Putting quick-loading audio onto web pages.

:confused:

Hey guys, I have an mp3 file on my computer, but since its about 4 minutes long and plays at 128kbps, it takes a while to D/L from the site I have it autoplaying on (an msn space, via a "powertoy" tool designed for HTML failures).

My concern is speed-over-quality. I want this track to start playing within the first 5 or 10 seconds of the page being opened.

Is there any freeware I can get hold of that reduces the bit rate down to, say, 24kb/s?

Furthermore, is there any simple audio-editing freeware I can get hold of that allows me to cut the track? I only want a one minute sample of it playing - and it would be nice if I could get it to fade out at the end.

And finally, which would you recommend as the best free (I'm pretty cheap, you can probably tell) .mp3 hosting site (speed-wise)?

Many thanks :)

Noodles/Max

PS: My IE opens up audio files from websites in Windows Media Player, seperate from the web page itself. It also opens up a download-manager window. Are there ways I can change the settings to prevent this happening? It's very annoying. :o

You should use <bgsound> or <embed> tags. Also, don't use MP3 files. They might take a while to download over 56k modems. Try to stick to .midi files.

:thumbsup: .midi. okay, thanks!

Oh, but what can I do to the file to make it smaller?

Simply changing the extension to .midi doesn't reduce the size of the file.

Sorry to ask this - you're dealing with a very amateurish PC user. :o

Hi

I use Sound Forge 7 to edit all my sounds, really easy to use fade in fade out functions. My software was down loaded from Bitlord. Link to download Sound Forge.

http://www.download.com/Sound-Forge/3000-2170_4-10228786.html?tag=pdp_prod

You can use Macromedia flash to play tunes on your websites. Flash compresses the files for quick loading.

That's awesome :D