Music and Sound on a Web Page

Music and or sound on the web can be a real challenge even for experienced html professionals. There are a number of sound file formats: MPEG-2, AIFF, WAV, AU and QuickTime. Plug-ins that improve sound quality are often not available with common browsers. Finding conversion tools that reduce file sizes by changing sampling resolutions, bit depth, stereo/mono, parameters or file formats can also be problematic.

Embedding sound on web pages so the controls are in the hands of the user is the best way to add sound to html documents. Samples of different techniques for presenting sound are:

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture	<EMBED SRC="1812.mid" CONTROLS="CONSOLE" WIDTH= "144" HEIGHT="60" ALIGN="MIDDLE">
Chick Corea's "Spain"	<EMBED SRC="spain.mid" CONTROLS="SMALLCONSOLE" WIDTH="144" HEIGHT="15" ALIGN="MIDDLE">
Theme from "Last of the Mohicans "	<A>HREF="mohicans.mid"> "Last of the Mohicans"</A>

To add a MIDI music file to your page

1. Navigate to a www page with MIDI files (see resources below) click and hold, select save this link as, select your web page folder or other destination for the file, select the source format, name the file as you wish + .mid (midi extension).
2. Determine how you want the link to look (icon, picture or text etc.)
3. Use one of the tags above to link your sound file
4. Save the file and then open it in Netscape as a page in navigator to test the sound

One Minute Audio File Sizes

16 bit	44 Khz	Stereo	10.5 MB
16 bit	44 Khz	Mono	5.3 MB
16 bit	22 Khz	Stereo	5.3 MB
16 bit	22 Khz	Mono	2.6 MB
16 bit	11 Khz	Stereo	2.6 MB
16 bit	11 Khz	Mono	1.3 MB
8 bit	44 Khz	Stereo	5.3 MB
8 bit	44 Khz	Mono	2.6 MB
8 bit	22 Khz	Stereo	2.6 MB
8 bit	22 Khz	Mono	1.3 MB
8 bit	11 Khz	Stereo	1.3 MB
8 bit	11 Khz	Mono	.65 MB

Sound Resources

Standard MIDI Files

MIDI Plug ins

MIDI.com

MIDI resources for Teachers

Music Resources for an On-line Planet

Worldwide Internet Music Resources

The Classical MIDI Connection

Web Monkey

Downbeat Cafe

Ragtime Press