Rosa Drake Julstrom • 4950 N. Ashland Ave., Apt. 754 • Chicago, IL., 60640, USA
Phone: (773) 961-8691 • E-Mail: julstrom@macomb.com
Tips on Playing, Recording, and Translating Sound Files
NOTE: We've just discovered that on a Mac, using Apple's QuickTime ver 4.0 plug-in (standard with newer Mac OS 8.6 installations) that there seems to be a bug relating to streaming audio clips. This problem manifests by having gaps when playing .WAVE files from Netscape 4. The fix is fairly simple, and is described below.
"Streaming" means that theoretically, QuickTime ver 4.0 should be able to begin playing the sound clip before it's downloaded completely, after you click on its link. Apparently this is a problem, however, since on both an iMac (G3 processor), as well as a Power PC, both running under OS 8.6, that there were gaps in the sound clips. The virtual memory setting (OFF or ON) didn't make any difference in this.
How to fix audio clip gaps when using QuickTime 4.0
To fix the apparent bug with QuickTime 4.0, when playing .WAV sound clips on a Mac using Netscape 4.x, do the following:
- In Netscape, select the FILE menu, then PREFERENCES.
- On the left, under CATEGORIES, click on APPLICATIONS under the NAVIGATOR category.
- You see a list of plug-ins/applications under the left column called "Description". Under the right column, you see what plug-in or application that file type is currently "Handled By." Follow the instrucitons below to make the two following file types ("audio/wav" and "WAV audio") something other than QuickTime 4.0.*
- Highlight the first file type ("audio/wav"), then click the EDIT button. Click the triangle in the box to the right of where it says "Plug-ins". You see a popup menu with a listing of the installed plug-ins appropriate for translating .WAV files. Select "Live Audio" or other selection that is NOT QuickTime 4.0.
- Click OK.
- Repeat the process for the "WAV audio" file type, also changing it to "Live Audio" on the Plug-in popup menu. Click OK twice when you're done.
- Quit Netscape, then start it again. The sound clips should now stop streaming so wait for each to download before it starts to play. The gaps should not be a problem after restarting Netscape.
*Appropriate choices in the "Handled by" column for the "audio/wav" and "WAV audio" file types might be "Live Audio" or "QuickTime 3". (If you need to uninstall QuickTime 4, so you can reinstall QuickTime 3, there are instructions for doing this on Apple's support pages under QuickTime 4.0 troubleshooting. The easiest option, if the "Live Audio" plug-in is installed, is to use that or some other available option instead.)
Overview Information on Sound Files
.WAV files (also called "Wave files") are the standard sound type for IBM-compatible computers. If you have an IBM-compatible computer that's not too antiquated, your browser should readily recognize and play .WAV sound clips on this site. Or you should be able to download the recorded samples and play them using standard Windows sound software.
Mac users need simply to verify that your browser is set to recognize (and therefore automatically translate and play) .WAV files from the Mac-standard sound format, which is AIFF. (See Edit/Preferences in Netscape 4.x, under the Navigator/Applications category.)
It takes a few seconds for the browser to start downloading the "Recorded Samples" so give it at least a few minutes after clicking on a "Recorded Sample" link, to see if the clip will start playing. Either QuickTime® or LiveAudio® helper applications will work to play .WAV files through your browser on your Mac.
If your browser is too old, you can upgrade it (if you have appropriate system resources (RAM, disk space, processing power), or you can download and install SoundApp, a share ware sound application for Mac. SoundApp® is available at the URL at the end of this text, free of charge. I recently downloaded SoundApp 68k, Version 2.6.1, (1.4 mb in size) and yes, it works fine on a PowerMac. SoundApp also does a wonderful job of translating various sound file formats.
I recorded some of the (better sounding) sound samples for this site using Simple Sound, which is standard issue Mac software. Since Mac standard sound format is AIFF, I then used SoundApp to translate the AIFF sounds into the .WAV format that you find on these pages.
I did this to conserve space, as most computers in the world are IBM-compatible, and because sound files are very large, effectively discouraging the use of both .AIFF and .WAV together. I have read there is a universal sound format called .AU, that is supposed to be compatible with Mac, IBM, and Sun. We might look into using .AU instead of .WAV as this site evolves, but I hear it's limited to 8 bits. (But we had to use the "voice quality" (8 bit) setting on SimpleSound to record the clips for this site anyway, because of the large size of the sound files!)
The size of sound clips (and anything else on a web site) is very important, not just because of disk space considerations on the web server (and on your hard disk as you are working with them), but more so because of the download (playback) time involved for the end user.
Thanks for visiting this page, and you feedback (and composition orders :) are always greatly appreciated.
Sincerely:
Julstrom Enterprises
Click on the link below if you want to download SoundApp:
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