Sound Alternatives

Trouble is, the Web has too many of them

Some people will tell you sound on the Web is this year's big thing. Everyone has fancy backgrounds and nice pictures and clever-looking spherical buttons and annoying animated GIF images; no-one has the time to download huge video images. But sound files can be easily created or found on the 'Net, and they download in reasonable time.

That's the theory. Reality is way different.

Not so long ago, in a quiet mood - kids in bed, cup of coffee on the desk, Miles Davis on the CD player - I turned on Microsoft Internet Explorer. Ten minutes later, I'd browsed my way accidentally to one of the largest collections of free sound files on the Web - SoundAmerica, at http://soundamerica.com/ (links to this and other sites are at the bottom of the page). And in an instant, I was watching and hearing some of Web sound's biggest problems.

SoundAmerica has tried to greet viewers with a voice sound file, no matter what browser they're using. Its voice, recorded in the common .wav format, calls out "wait a minute".

Wait a minute, indeed. By using the standard approach to creating a welcoming sound file, SoundAmerica has created the standard problem. It leaves Internet Explorer users reading an "ActiveX Viewer Not Installed" message and some confusing jargon about MIME types. The message asks them if they want to download and install an ActiveX viewer. (Sure, people just love installing new software...) Some of SoundAmerica's audience no doubt decide at that point that they'd rather go somewhere else.

Netscape v. Microsoft: war claims a victim

At the heart of SoundAmerica's problem, and that of similar sound-enabled Web pages, is one ugly fact: the warring giants Netscape and Microsoft give people different ways of hearing sounds when pages load. They both invented these different methods independent of the common Web standard (currently called HTML 3.2). Microsoft created an inoffensive piece of code called Background Sound - <bgsound> in the HTML code. (Microsoft has another tag for playing sounds after the page loads - <object> - which is part of the HTML standard; it isn't discussed here.) Netscape simply ignores bgsound, though. Recent versions of Netscape look instead for a piece of code called <embed>. But if you put Netscape's Embed into your pages, it often creates one of those complex messages in Microsoft Internet Explorer. And early versions of Netscape generate their own confusing messages (often including a "security alert") when they meet sound files.

So you must choose. You can risk scaring off part of your audience, as SoundAmerica did. Or you can leave your Netscape audience hearing nothing. The creators of Project Cool at http://www.projectcool.com, among others, have taken that route; their otherwise very Netscape-oriented site plays beautiful sounds, but only for Internet Explorer. Complained Project Cool co-creator Glenn Davis in an e-mail to me: "Boy, I wish there were (Web browser) standards that really meant something". Amen.

MIDI shrinks Darth

SoundAmerica also displays another problem, when it tries to offer its visitors some music. Actually, it thrusts it down their throat, playing the Star Wars theme automatically. Because it uses a sound format called MIDI, the theme loads quickly. But on my cheap sound card and even cheaper speakers, the MIDI version of the Star Wars theme induced not awe but laughter. Imagine the cheapest, tinniest Hammond organ you ever heard. Imagine Darth Vader three foot tall, and dressed in canary yellow.

I listened bemused for about five seconds, then realised this cacophony threatened to wake the kids. But the squeakingly un-epic theme just wouldn't stop; I had to mute the audio on my computer.

My adventures at SoundAmerica, and on a few other wired-for-sound sites, gave me a new view of sound on the Web. The mere fact that you can put sound on your pages doesn't mean you should. I found too many noisy Web pages which suggested merely an I-can-do-this-too attitude rather than any great purpose.

Then again ... I confess, I find sound hard to resist. My ideal Web page opening would play unobtrusively on various browers (especially the heavily-used Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer), fit in with the theme of the page, and wouldn't scare the users. And intrusive sounds would give listeners the choice: play it or don't.

Truth is, it's hard to meet all these criteria.

Trying for a quiet solution

I've so far restricted its use at Lighthouse on the Web to an appropriate and Internet Explorer-only welcome - the sound on waves lapping on the shore. That sound fits the coastal graphics at the Lighthouse site. The waves also sound good even in a low-quality audio file: the sea and static sound much the same. Those waves shouldn't take anyone by surprise; they aim to be restful and brief, running just long enough to help create a mood on the page. (Even so, these ocean sounds make up the largest single file in my Web site). And the sound loads after everything else on the page, leaving you free to read.

But I'm also experimenting with more complex sound ideas in one corner of the site. This sub-site aims to play sounds for everyone, without scary messages. It does so by using Web technology such as the JavaScript scripting language, created by Netscape and supported by Internet Explorer, to check what browser people are using, and then by using frames to load the appropriate sound. That makes the noise available only to visitors who possess a copy of Netscape 2.0 or better, or Internet Explorer 3.0. Other visitors still get the text and graphics.

(Note that by using frames, this site also gains a serious weakness: users whose browsers can see the frames won't be able to print the page out. Like the <embed> tag, frames are both blessing and curse. Netscape excels at this sort of thing.)

After my SoundAmerica Star Wars experience, I'm wary of throwing MIDI music at anyone. But I have included a MIDI tune on the page, as an experiment. Project Cool, which uses a highly-appropriate and beautifully-executed version of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, shows such efforts can work. After sorting through a pile of files at the Classical MIDI Archives (http://www.prs.net/midi.html#index), I settled on Les Barricades Mysterieuses, by the seventeenth-century composer Francois Couperin. Originally designed for that rather tinny instrument the harpsichord, the tune holds up surprisingly well on my rotten sound card. But it won't play unless you click a button on my site, and you can stop it whenever you want.

You can visit the Lighthouse sound page now. When you return, feel free to e-mail your thoughts.

SoundAmerica boasts plenty of useful sound files, despite its tinny opening (the tune is regularly changed, so the Star Wars theme may no longer be in use).

The Classical MIDI Archives has thousands of out-of-copyright tracks in concise MIDI Format, and makes a fascinating browse even if you don't want to put one in your Web page.

This innocent personal page represents the state of the art in the misguided use of music - and quite a few other Web page features. (Credit where it's due: the site was first discovered by the Enhanced for Netscape Hall of Shame, which rightly describes it as "truly a masterpiece" .)

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Lighthouse on the Web: http://werple.net.au/~dwalker/

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