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Designing Web Audio is coming to a book store near you...
Designing Web Audio demystifies Internet audio with step-by-step techniques for encoding, compressing, and streaming audio over the Internet with today’s most popular web audio formats: MP3, RealAudio, Flash, Shockwave, Beatnik, Java and MIDI. The book is an invaluable resource for web developers looking to integrate high quality professional audio into their web productions. The book features the following chapters: Chapter
1:
THE
ART OF SOUND DESIGN This chapter introduces the basic challenges to implementing a high quality soundtrack over the Internet using the three basic web audio components: 1) Event Sounds for button and transitions 2) Ambient Loops for fast downloading background music or ambient noise, and 3) Realtime Audio Captions for instantaneous playback of longer playing music and speech files. The chapter also covers the basic principles of good sound design and highlights the differences between interactive sound design for the web versus film sound design. Chapter
2: THE SCIENCE OF SOUND AND DIGITAL AUDIO Chapter two illustrates the practical applications of acoustics (how sound waves are created and dispersed through the air) and digital audio theory and covers a broad range of key audio terms such as frequency, decibels, amplitude, sample-rate, bit-depth, dynamic range, and more. The first part of the chapter discusses the basic principles of acoustics. The second part of the chapter illustrates how sound waves are converted into binary code including tips for capturing the best digital signal possible. Chapter
3: CAPTURING ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL Chapter three demonstrates the step by step methods for recording high quality audio including a review and buyers guide of the best recording equipment on the market. Chapter
4: OPTIMIZING
YOUR SOUND FILES Chapter four covers the basics of "web mastering" (optimizing your audio for web broadcasting and delivery) including step by step tips and real world case studies demonstrating how to properly edit, equalize, normalize, and add special effects to your final soundtrack. Chapter
5: INTRODUCTION TO STREAMING MEDIA
Chapter five introduces the most popular audio technologies and formats available on the Web today. Now that we have covered the basics of professional sound production, let's take a look at the most common Web multimedia formats and the underlying technology behind streaming media. If you are integrating audio into your Web site for the first time, you will want to read this chapter to get an overview of the most popular formats. Skip ahead to the following chapters if you are familiar with the basics of streaming media formats and want to jump right into your specific area of interest. Chapter
6: ENCODING, SERVING, AND STREAMING SOUND
WITH REALAUDIO Chapter seven provides a thorough review of the technology behind streaming audio including a step by step guide to using the Internet’s most popular audio format: RealAudio. Chapter
7:
REALSYSTEM
G2 AND SMIL RealNetworks' newest platform release, RealSystem G2, introduces powerful new capabilities into streaming media, allowing you to stream multiple media and data types, including separate audio, video, image and text files, in a synchronized presentation. In addition, G2 offers many improvements in the efficiency and functionality of encoding and streaming media files. Chapter
8: INTERACTIVE SOUND DESIGN WITH FLASH AND SHOCKWAVE
Two of the most popular tools for delivering interactive multimedia on the Web are Macromedia Flash and Shockwave. Both technologies offer superior control over multimedia creation and playback across various browsers and platforms. Flash and Shockwave should be your first choice for developing exciting content with motion graphics and sound. Chapter
9:
THE
BEATNIK™ MUSIC SYSTEM Another exciting development in Web audio is Beatnik and the Rich Music Format (RMF) developed by Beatnik Inc., formerly known as Headspace (www.beatnik.com), a company co-founded by popular music icon Thomas Dolby. The format allows for intelligent user interaction, along with high-quality music playback over the web. Perhaps most important to music producers and enthusiasts, the Beatnik system ensures music playback exactly as it was created in the Beatnik Editor, regardless of the users platform or machine. Chapter
10: MP3 - MUSIC DISTRIBUTION REVOLUTION Imagine a world in which the big record companies and radio stations no longer control what you can hear and buyŠ Imagine a world in which new artists are discovered by the people, new bands build their audiences worldwide, and new music can be distributed to millions of people around the globe for freeŠ Imagine a world in which consumers can choose the music they want, pay for it song by song, and then burn their own personal CDąs or memory chips Š This is the world of music distribution on the InternetŠ This is the world of MP3. Chapter
11:
GLOBAL
MUSIC DISTRIBUTION COMES OF AGE: LIQUID AUDIO While MP3 has gained tremendous popularity and press coverage as the most widely used music distribution format on the Internet, it does not provide the back-end server side features that record companies and small record labels demand. Such features such as copyright protection, digital water marking, and e-commerce functionality for collecting money can be found in a system called Liquid Audio. Chapter
12: MIDI: QUICK AND EASY AUDIO FOR THE WEB If you are looking for an easy, low cost solution to add some theme music or button rollover sound to your Web site without the traditional wait involved with downloading digitized audio clips, MIDI may be the format for you. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a super compact musical language that transmits instructions such as pitch, volume, and note duration to MIDI compatible sound cards and synthesizers. Originally adopted in the 80's as an efficient standard for communicating between multiple synthesizers, MIDI happens to be ideally suited for the low bandwidth web medium.
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