Sound On The Web
The potential for sound to augment your site is immerse. That said, aesthetic concerns must come first though. Thus ensure the sounds are not too intrusive. Although one of the easiest ways to use sound is to trigger the playback of a music file as the page loads, it will annoy your user if the file is too large or the sound invasive (notice how we have employed the principle here when this page is loaded - play again). A simple ambient sound loop is all you need. This though should reflect the general theme of your site.
Browser compatibility is another issue designers should be aware of when using sound on the web. The problem is as always with the implementation of standards within different browsers. Both the object and embed tags have their nuances. There is though one sure solution and that is - the Flash Player.
To begin with over 98% of users already have the flash player installed on their system regardless of what the system is - Flash has no prejudicial partisan boundaries. It available on Windows, Macs and Linux. It can handle streaming MP3 files without the need of a separate MP3 player. With Flash you can deliver inline sounds to buttons, background noise, page sounds tracks and interactive sound. The package embeds the code into the HTML page for you too, thus there are no problems with the <object> tag . Flash takes care of all this by using both the <embed> and <object> tag
Simple flash movies are easy to create . But for a more complex setup you want to get the pros in. You might be a budding musician who wants to expose his tunes to the public in a format that you have total control i.e. they might be listened to online or be downloaded as MP3 files. What ever your reasons we have the expertise to design a bespoke interface to satisfy your needs.
The sample below is a flash audio player that loads MP3 files (sound clips) from a directory and play them in sequence. Here the design has focused on the user to be directly in control.
Read More