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HOW TO GET YOUR MUSIC ONTO THE WEB
This has been pieced together from various posts on the JLSC BB.
There are many sites where you can post your music on the web. Here are some of those I am aware of:
I don't know about the second site, soundclick. You'll have to go to all of them and read the info.
Each site has a different way of uploading. You'll have to go there, probably register first and then explore the possibilities. Most likely it is just a button which enables you to browse you PC until you find the file you need to upload. This will probably have to be in a small enough format like mp3 or rm (realmedia) to be accepted.
SETTING UP AND MAINTAINING YOUR OWN WEB SITE
You can get a web site for free at www.netfirms.com, but you cannot download media files using the internet browser. This can serve as a depository of media files and use an FTP program to upload and download. Useful for communicating with a remote partner, where you both have access to it, but you have to manage it properly so you don't destroy each other's work.
Or you can purchase a cheap hosting package (www.solidinternet.com, $30US/year) and make your own site, with just about full privileges.
Registering a nice domain name is another charge ($9US/year or less at www.godaddy.com ). For this you must know how to set up web sites, though.
When you deal with your own site (one that you create yourself, not on any of the others listed at the top), you upload usually using an FTP program. There are many of those around and they are free from various places. You may already have one on your PC. The one that I use is Ipswich FTP (WS_FTP95.exe) which I find very easy to use. You'll find this and other FTP programs by doing a search on the web for "FTP", or at www.download.com .
FILE FORMATS TO UPLOAD TO YOUR WEB SITE
WAV, MP3, WMA, RM, ETC.
For the purpose of streaming or allowing downloads from your web site the audio files should be as small as possible without compromising audio quality. WAV files are just too large to be uploaded/downloaded repeatedly, taking up both too much space and too much bandwidth. Besides, unless you have a premium web site (that you paid for as opposed to a free one) you probably won't have enough space to store a full WAV file, as it takes about 9-10MB for each minute of audio at 44KHz, 16-bit, the regular settings for good audio. So your average file will be at least about 30MB, already too much for the free web sites to handle. The preferred format for audio files is MP3, which can be played by all types of media players. Several programs can convert WAV files into MP3, one of them being Nero Media Player (www.ahead.com), usually it is provided free with various CD burners. Other programs that can convert WAV files into MP3's can be found at www.download.com .
A very comprehensive free audio file conversion program, dBpowerAMP Music Converter R6, is available for download at http://www.dbpoweramp.com. NB. NOW FOR ALL OPERATING SYSTEMS! The download becomes a little confusing with a myriad of accessories needed for download such as different codecs and plug-ins, but it turns out that most of them should be installed in order to allow all the different file formats. The help is also a little confusing to use, with no keyword search function apparently, but trial and error works best! This program has a useful option for creating files in WMA format, native to Windows Media Player, which are touted as being better than MP3. WMA files are required by one of the music hosting sites mentioned above (e.g. www.acidplanet.com)
Besides the MP3 format, there is the native format of Real Audio which is I believe only available from the manufacturers of Real Audio (RealOne, etc), at www.real.com , a free version of which is called Real Producer. The Real Audio format is suitable for streaming, and is especially good at creating very small lo-fi audio files for dial-up internet service.
Various music recording & processing programs such as Voyetra's Digital Orchestrator Pro (www.voyetra.com) create audio files in native formats, which can be transformed into WAV formats. The native format files (ORC) are at least as large as the corresponding WAV file. Since typically these native formats preserve the original track settings and information of the recording, they are suitable for transferring to and from a web site by FTP, in order to share with other collaborators who also have the same music processing software, on condition that the web site be large enough to allow the storage of the files.
There are many different music recording & processing programs, each of which has a different native file format, so extra feedback from others would be greatly appreciated. Please post it on the JLSC message board, the information will eventually find its way here.
USEFUL SITES FOR FINDING AND DOWNLOADING SOFTWARE AND GETTING INFORMATION
www.download.com - for just about everything: freeware, shareware and for a fee
http://www.tucows.com/ - for a comprehensive software library available for download
http://members.lycos.co.uk/vocalist/ - for all manner of educational music software
www.askjeeves.com - ask almost any question, you'll probably get a meaningful answer, and you won't have to look at numerous irrelevant sites
www.google.com - best all-purpose search engine
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