Creating Sound Files

Most newer personal computers (and many newer workstations) come out of the box with simple hardware and software for using a microphone to record your voice and other sounds. The sound quality of files created in this manner will not be very good, but this equipment does provide a means for you to create files with personally customized messages that you can include on your Web pages.

Digitally recording and storing sounds of professional quality still requires equipment that is expensive and out of reach of today's average Web page creator. No doubt this situation will improve in the near future.

Creating a Sound File on the Macintosh

You can make sound recordings on a Macintosh if it has a microphone and the program Sound Machine.
  1. Open Sound Machine and choose "AIFF Record" from under the "Utilities" menu.

  2. This prompts for a file name under which the sound file will be saved. Give a name and directory for the file and choose "Save".

  3. This should pop up a recording panel. Click "Record", speak into the microphone to record, and then click "Stop" when you are finished recording.

  4. Click "Save" to store under the previously chosen name.
The resulting file is in AIFF format.

Linking to Your Sound File

The sound file that you have just produced can be played from a browser link like 
<a href="file.aiff">Sound File</a>
if file.aiff was the name of the file recorded above and the browser is configured to play sound files of this type.

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