Adding Sound to Web Pages

     The instructions on this page are mainly for people who use advanced editing programs such as aolpress for their web pages.  These instructions are written for the novice who knows very little about either how to make web pages or how to add sound to them.  The only thing that one must have is a way to introduce HTML tags directly into the page content.  For example, in AOLPRESS, one clicks on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen to gain access to the HTML source.  One then types in the desired HTML tag for embedding the desired sound, then gets out of the source by clicking the X on upper right, then clicking APPLY to put the embed into the page.

     There are two main kinds of files that can be used to produce the actual sound.  These are files with the extensions .mid and .wav.  The .wav files are usually produced by actually recording the sound of an instrument or voice in digital form.  They tend to be quite large second for second of their duration.  The .mid files use the computer's sound card or an external MIDI instrument to produce the actual sound, so they tend to be the most efficient in terms of file space used per second of sound.  In other words, .mid files offer the most "bang for the buck" of sound producing files.

   In most cases what the web page creator wants is a background of sound or music that plays whenever a "customer" enters the page.  To do this, we use an EMBED tag.  Let's say we want a midi file named JSBach to play in background as soon as we enter a page, and to continue playing over and over while the page is being viewed.  Here's the tag:

<EMBED src="JSBach.mid" autostart="true" loop="true" hidden="true">

    In this tag, autostart="true" makes the music play as soon as it's downloaded with the page.  Loop="true" makes it play over as soon as it finishes, and it keeps doing that.  Hidden="true" means that no music control panel will show up on the page.  Now for some "variations".  First, of course, we could use a .wav file instead of a .mid type.  That would work exactly the same.  To have the music or sound effect play just once, omit the loop="true" part of the tag.

      To give the viewer of the page control over the sound, instead of having it happen automatically, you would omit the Hidden="true" part and change the autostart to AUTOSTART="false".  To give the user complete control, you'd include a CONTROLS="smallconsole" in the tag.  This will produce a little control panel on which the viewer can play, pause, or stop the music, and can also slide-advance through it and control the volume.  The appearance of this control panel will vary depending on the viewer's particular browser and media player.  It will be different in Netscape, in Internet Explorer, and with other media players such as Crescendo and the Windows media player.  Small console (as one word) should, however, provide the required controls in all cases.

    Here, then, is an example of the embed tag with complete control:

<EMBED src="mag2.mid" autostart="false" controls="smallconsole" >

   This puts a control panel in place so you the viewer can decide when to start and stop the music, etc.  To see an example of this form, click

HERE.

   Use the back arrow on your browser to get back here after hearing the music.

    These two are the main cases to be considered, those in which things happen automatically and unseen, and those in which the viewer has the controls presented.  You can do a little bit of "mix and match" with these.  For example, you can have autostart="true" and the small console controls at the same time, so the music will start by itself but then can be controlled by the viewer.

    Remember that for the music or sound effect to work most effectively it has to be uploaded (the .mid or .wav file) to the same directory as the web page's .html file.

    One more thing.  When you go to a site that has .mid or .wav files for downloading, you'll have to know how to download.  First, you can put your mouse pointer on the title or other link item and just click.  Most of the time, that will produce a preview (or prelisten) of the music, so you'll get to hear it without taking a download.  When that's done or you've Xed the media player off, you again put the mouse pointer there, but click the RIGHT button on the mouse.  You'll get a little menu, and included will be a Save As selection.  In IE, this will say Save Target As.  In Netscape the selections will include Save Link As.  Pick the one you get.  You'll then be able to select what place to put the .mid file into, and can change its name if you want to or need to.  Pressing SAVE gets it onto your system.