Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description Internet Resources

Brief Description

    Computers now typically come with sound cards and speakers so that music and sounds can be heard. Web pages can contain sounds, and this activity describes how to create your own sounds, find interesting sounds on the Internet, and add them to your Web pages. This activity leads you through the process of adding sound files to your Web pages.

Objectives

• Learn about the sound file formats developed for the PC and Macintosh.
• Learn how to create sound files and add them into your Web pages.
• Learn where on the Internet to find interesting sound files.

    In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the LETSNet Website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a computer with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) as well as a World Wide Web browser. In the section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson or activity (in addition to those described above) and the level of Internet access required to do the activity.

1. Special hardware requirements: none.
2. Special software requirements: none.
3. Internet access: Medium-speed (28,800 BPS via phone) or higher.

    Sounds add something special to the Web, whether they be voices, special audio effects, or musical numbers, and you may want to add sound files to your HTML files to spice up your Web pages. This activity describes basic sound file formats, how to add the necessary HTML tags to your Web pages, and where to find interesting sounds on the Internet.

• There are several popular sound file formats, some that only work on the PC/Windows platform and others that only work on Macintosh computers. The main audio file formats are:
  • AU=Audio
  • WAV=Wave
  • MIDI=Musical Instrument Digital Interface
  • MPEG=Motion Picture Experts Group
  • AIFF=Audio Interchange File Format (Macintosh only)

• Adding Sound Files to Your Web Pages: To add a sound file to your HTML, you need to create or download the sound file, convert it into an acceptable audio format (see above), and then add a reference to it on your Web page. Use the Internet Resources below to locate sound files on the Internet, or use your computer to capture sounds. If you have a computer with sound capability (with a microphone, sound card and speakers) it should have sound recording software included. Record the sounds you want, and then save the files for inclusion on your Web page. Use one of the sound utility software products (see Internet Resources below) to convert the sound file into the format you want on your Web page. To add a sound file to your HTML page, use the <A HREF=""> HTML tag. The <A HREF=""> syntax is <A HREF="soundfilename">, where soundfilename is the name of the sound (audio) file. For example:

  <a href="http://www.somewhere.com/sounds/Talk.wav">Talk.wav</a>

  would result in the "talk.wav" sound played whenever someone clicks on that link on your page, if they have a Wave sound player installed and assuming you have a file on your Web server (http://www.somewhere.com/) in the "sounds" folder or subdirectory called "talk.wav."

• Sound files can be large, depending on the format, quality, and length of the sound. While short sounds can be placed onto and downloaded from Web pages as AU or WAV files, larger sound files can be compressed and decompressed using add-in tools to make listening over the Internet more acceptable. Examples of sound compression and decompression tools include RealAudio and ShockWave (see Internet Resources below). These products require special server software and Netscape plug-ins.

Sounds on the Web

• Internet Underground Music Archive
  [http://www.iuma.com/]
  An on-line archive of music available for downloading.

• Stoutman's Wav Sounds
  [http://www.stoutman.qbd.com/]
  A collection of Wave (Wav) files and links to other Wave Websites.

• UnderWorld Sound
  [http://www.nd.edu/StudentLinks/jkeating/links/sound.html]
  Links to a variety of sounds on the Internet.

• Wave Central
  [http://www.wavcentral.com/]
  A complete Website for wave (Wav) sound files.

• Websites with Sounds
  [http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/~jmyers/other-sounds.html].
  Links to various archives of sound files organized into three groups: music, voices, and sounds.

• Mac Sound Utilities
  [http://www.wavenet.com/~axgrindr/quimby4.html]
  A list of Macintosh-based sound and audio utility programs.

• Multi-media Music
  [http://www.wavenet.com/~axgrindr/quimby.html]
  A good resource for sound on the Web. Includes sound utilities for the Mac and PC, sound effects and (royalty-free) music loops and logo stings.

• PC Sound Utilities
  [http://www.wavenet.com/~axgrindr/PC.html]
  A list of PC/Windows-based audio and sound utility programs.

• RealAudio
  [http://www.realaudio.com/]
  An audio streaming (compression/decompression) product.

• Shockwave from MacroMedia
  [http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/]
  Another audio streaming (compression/decompression) product from MacroMedia.

• Virtual Library: Audio
  [http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/audio.html]
  A list of resources on using audio on the Internet.

• YAHOO Links to Sounds
  [http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Multimedia/Sound/]
  An updated list of sound resources on the Internet.

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