7 Tips to Better Web Audio

Producing audio for the web is a tradeoff between download speed and quality. Follow these steps to optimize your Internet audio.

One of the major considerations for putting audio on the web is the download time, especially for those without broadband connections. Audio formats that compress the file, like MP3 and Windows Media have been created in order to reduce download time.

These and other audio formats use "lossy" compression, that is, they sacrifice some audio quality in order to make the file smaller. Typically, for a given format, the more the compression, the less the quality. Here are seven things you can do to have the best possible quality in your download files.

1. Analyze your needs before you start. How much quality do you really need? Music needs to be of higher quality than voice. If your files are long, you may need higher compression rates to make the download time reasonable. What quality must be delivered to the listener? Will your listener be able to decode the compression format you have chosen?

2. Start with the best quality audio possible. Starting with high quality audio will give you a better sounding final compressed file. If there is noise in the audio track the compression algorithm is going to think it is data and will have to work harder to compress it. For a given data rate, the quality will thus be lower.

3. Edit your script and edit your audio. Keep the files as small as possible to minimize the download time by keeping your message concise. Edit out extraneous pauses and anything else unnecessary.

4. Record in monaural or convert before encoding. Converting from stereo to mono cuts the amount of data in half! Voice should always be in mono and use stereo music files only when absolutely necessary.

5. Compress the audio. Use volume compression or limiting to limit the dynamic range of your track. Volume compression will give you a more even and better sounding track after data compression.

6. Bandwidth limit the audio before encoding. Remove the extreme high and low frequencies from your file before encoding. For voice recordings, rolling everything off below 100 Hz. and above 8 KHz. will still produce great sounding audio but will make the encoder work less hard, thus creating a smaller file size for a given quality.

7. Create test files. Try different amounts of compression and different algorithms if you have that option. Upload the files up to the web and choose the smallest file size that gives you adequate quality for your application. 

Windows Media and MP3 files seem to be the most universally accepted compression formats. MP3 files are the most popular for music. Almost all Windows computers have Windows Media Player -- If they don't, it's available as a free download. Media player has better quality than MP3 for a given bitrate.

Follow these tips and you are on your way to great Internet audio.

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