/Flash/ Add music to your website
17/04/2008 | Filed under Develop > Flash
Looking to add audio to a site? Paul Wyatt shows you how to create an MP3 from a WAV file using Sorenson Squeeze, and link it up to a Flash movie via ActionScript
The ability to add and manipulate sound in Flash CS3 is one of the software’s highlights, and audio adds an incredible amount to a website or animation. Just try watching a classic title sequence, such as the one in Psycho, with the sound turned off; it’s not nearly as effective and it elicits no emotive response from the viewer. Sound helps set the tone, and in this tutorial’s example site, it also helps to sell records!
The problem with audio and Flash is that if you simply embed a sound file into your output SWF, it will bloat enormously. But don’t worry, there’s a great way to get around this. You take a WAV audio file, turn it into an MP3, and make sure it loads in and plays by using ActionScript to link it to a Flash movie.
Finally, to help you make the most of your own audio creations, I’ve asked DJ, top producer and BBC 6 tune-mixer, Stephen Raynes, to give us his expert tips on getting the most out of self-produced audio tracks.
About the author:
Name: Paul Wyatt
Site: www.paulwyatt.co.uk
Areas of expertise: Web design, motion graphics and video
Clients: Lycos, Universal, Five
Who’s the fastest: Speedy Gonzales or Road Runner? Speedy Gonzales
Click here to download the support files
Click here to download tutorial PDF
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Comments
B. from Berlin / 21/04/2008 / 12:07 / http://www.anwalt-seiten.de
It's a very good presentation of that topic!
BUT doesn't most people browse at work? There's nothing like awkward than my business PC starting to play website-music...
Use that power with care :-)
Houston Web Development / 28/04/2008 / 04:00 / http://www.nuesion.com
Things can get real tricky when adding music to a site. Music artists do lean towards wanting more music on their site then others, rightfully so. To keep music fluid on each page you often need to have the whole site in flash. Its very annoying to have a flash movie reload in the header or somewhere on each new page, causing the music to restart up each time a new page is pulled up. Great advice though.
Thokozani / 06/05/2008 / 13:51 / http://www.myfirstmic.co.za
good day
im building a site with flash mp3 for a hiphop band.....what i need to know is it possible for the player above to have an application that allows users the ability to vote for their favourite track directly on the playlist, if so how does one go about doing just that............
love your mag even though it costs an arm, a leg, two eye balls and an ear lobe here in South Africa but i still will get it........Good times
Daniel / 27/07/2008 / 07:30 / http://www.danieljpayne.com
Uh, there's a logic bug.
Hit the play button once, wait, hit the pause button, then hit the play button more than once.
You start to get multiple audio streams playing.
Du Cake / 16/09/2008 / 12:17
I should stress one of the old adages of web design that people seem to have forgotten... a piece of ancient wisdom....
** Do NOT I repeat do NOT autoplay sound on your site. It's DAMNED ANNOYING. **
You don't want to go on to a site at work and then some sound/background noise/music/musak to start playing.
At home too, when you're listening to your own music.
And most of the time, unless you're a music artist I am looking up, I don't want to listen to what you shove on your site.
Some business solutions sites have adverts that autoplay their presentation. This is equally aggravating.
MySpace is a massive culprit in the auto-play music scene.
In my view, autoplayed music is a good reason to never visit a site again.
webspy.jp / 19/09/2008 / 07:26 / http://webspy.jp/
I agree to that it is annoying when some web sites autoplays music upon the load of the top page. If we could find out some attractive way to let them know and lead them to some button to hit, it will be a good solution. Having said that, I like the idea web site have background music matching its contents, but still with a button to start playing.
best of classic rock / 04/04/2009 / 17:21 / http://bestofclassicrock.com
Sites that AUTOplay are automatically crossed off my list.
I've found that by including youtube and vimeo videos on my site, I get that advantage of my readers listening to the song AND they stick around. Almost everyone recognizes the youtube video and know they need to click the play button.
Allun / 29/05/2009 / 15:20 / http://www.chelstonhotelblackpool.co.uk/
With all this copyright legal stuff - how do you get round that??
qesmsep / 19/12/2009 / 07:05
It TOTALLY depends on what your site is for. For example:
band/artist - absolutely. The object of your site is to create an emotional attachment and sound does this.
sales site - never. Your target audience is HUGE and they could be listening to music or any various other things.
You have to take into consideration what your audience is doing while visiting your site. My clients, most likely, would not have music on. But, I take into consideration that their speakers might be on VERY loud, so I initiate the music at a VERY low volume.
Anyway, that's just what I think...
