Foundations of Web Design

Audio

  1. General audio concepts - when you create, edit, or convert audio files, you have two choices that directly affect the quality and size of the audio file

    • bit depth - 8 bit vs. 16 bit; 16 bit sound files have better quality but larger size than 8 bit ones
    • sampling rate - usually in the range from 8 KHz to 48 KHz; the greater the sampling rate, the better the quality but the larger the file size

  2. Two basic types of audio are downloaded audio and streaming audio

  3. MIDI - MIDI is a special format that uses synthesized musical instrument sounds to create music. It's advantage is that it uses little bandwidth since a MIDI file is really just a text file. However, MIDI music doesn't sound too realistic in many cases since it does not include voice tracks. Check out www.mididb.com for many MIDI's.

  4. Activity - Add an audio, mp3, or wav file to your home page by using the EMBED OBJECT HTML tag. Click here to visit a page with embedded audio.

  5. Move your mouse here - You can obtain some sound clips at http://www.webplaces.com/html/sounds.htm and at echovibes.com

  6. Integrated audio formats where sound is combined with animation.

    • Shockwave - great animation and audio, requires the free Shockwave plug-in. Shockwave content is created with Macromedia Director. See the Music section at shockwave.com for examples.

    • Flash - requires free plug-in, create Flash content with Macromedia Flash, examples (listen closely for the sounds).

      Activity: Open Flash and use the Window/Common Libraries/Sounds menu commands to listen to sounds that come with Flash.

    • Java- requires Java-enabled browser; there is a high learning curve to learning the Java language itself unless you can find a Java applet that is easy to use for sound