There are two essentially different ways of generating music on a computer; they may be termed synthesis and analysis. In synthesis, the qualities of the sound are specified, but the tone itself is synthesized with parameters in your computer. Alternatively, an actual sound may be analyzed and recorded as a pattern of loudness levels. Information for synthesis of music is usually stored in a MIDI file, such as medea03.mid.
Analytic information is often stored in files ending in .AU or .WAV. Those two formats are internally identical, but other file types are also used. Some offer compression to save storage. Regardless, AU and WAV files are supported on most computers accessing the Internet. Analysis has an advantage over synthesis in presenting the sound as it existed when captured; synthesis has an advantage in taking far less storage to convey the same number of notes.
A compromise between quality and size of file has been available for a few years and is used in most of the files at this site. MP3 is level three of the Motion Picture Experts Group standard for sound. It is one of the standard formats in use today and most browsers have the necessary plugins in place. Among the freeware tools for using MP3 files are those associated with Microsoft's Windows Media Player, WinAmp at http://www.winamp.com/, RealMedia at http://www.real.com/ and some programs at AudioActive, http://www.audioactive.com/
Playing back MIDI files requires more elaborate setup than handling WAV or AU. Quality documentation or help from someone who knows what to do is usually the minimum for successful configuration of your computer to create the sound that was intended. Playback of analysis files requires only a simple program or applet. However, you need to choose between an applet that does the work for you and one that lets you do it yourself. In this case, 'the work' is just starting, stopping and killing the program.
MP3 Compressed audio is available in several formats of which I prefer MP3. It offers better sound per kilobyte downloaded than WAV files, so it is preferable for many uses. Not all systems handle MPEG files well, but players are readily available for PC's and Mac's. On the Macintosh, I encourage you to download and install QuickTime 4. On the PC, either WinAmp from http://www.winamp.com/ or the AudioActive from http://www.audioactive.com works well.
Many visitors to this site prefer to save the audio clips and accompanying HTML rather than listening while on-line. That makes it easier to return to the files later - especially since they are posted here for only a short time.
Mail me at operas@mrichter.com
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