav files can be downloaded.

Take care to avoid any breaches of copyright. Note that it is also fair that you copy the audio file on your server and do not link to a file on another server. Not only will this avoid the possibility that your sound suddenly disappears, it saves servers being
overloaded.

If you want to give your site a professional sound, by using professional voice artists to record messages, http://www.world-voices.com/ is a database of professional voice over artists (including voices from all over the world).

To add the wav file to your html page use the following:

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

Where the a file named file.wav has been uploaded to your site in the same directory as the page which contains the EMBED tags.

In the above example where autostart=true, the file will automatically start playing. Use this tag for background sound which should start immediately once it is downloaded.

You can also use loop=true where you want the sound to repeat over and over. By editing a short sound and using the loop=true option you can create continuous audio from a very short audio cut. For example: waves, applause, engine sounds and so on.

To add music files to your site, use midi files (.mid). Midi files are much smaller than wav files and, if the user has a good sound card, the quality can be much better.

There are thousands of midi files available on the Internet. Again, take care to avoid breaching any composer's copyrights.

Note that the sound of the music depends very much on the quality of the midi player that the user has. Listen to your selected music on a variety of sound cards before embedding the audio since some sounds that sound very good on good sound sources can sound awful on cheaper players.

To embed midi files use the following:

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

You can use the autostart and loop features as you can with wav files. Please remember to copy to midi file to your site and do not reference another site's midi file directly.