examples

approaching audio for the web

Windows Media, Real Audio, Liquid Audio, MP3, Flash... these are just some of the options we have available to us for use on the web. Each one has it's pro's and con's - so how do you decide which ones are right for your web site? Well, I can tell you some of my experiences, which led me to my current approach.

I'll start by telling you that the formats I am using on this site are MP3, Windows Media and Flash. MP3 has become the de facto standard for sharing music audio files on the web. It was the first data compression format to even come close to sounding good. I should say, before I go on, that as a musician and producer, I spent my whole life trying to make my recordings sound as good as possible. So I do have a bit of a problem with distributing music in a format that sounds worse than 16 bit cd's (an outmoded medium itself, but that's another story...). But I digress; MP3 files are roughly 1/10 the size of 16 bit audiofiles, they can sound pretty good, and so they became the accepted standard.

Windows Media (by which I mean Windows Media Player 7.0 and above) came along well after MP3 had established itself. But this technology encompasses video as well as audio, and of course uses Microsoft's proprietary technologies. And this technology has many things going for it that MP3 doesn't. For one thing, it sounds as good or better than MP3, at an even smaller file size. For another, it has many more features for encoding information into the file - information like who owns the copyright, where you can go to buy it, watermarking, etc.

Flash on the other hand, is not an audio medium itself, rather it is an ingenious way of delivering MP3 files as part of a web page. For things like background music, and sounds that are triggered by user interaction, nothing compares. Oh sure, there are other ways of achieving these things, but not with the elegance of Flash.

So what I have done here is this:

• For all mouse over - type event sounds, and for background music - I use Flash. An interesting note: For a long period of time, I struggled to make a short loop of background music repeat seamlessly, using various methods, never being able to make it work (I would always get gaps). Until I realized that the web sites that did this all used Flash. Just another example of this programs' well thought out implementation.
• For streaming audio on the "Listen" and "Download" pages, I use both Windows Media and MP3, leaving the choice up to the listener.
• For "Oddball Radio", I use MP3 files, specifically mapped out in a file format used by WinAmp, probably the most widely used MP3 player.

Lastly, I would like to end with a word about hard decisions. When I started out, I offered music in a low bandwidth Real Audio format. But what I am about to say applies to MP3 and Windows Media as well. When I offered music in these low bandwidth formats, it of course sounded like shit. But in my excitement to be on the internet and (possibly) reach all these people, I wanted everyone to be able to hear my music. Do you see the dichotomy here? I wanted everybody to be able to hear my music that sounded like shit because it was encoded to be a small file so that everyone could access it. Whew! This was nuts! Eventually, I arrived at this decision: only offer your music in format that's acceptable to you - if the surfer has a slow connection, he or she can download it.

- David Thomas Peacock