web site audio poor

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jmorris

jmorris

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not sure where to post this but.. i sent some samples to a client, they posted it on there web site.i checked it out and i was like oh my god! bad quality. i sent mp3's, same as my site and the difference is frightening.why might this be? im not a web site guy. i would not think there would be any difference.
 
jmorris said:
not sure where to post this but.. i sent some samples to a client, they posted it on there web site.i checked it out and i was like oh my god! bad quality. i sent mp3's, same as my site and the difference is frightening.why might this be? im not a web site guy. i would not think there would be any difference.
Click to expand...
If they have done nothing with the MP3s and they simply offer them for download off of their site, there should be no difference.

if they are streaming their MP3s, however, then the sound is at the mercy of their streaming software and how it's configured. It is probably adding it's own level and type of base compression (data compression, not audio compression) and may be dynamically changing the compression rate depending upon server load and/or user's connection speed.

They may be able to tweak the streaming configuration for minimum compression settings or sometimes even none at all, depending on how they're doing it and depending upon what their hosting service will allow as far as bandwidth and server usage, but without knowing more about that, specific recommendations would be impossible to make.

G.
 
Yup.

Sites crank down the quality to reduce the amount of data they have to push over the pipes to save money. The fewer gigabytes they serve a month, the less they pay.

simple as that....
 
OK, they are using a Flash player to stream their audio. unfortunately this doesn't tell us much about what they are doing because there are many ways to skin the cat with Flash.

But what I'd recommend, Jim, would be sending then a stereo WAV instead of an MP3 file, and letting them convert it to .swa or MP3 using Flash itself. Also make sure that your browser has the latest version (9, I believe?) of the Flash player installed on it.

But I have to tell you, what I heard playing (Dylan's "Don't Think Twice") is not that awful for web audio; I have heard much, much worse, and listening through the web artifacting, one can tell that the original recording you made sounds quite good.

G.
 
Thanks Glen. I first sent(mailed) waves and they had no way to convert so then I sent mp3's.I assume the waves are too big for their site . Maybe I do as you suggested and convert it to .swa or MP3 using Flash myself if I can and send to them in mail
Thanks,Jim
 
jmorris said:
Thanks Glen. I first sent(mailed) waves and they had no way to convert so then I sent mp3's.I assume the waves are too big for their site . Maybe I do as you suggested and convert it to .swa or MP3 using Flash myself if I can and send to them in mail
Thanks,Jim
Click to expand...
Yeah the wave files themselves are too big.

I have to be honest here and say that it's been a couple of ears since I worked in the Flash development environment (two versions ago), so I'm not sure, for example, if Flash even still uses their proprietary .swa format (swa=ShockWave Audio) but it really is/was just their version of MP3 at the core. They had MP3-quality sounds and file sizes long before MP3 itself became popular.

But either way, I'd check out the Flash website and see if they have a utility for converting waves to either format for their Flash player. That may sound a bit better perhaps through their player.

I'd also ask them if they can tweak any settings on their player to decrease compression somewhat without any major increase in bandwidth. They my not know how, or they may simply be unwilling. Many folks with cable modems forget that there are still a lot of people out there with iDSL or worse connection speeds for which streaming full-bandwidth audio is just biting off a bit too much for comfort. It may be that this band is willing to sacrifice a bit of audio quality in order to reach a larger potential audience.

Anyway you slice it, Jim, listening to what I have heard thus far, you do a difficult job quite well, and I don't think what they have going hides that fact. It's like listening to a great mix on a crappy car stereo; yeah it sounds like a crappy car stereo, but you can still hear past that to tell that the recording itself is of better quality than that.

G.
 
Side bar. The gig that the samples are from I was lucky to have a very good band,very cooperative and a soundguy that let me setup band and mic's in any fashion I wanted.
 
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