Putting sound on your web site can give your web site that special sparkle. As Interlaced graphics are gradually focusing on the page, the visitor can be put into the proper mood, preparing them for the graphic images and textual messages they will see. In this article I will discuss the best ways to put sound on your web site. Please keep in mind I am not exclusively addressing the best sound formats available on the web but rather getting the best sounds that will load quickly and encourage visitors to stay.

Types of Sound Files There are many ways of putting sound on your web page. The most common sound files are wave, Mp3 or MIDI files. When coding sounds to automatically play when a visitor enters your web page, Wave and Mp3 files should generally be avoided. If you want to automatically play a sound file when visitors enter your web page, MIDI is the way to go. Complete songs in MIDI occupy about 5k ot 15k bytes. Its probably better to take a key short 8 to 12 bar section of a song and loop it on your web page. Although looping a poorly chosen song can drive visitors crazy. These smaller song loops occupy 2k to 7kbytes. (I will show you later the html to put MIDI on your page.) On the other hand a wave file lasting more than a second, is just too large to put on a web page as it will take too long to load (100K).

MIDI What exactly then is MIDI? MIDI is a special computer language that communicates music. It can only communicate music by controlling stored sampled sounds. When you make a MIDI file, the number of different sounds you can record is limited by your sound card. (Although you can download new sampled sounds from the web). Most new sound cards such as the Sound Blaster Live have 127 different voices or sounds(General MIDI), on them.

Making MIDI Files A great idea for making MIDI on the web, is to use the 127 voices of the Sound Blaster Live card as your sound card. The reason being is that you know that most people on the web will hear your MIDI in the same way you heard it when you made it. (Sound Blaster does have more than 127 voices built in that you can access but stick to the 127 voice mode.) If you use extra sound banks and have an expensive card that has over 127 sounds, most people on the web will not hear the extra sounds. One problem though with the 127 voice sound card is that older computers with a 64 voice sound card will get a tinny gazzoo sound from your 127voice composition. But these 64 voice cards are now in the minority of visitors. Remember then to stick to 127 sounds when making MIDI for the web. Using the Sound Blaster card is a good idea as most visitors will be using this card and the sampled sounds will be the same ones that you heard when making the MIDI. A common question is "Can an Mp3 or wave file be converted into a midi file. The answer is no. The file would need to be recomposed using midi software. Voices, singing lyrics can not be put onto midi.

About the author: John Rickey is an experienced MIDI arranger. He graduated from University of Toronto with a degree in music and has worked from studio recordings to Movies with his arranging. You can contact him at kingskid@netrover.com or visit his MIDI Design Site at http//www.scugog-net.com/room108/midi/container.html