AUDIO.COM - a place for your music and linking it to Forums

[Hugh-AR]

An initial topic explaining what audio.com was all about and how it is connected with Audacity is already up in the Forum (LINK below). There are also instructions in that topic on how to join, and how to get your music uploaded into this new 'cloud'.

Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=200&t=11308

Summary of audio.com

AUDIO.COM is a storage 'cloud' .. a place for you to put your music. In the Title I have added, "and LINK your music to Forums", but AUDIO.COM is more than that. It is a platform for musicians to upload their music to, and to check out what other musicians are doing. Use the SEARCH facility to search, not only for songs other musicians may have played, but for the musicians themselves. Another useful feature is to be able to 'embed' the music track into a Forum.

To do this in our Forum you have to find the NUMBERS to put in between the [audiocom] BBCodes.

When you have uploaded your audio.com MP3 (or WAV file) to your Page (Channel), look in the top right hand corner for the 'triangle symbol'. This example is taken from a track I have uploaded into my audio.com Channel .. Whiter Shade Of Pale.



Click on that and you see these options. Click on EMBED (don't click on COPY LINK!).



You then see a 'string' of computer Code.



Don't click on COPY CODE!
You need those numbers you can see in the middle of it.
Quickest way to do that is to click with the mouse at one end of the numbers and 'drag' to the other end to 'highlight' them ..



.. then do a right-click and choose Copy. (You have to have your mouse pointer over the highlighted blue bit when you do this to get the Copy showing in the drop-down box.)
Those numbers are now sitting on your clipboard waiting for you to Paste them into the BBCode in your post.
Or, if you prefer, just write those numbers down on a piece of paper so you can insert them into the [audiocom] BBCode by hand.

Next ...

Click with your mouse where you want the Embedded track to appear.
Look for the BBCode audiocom above the posting box and click on it.



When hovering your mouse over a BBCode a brief explanation comes up telling you what to do .. which is what I am doing here!



You then have to PASTE (or type out by hand) those numbers between the two sets of square brackets.



When you have finished putting everything you want into your post, click on Submit (underneath).
.


Click the Play arrow and it will play.

So now, folks, if you are posting audio.com LINKS, can you do them please as 'Embedded' LINKS?
It will mean people stay on the page and can read any comments while they are listening.

Hugh

[dentyr]

Got very confused until I found the "numbers" After a trial It worked.



Den

[barwonfan]

I'm wondering if there is some advantage in using Audio.com
I used it successfully to-day, but I think Box.com is pretty good.

[Hugh-AR]

JT,

You ask:

I'm wondering if there is some advantage in using Audio.com. I think Box.com is pretty good.

Loads of advantages!

For starters. what do you mean by, "I think Box.com is pretty good". Good for what? Letting you listen to the audio? Both platforms do the same.

With audio.com you can see the name of the song you are about to listen to. You can't with BOX.

If you were going to click on a LINK, would you rather see ...

https://app.box.com/s/2qjp021znp4jg2cj3wjjwf4uexqolw0g

... or

https://audio.com/hugh-ar/god-save-the-king

From the audio.com LINK you can see both the name of the 'poster' and the name of the song.

When you go to listen to the audio.com music you can see the NAME of the poster under the title of the song. Click on that and you will be taken to that poster's Page (Channel) ... where you can see all the other uploads of music that person has done and listen to any one of them .. so long as they have chosen the option enabling you to do that ie. they have chosen Public (and not Unlisted). With BOX you get to listen to just that one track. No chance of listening to any others that have been put up into BOX by that person (you don't even know who posted it).

Audio.com has been created for MUSICIANS. It is FREE to use, and UNLIMITED (so you can put up WAV files if you want to). With BOX there is a LIMIT to how much you can put in there (although agreed, it's quite a lot if it's MP3). Also BOX is basically a storage area for OFFICES so their staff can collaborate and work on things together when not in the office. And to do this THERE IS A CHARGE. Box are constantly trying to get me to UPGRADE and pay for a plan. If they ever decide that everyone will have to pay, none of your music that's already up there will be available for people to listen to unless you pay to allow "Third Party LINKS" eg. to Forums, Facebook and Twitter.

Now, about doing the audio.com music as an Embedded LINK. For starters, it shows on the screen, within the post (see the below). You can put an IMAGE into your work too (I have put a Union Jack into this one), which only enhances how it looks. Take a look at the two 'worded' LINKS above, and then take a look at what you see below. How about that for PRESENTATION?



You can click on the person's name (which you can see .. Hugh-AR in my case) and you will be taken to that 'Channel' to listen to any other tracks you want to listen to played by that person. If you click the arrow in the Embedded LINK above to listen, it all takes place within the post. This means you can scroll up or down and read other comments in the topic whilst listening to the music.

