putting music on a website

[ivyholly]

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, as the case may be...

I would like to put some musical excerpts on a page of my music website. I`d like to have clickable links that would stream good quality piano sound when the user clicks it- maybe 30 secs to 1 min. samples. I`ve got a digital piano with midi. Does anyone know a good site that explains step by step how to do this, or what is the best way to do this, and what I would need? I`ve been reading up about it (embedding, wav files, real audio, etc.), but I haven`t found quite the answers I`m looking for...

Also, how does one make/store midi files on a computer?

Any help appreciated

[mreine]

I would simply upload the files and link to them. This way the visitor can choose to save them or listen to them in their player of choice.

Code: Select all

<a href="midi-sample.mid">Midi Sample (12kb)</a>

[ivyholly]

Thanks mreine, makes good sense. Although I`m not sure anyone would want to be bothered to save such short excerpts. But what do I know... Can I infer that midi files can be listened to by any music player?

Any further instruction would be helpful...

[Corey Bryant]

A somewhat simple way

HTML: Select all

<embed src="yoursong.mid" width="220" height="80" autostart="true" loop="false">

Most systems have the ability to listen to MIDI files.

All you need to do is basically upload the MIDI file to your website and the above will start to play. And this will give the user the option to stop the song as well.

[ivyholly]

Thanks Corey,

Do you mean when users click on a link it will start to play? Just to be specific, I want clickable links, not background music.

[mreine]

I agree Holly... do not make the music start automatically. I'd like to reach through my screen sometimes and rip the head off of designers who add automatic playing music to their sites. It's absolutely annoying and worse then flash in my opinion.

The way I suggested will allow the file to be either downloaded or opened and played immediately and gives the person the file size info also.

No, not every music program can play midi's, but it's not up to you to force it to play a certain way. If you are concerned, find a link to a nice, simple, free midi player and offer that as an alternative if they don't have a midi player. Some people may choose not to bother, but again, it's not up to you to force the midi file on them. Just make the links available and that's enough.

[ivyholly]

Thanks mreine,

I`d really like people to be able to click and listen right away, and to give them the least amount of trouble doing so. I`m curious, what do most people have to listen to music? Are most people equipped to listen to midi files? I don`t know much about it, but I`ve been to sites where they just stream the music- absolutely no hassle; just click and listen. I`d like something like that, I think...Is that complicated? Or am I overcomplicating things?

[mreine]

Originally Posted by ivyholly

Or am I overcomplicating things?

Yes

Quicktime, Realplayer and MS Media Player are the most popular audio players (there are many more though). Each one installs browser plugins that will automatically play midi's, mp3's, avi's, mpg's, etc... when the person selects one. So it's not the site streaming, it's your own software that you installed.

All you have to do is place a link to your file and when the visitor selects that link, their player of choice will do the rest of the work. At the same time, a person may have changed their settings to not automatically play because they simply want a file to start downloading when the link is selected.

[ivyholly]

Aaaah, now I see.

I`m really looking forward to doing this project for my site- hopefully I`ll be ok from here. Thanks again, mreine

[Corey Bryant]

Sorry ivholly I must have missed your email. Yes if I remember correctly, that will embed a small player in your website. You can try that out and see if it is what you actually want.

[ivyholly]

Ok, you mean the email notification for this thread.

Thanks Corey