Publishers' FAQ > Technology and Internet > How do I add audio clips to my website?

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To add audio to your site, you need to take your recordings and translate them into a digital format readable by most Web users. You'll need two types of software: a ripper (to record and edit your sound file) and an encoder (to encode your file into a format that web browsers can understand). Links to software downloads are below.

Turning your audio clips into digital files is fairly easy, since most computers come equipped with "audio in" ports (standard on Macs -- it's the one with the picture of a microphone; you need a sound card for your PC). You will need some kind of audio manipulation software on your computer (i.e. software for sound files equivalent to Photoshop for visual files), which you will use to record -- or "rip" -- and then edit your digital track. If you're starting with a digital file (e.g. from a CD), you can just open it up with your software and edit away.

Once you've edited your clip, you need to encode the file into a Web-ready format. Two commonly used audio formats for the Web are RealAudio and MP3. RealAudio files "stream" or download as they go. MP3 files must be downloaded completely before you listen to them; although they are larger in size than RealAudio, they are clearer, nearly CD quality (though CD files are 10 times larger than MP3s).

After you've made your file, you then need to upload it to the Internet and then place a link to the file somewhere on your website so that people can find it. If your site is hosted from your own server, you need special software from http://www.real.com to serve RealAudio files, which is quite complicated to install. On the other hand, MP3 needs no additional software (or knowledge) to serve.

If your site is hosted at an ISP or other outside server, you need to make sure that your host can accommodate RealAudio. In a quick check, I found that Earthlink will allow you to serve three RealAudio files for free with their basic hosting service, while Panix (a local New York city ISP) charges $10 per month per stream with a $20 setup fee. For MP3s, you should make sure that you have enough space to accommodate all your files (a 3 minute song takes up about 4 MB) -- most hosting services come with limited amounts of disk space.

MP3lit.com gives a good overview to MP3 and RealAudio formats, as well as links to information on players and software. Webmonkey has several articles on adding audio to your website, with links to rippers and encoders. Other places to find software are CNET's audio links or the Info-Mac Hyperarchive.