[ruler protractor pen penc]

hey everyone,

i'm just wondering how some of you make your sound files so small for the web? i just went to a website that played the whole theme song of goldeneye as soon as i went in.

now, what i want to know is, how does everyone get their sound files so small. how do you compress them? i just created a little music loop for the intro for my site, and its 2mb! but very short!!

as you might notice, this is my first time making a website.

just some extra information: it's a school project and i'm using flash.

thx in advance

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: ruler ]

[Kaete]

First, think about it. Do you *really* need some annoying loop of muzak playing on your site?

While it could possibly be used to nice effect, generally background music is amateurish and can get annoying really quickly.

What sound are you trying to use?

[ruler protractor pen penc]

hi, kaete

well, i'm hoping that it wont be annoying or...amateurish. actually, this is not an intro sound, its more like an...effect sound that keeps looping where ever you go, through the webside. i guess you can say it is to give the site a certain atmosphere...wait, something like this site maybe:
http://www.mypetskeleton.com/index2.html
(this is NOT my site)

can you feel it? lol

anyway, i also want some rollover button sounds as well. but just to let you know, my site is mainly suppose to be an art piece for school, and a portfolio site as well.

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: ruler ]

[Ian Jones]

Well using something like flash you can construct a very complicated loop that loads over time.

You make a simple base loop that is pretty well seamless, then play it while the other sounds like a beat loads, and make flash fade it in once loaded, then you can have another part of the lopp loading, like a special effect or beat variation that gets triggered every 3 or more loops so that it makes it sound like a much larger loop. get my point? Don;t ask me how to do it though (cos I don't know enuf about Flash), I assure you it is possible though. You can even program in a variation that once everything is loaded, you change to a different keyframe for the sound using the same sounds but in a different rythm / organisation. It's all very clever if you pull it off right.

Hope that helps.

[ruler protractor pen penc]

aha, so that's how it's done! Ian, i've noticed that before. there's this site that i went to and the graphics start loading one by one without me even noticing that the loop is actually getting larger. now if i only knew how its done

anyone?

Ian, so you're saying that they dont compress the sound(how?) before exporting it for web?

[Ian Jones]

Well I'm sure they do compress. I really can't say for sure, it's something I'll have to investigate myself. Maybe Flash has tutorials inside it that teach you more about it, and how to compress.

Try going to a flash portal site (like [url=http://www.flashkit.com)]www.flashkit.com)[/url] and searching for loops, you should then get some good info.

[ruler protractor pen penc]

alright, thx for the link

[hans_e]

Hello everyone....

When thinking about adding music to a webpage you have to take some things into consideration. I'm adding this for anyone else who might be stumbling upon this message and having the same sound idea (pun intended). Ok, first what is your authoring tool? Is it Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Director (Shockwave), or a plain html document? I'm not absolute about Flash but i can make an assumption that its the same way as Director (both made by Macrmedia for broad-range development) in that when adding a sound you want an aiff format file (AIFF = Audio Interchange File Format). I suggest this for the simple fact that it can be read by both Macs and PCs (Wavs should stick to PCs only). If your working with Director (shockwave) you can convert the sound file to a SWA file (SWA = ShockWave Audio) to compress it more. From there (especially large files) you can choose to have it stream as the page loads. Streaming is when the file or files load as the page loads and the clip starts playing while finishing up loading; which is what you guys were talking about. Also it'll work better if you change the bitrate and the sampling rate of the sound. This will help eliminate the jerks and skips often associated with online sound playback. You might want to try a bitrate of 8 or 16 bits with a sample rate of 11.025, 22.050 or 44.1 kHz.

If its a normal html doc then use your standards there.

If you're looking around for good sound editing software try these out: Soundforge, Fruity Loops, Reason (my fav), hammerhead, and anything created by Cakewalk.

Good luck and happy editing

hans_e

[ruler protractor pen penc]

hey hans,

wow thanks for the info, great help!

i'm using flash, but i had the option to choose between director and flash. when i asked a student in my class lab, he said that shockwave is not necessarily for internet purposes for the reason that it creates large files(mainly a good use for making interactive CDs, etc.). besides, there are lots of info, tips, and guides online for flash that makes the whole thing much easier.

"If your working with Director (shockwave) you can convert the sound file to a SWA file"

i have to get to the computer lab to check this but, is it possible to then import the SWA file into flash?


now it seems that i'm running into more problems with flash. can someone tell me what the framerate should be to make compatible flashsite for web, both for mac and pc?

thx for all the help

[ceenda]

Google Groups ( http://groups.google.co.uk ) - It's your friend...

SWA files in Flash: http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en&threadm=36F963FF.7AC6%40byronc_.com&rnum=6&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DSWA%2Bimport%2BFlash%26hl%3Den

Framerate (from the Flash FAQ):

quote:

---

Q: What frame rate should I use?

A: Smoother animation is achieved by increasing the frame rate in
the Modify|Movie option. You will need to add extra frames to the
timeline (which adds to filesize) if you are intent on bumping up
the speed. Cinema films run at 24fps, which is high enough to
fool the eye into believing the animation is realistic. However,
unless you are making cartoons in flash, or you have lots of
tweens occurring simultaneously, a frame rate of 15-20 fps should
suffice. Bear in mind that slower computers will have trouble
reaching high frame rates where complex alpha effects and bitmaps
are used. Sometimes, the best effects are more minimal. Less is
more.

---

[hans_e]

ruler,

I think an SWA file is for a Shockwave projector only.

However, when I came home today (was out of town) I ran to my comp and turned on Flash 5 which the rents gave me for xmas. I found out that there are a couple compressions to choose from: ADPCM, MP3, and RAW. You find this all in the "sound settings" menu in Flash. It suggests that for small sounds (IE: button clicks, rollovers, handclaps, etc) that one should use ADPCM with a 2-bit (lowest quality) or a 5-bit (highest quality) rate.
When you have a long song (if you got one off your fav cd or something) you should choose MP3 compression. Here, if you go less than 20 Kbps Flash automatically converts your file to a mono (hence, if it were above 20 you would have a choice of stereo or mono). You also get to pick the overall playback quality: Fast (usual web), Medium, and Best.

For your framerate.... keep in mind your audience. Is it a broad range of people with many different connections, or is it high tech companies with high-speed connections to the net? Unfortunately for designers its not usually the later one. Thats why I suggest as output for the web something with a framerate around 12 fps. (dont want to bogg viewers' computers down)


Well, I'm off to study for finals that I have this week. UGH!
Talk to you later

hans_e

[ruler protractor pen penc]

hey hans, thx a lot for your help,

that's great. i never knew flash had those options, i will definitely check those compressions out when i go to the lab tomorrow. this makes it alot easier

once again, thx for all your help

[hans_e]

Hey, I was just wondering how the ol' project was coming along?

[ruler protractor pen penc]

i'm still working on it. although everything's going smoothly, i only have a week's time to finish it, which is a great deal of stress right now.

i checked the sound compressions in in flash, and WOW, it compresses them to only a few dozen kb! that's amazing!

i'm having a hard time believing that the framerate in flash should be 12 fps. that seems to make everything look really crappy.(and even worse in mac).

but, oh well.