The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I built a website for a songwriter friend of mine. At her request, when you roll the mouse over the strings you are supposed to hear strummed notes.

http://www.aliciasmusic.com/

Right now, I've got a javascript that rigs the mouse rollover to play an MP3 at the same time as it swaps images. My problem is that the audio doesn't work on all machines. And when it does work, it's really slow... so if you're too quick with the mouse you could miss it altogether!

Is there a better/more efficient way to go about this??

Thx in advance!

Henrietta wrote:Is there a better/more efficient way to go about this??

Preload the sounds into an array: http://wsabstract.com/script/script2/soundlink.shtml (Or use Flash.)

I'll try it!

Please encourage your friend to abandon this practice. People like silent Web sites.

Especially if the noise in question is just beeps and bings that happen suddenly and surprisingly just in time for the boss to walk by and discover you surfing instead of working.

This is a well-documented fact of Web design.

I'm with JB. If I'm visiting a website that makes sound, I close it. I've usually got music playing on the computer as well, and a website that makes music without me asking it to is annoying.

It's a neat idea and the site looks nice, but it really ought to have the sound be off by default, and then give people the option to turn it on.

Gotta side with JB and JW on this one. Nice job otherwise, though.

I don't know what your friend is trying to do. However, I have visited websites devoted to middle eastern instruments and such, and when you mouse over instruments you hear a damn nice sample of what it sounds like. Now, that's cool because of the educational context.

One of them was based on the HeadSpace (Thomas Dolby's company) plug-in (which I can't remember the name of) and that worked very well.

But putting little cute sounds around is more like littering.

jb wrote:Please encourage your friend to abandon this practice. People like silent Web sites.

Especially if the noise in question is just beeps and bings that happen suddenly and surprisingly just in time for the boss to walk by and discover you surfing instead of working.

This is a well-documented fact of Web design.

big amen here.

There's this dog photography website that barks at you non-stop in a continuous loop. Definitely not good marketing.

Alicia has her heart set on this audio. She was pretty disappointed when it didn't work on her computer. I do like the idea of giving people the option, though.

i think it's pretty cool... but it would be bad for the sound if you're at work... for me it doesn't matter... it's pretty cool...
your friends music is really nice...

I think the plucked guitar strings are actually pretty cool and since they only activate when you're over a link I don't find it annoying like a music loop that plays continuous while you're viewing the page.

UnDesirable wrote:I think the plucked guitar strings are actually pretty cool and since they only activate when you're over a link I don't find it annoying like a music loop that plays continuous while you're viewing the page.

i agree. i think the key point is that any music on a webpage should be something that isn't played unless initiated by the visitor INTENTIONALLY. if the rollovers are obvious that they will trigger music, thats ok, but springing music on a webpage visitor without their knowledge is the quickest way to make me leave.

Okay, so far so good. I re-built the site and moved it to a new URL.

New Page:
http://www.aliciafall.com

(warning: this site may contain audio! )

i didn't hear any audio on my mozilla, if you want more feedback.
not firefox, the actual mozilla. could be their fault
-bill

Thanks for the info, Bill. Scott tested it on his Mac using Safari, and that didn't work either. Oh, well. I wonder if it only works on IE.

Henrietta wrote:Thanks for the info, Bill. Scott tested it on his Mac using Safari, and that didn't work either. Oh, well. I wonder if it only works on IE.

I got nothing on Firefox. It works in IE (although, it's an alternate tuning )

Henrietta wrote:Thanks for the info, Bill. Scott tested it on his Mac using Safari, and that didn't work either. Oh, well. I wonder if it only works on IE.

IF that is true, still, all is not lost. You'd just have to impliment another additional script. For years developers had to add extra tags for functions to work in Netscape as well as IE. There may be a blanket script that a variety of browsers have in common that you could use. Place that script in a way as to where it would execute after it ran the IE one first. It may not work as well on those other platforms...as you will probably run into many of the same problems you had in the first place...but would at least have the back up plan in place. Besides, anyone who visits her site with any regularity would have cached the sounds anyways..therefore loading faster.

but..you probably already knew this