Click on a chapter number above to review additional Web references as they appear in the book.

Downloading music and sound over the World Wide Web (WWW) is fun and challenging. In this web exercise, we'll review three basic techniques for downloading sound to your computer and listening to live audio over the WWW. After examining these techniques, we'll present some general questions to help you think through various issues including music piracy.

1. Streaming Audio

The first means of downloading sound is similar to asking a radio disk jockey to play a song: you request a song, and the disk jockey plays it. You don't receive a copy of the song, instead you receive a one-time playing of that song. Over the WWW, this technique is referred to as streaming audio. You make a request over the WWW by clicking on a button that sends a message to the Web site on whose home page the button is located, and then the Web site starts sending you the sound, which is immediately heard. You don't receive a copy of the sound. To experience this technique your Web browser (i.e. Netscape or MS Explorer) must have the proper player software, which is called a plug-in. In the WWW/audio world one of the most common plug-ins is by RealAudio (http://www.real.com) and is called RealPlayer. Many browsers have RealPlayer already installed. Two other higher quality products are StreamWorks (http://www.xingtech.com) and Liquid Audio (http://www.liquidaudio.com), but they are not as popular as RealPlayer.

Try it Out!

Use a browser with a RealPlayer or download a free RealPlayer from ReadAudio to visit Websites that "broadcast" RealAudio sound. Using a search engine with search words "realaudio" and "music" find some Web sites having RealAudio of interest to you. Here are 6 Websites to consider:

http://npr.org
National Public Radio WWW streaming audio site

http://www.sciencefriday.com
National Public Radio Science Friday audio archives

http://opera-rara.com
Sound clips of hard to find opera arias

http://www.reggaesource.com
Sound clips of reggae performers

http://www.policescanner.com
Listen to live police, air traffic controllers, and fire broadcasts

http://www.broadcast.com
Listen to selected radio stations and other audio sources

Now, locate three Web sites that satisfy the following requirements:

Record the URL and describe the Web site and the audio that you heard using a word processing program.

2. Sound Files

A second technique to download sound over the WWW consists of sending a complete sound file, which can then be played. This technique is older than the streaming audio technique but has an advantage: it allows you to store the sound file on your computer. It doesn't need to maintain Internet communication to play, so once you have it on your computer you can play it at anytime. The four most common types of sound files are the

Wave, AIFF, and AU sound files are portable because they are recognizable by most audio applications. The MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group) format requires a player program. MP3 (MPEG layer 3) is the hottest format/compression scheme in use on the WWW today. It allows a 40 megabyte 3 minute CD song to be compressed to about 3 megabytes and yet maintain CD quality. Information on the WWW about MP3 can be found at http://mp3.com and http://www.mp3now.com.

Try it Out!

Search the WWW for either Wave, AIFF, or AU sound files. Download at least two different types of sound and document the process by using a word processor, presentation program, browser or some application into which you can put both the sounds and text describing them. Some WWW sites that may be of help are:

http://osprey.anbg.gov.au/sounds
Bird sounds in au and wave formats

http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/~chai/sounds/songs
Songs in Wave and au formats

You can get the downloaded sound into a file on your hard drive by selecting Save As under the file menu in the browser that just played the sound. Go to http://mp3.com to download an appropriate MP3 player for your computer then download some songs and sounds from the WWW. Combine at least one sample of MP3 in your presentation from the first part. Try

http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/9777/snd-dist.html
Whale and dolphin sounds in MP3 format

3. MIDI Files

The world of music performance has been changed forever by MIDI ***write out*** and music synthesizers. MIDI is a set of rules for sending sound information and the electronic specifications on hooking up MIDI instruments. It has led to another way of storing sound and music. However, unlike the forms of music mentioned above, MIDI files don't contain the actual sounds. Instead they contain instructions on how to recreate up to sixteen voices simultaneously. These voices may be the sound of a piano that is stored and play upon command from the MIDI file. The major advantage of the MIDI file is that it is very small, because it doesn't need to contain the actual sound, but instead consists of the instructions on how to play the sound. The MIDI file can be played by a MIDI instrument or a MIDI player on a computer. If the MIDI player and associated sound making hardware of the computer are of a high quality, then the MIDI file will also sound good. The MIDI files can be created by a performer on a MIDI instrument to produce what sounds like a recording. The MIDI file can also be created by software that allows the creation of MIDI compositions.

Try it Out!

Search the WWW for both a MIDI plug-in for your Web browser or a MIDI player that works independently of Web browsers. Download some MIDI files and try them out.

http://www.downbeatcafe.com
Source for Crescendo, a Web browser MIDI plug-in for Windows and Macintosh and MIDI jazz files

http://midiworld.com/cmc
A classical music MIDI Web site

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/alphabetic/m
A source for audio shareware

http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-11396/swmipl.htm A source for SweetMidi, an editor and player for Windows computers

http://synapse.cs.byu.edu/~randy/jukebox.html
A source for the Midi Jukebox, an editor and player for Macintosh computers

Discussion Questions

1. You're a marketing person in the recording industry and would like to have a presence on the World Wide Web. As part of the marketing scheme you would like to allow the potential buyer to hear your music products. Which of the three techniques above (streaming audio, sound files, or MIDI) makes the most sense? Discuss the pros and cons of all three.

2. The recording industry has been caught sleeping. In fact, the World Wide Web has become a place where pirated music is circulating with the use of the MP3 format/compression scheme. In most states it is allowable to make copies of your own CD in MP3 format. What's wrong with sharing these copies with friends? Putting yourself in the position of the artist and recording company, what is the effect of copying? Make comparisons between pirating music and pirating software.

3. Which of the three forms/techniques used above are most suitable for demonstrating vocal music and animal sounds? Discuss each of them and give reasons for your recommendation.