Audio on your computer -- Overview

1. Using a microphone plugged into sound card line in, you can record directly: open Recorder, click Record, speak, then click Stop and save as *.wav.
2. OR, using a tape recorder, you can record voice and/or music.
3. Then plug a cable into tape recorder line out (this is usually the plug used for the headphones) and plug the other end into the sound card line in.
4. Open your audio application and select the recording source, here, tape.
5. Click Record while playing your tape. Then click Stop and save as *.wav.
6. Open your Wave editor, edit your file, save.
7. OR you can copy material from a CD -- with steps 4 to 6.
   
8. OR you can use a keyboard or other electronic instrument to produce music in MIDI format.
9. OR you can download a freeware sound file from the Web.

• Adobe Acrobat Reader -- pdf -- free, for seeing and printing pages that retain their original look, such as "sheet music.". Used by online newspapers. If you own Adobe Acrobat for the creation of pdf files it gets automatically plugged into your browser. (Get the academic version to save money.)
• Apple QuickTime -- free, for Mac and PC audio and video -- see below
With the free version of QuickTime, you can play and create many kinds of files, including video, audio, graphics, and virtual (VR) movies. The free version of QuickTime includes QuickTime Player, which you can use to play media located on your computer's hard disk, a CD, or the Internet.
With the full-featured version, called QuickTime Pro, you can do such things as play movies full screen, save files from the Internet, edit audio and video, add special effects, create slideshows, and convert and save video, audio, and images to more than a dozen standard file formats. You can purchase a registration key to upgrade to QuickTime Pro at www.apple.com/quicktime.
• Macromedia Flash Player
• Shockwave by Macromedia
• Shockwave Flash -- swf, spl --
• RealPlayer/RealOne Player by RealNetwork -- see below -- the basic version is free but the pro version includes an editor
  
• Java -- comes with Windows to run Java applets
• Windows Media Player -- see below -- comes with Windows

Each plug-in works with different file formats. Having all three suffices for basic use. Make sure you associate them according to your preference.
Most of them can be upgraded, and for a fee to a better version for more professional use.
But do keep in mind that your targeted audience needs a plug-in to see the file format you are using.

Check your Netscape Help, About Plug-ins, to see what plug-ins are already installed on your computer, and download or purchase and install any others you may need.

Digital audio file formats

WAV --
MS Windows and NT operating systems -- for recording and playback of recorded sound. Easy to create with Recorder but playable only on a PC. Also, the file is not compressed, therefore it is typically larger and takes longer to download. Use it for short sound clips only.

AU --
standard for Unix computers. Most Web browsers include the capability to play “AU” files directly. so it makes the format a good choice for Internet work that will be received by a larger Net audience. This type of file, like the Microsoft WAV format, can be larger than other types of audio files, so it is best used for short sound clips for effective download times. When using AU files on a Web page, you will need to use an outside program (such as the shareware package CoolEdit or the commercially available program Sound Forge) to load the WAV you have recorded and convert it to AU format.

Real Audio (RA) --
Real Audio and Real Video are free downloadable “plug-ins”. You can obtain a free encoder to convert files from WAV to Real Audio format. Real Audio and Real Video files use compression schemes to make a file small for Internet use – some loss of quality is apparent, but you can control what type of compression you wish to use for the file, depending on the target audience and recorded contents.