Another advantage of having a Page (Channel) and belonging to this community. They have a Search, at the top. Click on that and search for a song (eg. More) ...



... click on MUSIC (at the top of the page once it loads .. it's music you are looking for) and you come up with a list of songs with 'More' in the Title (don't think anyone else has played the 'More' I know). Scroll down a bit and you will find my name and can listen to my recording of it.





Had no idea it would take me this long to explain why people are using audio.com now for their music!

It is a storage area for MUSICIANS, a bit like YouTube, but instead of videos you put up MP3 (or WAV) files.

I rest my case.

Hugh

[dentyr]

No problem putting in a pic, even got a new background. Den.



These audio.com LINKS look really professional in the Forum! Hugh

[barwonfan]

Thank you, Hugh for listing some of the advantages of using Audio.com
You signed off by saying "I rest my case"
Indeed you did! Rumpole could not have done better.
I will embrace Audio.com fourthwith
That is " In the fullness of time" to quote Sir Humphrey in "Yes Minister"
Congratulations, J.T.

[Ron]

Comment from JT (barwonfan)

I'm wondering if there is some advantage in using Audio.com. I think Box.com is pretty good.

Box is nothing but a commercial storage facility which is free to use at the moment. However, there are rumours circulating that this service will eventually have to be paid for.
So, use Audio.com which is free and is continually being developed and improved. It allows users to present their music in a most attractive manner and is well worth trialling at least. However, if all you are interested in storing mp3 files then carry on using Box.

Ron

[dentyr]

"One Day When We Were Young"

Example of putting in an an odd size pic.



Putting photos into your music presentation is not as bad as you think. If you upload a picture of any size, audio.com will put a dotted square into the picture. This can be made smaller (or larger) by grabbing the corners and moving them in or out; and then clicking on the square you can drag it to the part of the picture you want.



This is a pic of my great granddaughter, showing which part of the picture I wanted to use.



As you can see, the pic was taken with a phone but Audio allowed me to just put in
the important bits.

Q.E.D.
Dennis.

[Ron]

This is how I have done it on my iPad.

Steps for placing photo

1. Choose Title
2. Choose photo
3. Edit photo into square shape
4. Click on USE picture
5. Use - (minus) symbol to enlarge the inner moving square box until it fills window but without any white border showing anywhere. To achieve this a small area of the photo may have to be discarded
6. Click on SAVE
7. Photo will now be displayed in Title part of the recording.

Ron

PS. In my Photo app on iPad, I just spotted an Aspect button. When this is clicked you then have the option to click on Square, all pics then become a perfect square. This will make it even quicker to import photos to Audio.com

[Hugh-AR]

How to get a 'square' image put into your audio.com music file.

First, find the music track you want to put the square image into. Click on the pencil icon ...



... and the Edit Audio page is displayed.

In Edit Audio, the 'square' on the left of the music track is the picture that will show with your track. If this is the first time you have uploaded a picture for this piece of music, the 'default' that will be showing is the AVATAR that you sent them when you joined. Underneath, it shows a pencil icon and says EDIT COVER. Note that I have already uploaded a picture to this track, so this post is by way of explanation only.



Clicking on EDIT COVER takes me to the Folders on my computer for me to choose the 'image' I want to upload. The picture I have is 2560 x 1536 pixels. I highlight my picture and then click Open.



I now get the below. My uploaded picture is in the background (all of it ** ) and in the middle is a 'dotted' SQUARE. You can tell it's a SQUARE as inside it there are white dotted lines showing 3 x 3 squares. Note that in the corners of the dotted square there are very small 'white' squares. If you hover your mouse over a corner you get a double-arrow for you to 'click and hold' and drag the square inwards or outwards. When you do this it reduces/enlarges the size of the square, keeping it's square shape. The idea of this operation is to position that dotted square over the part of the picture you want. The program will then crop and insert what is inside that square into your music file.

** Note: If you don't have the whole of your picture showing, hold down the Ctrl key and roll your mouse wheel towards you. This will change the amount of the picture you see inside the Edit rectangle.

I have all my picture showing in the below.



1. To SHRINK or ENLARGE the dotted square, grab one of the four corners of the square (a white double arrow shows) and drag it inwards or outwards until it is roughly the size of the area you want to cover.
2. To MOVE the dotted square, click and hold INSIDE the square (a four pointed white arrow shows) and drag it to where you want it.
When the dotted square is covering the image you want to show in your audio.com file, click on Save Changes underneath.



You now get to see the results of your efforts.

There is also a SAVE at the very bottom that you have to click on.



And this is how my music track has ended up. With my square picture on the left.
You can click the arrow to play it.

This is a mixture of 'Summertime' (composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess) and 'St. Louis Blues' (from the 1929 American film starring Bessie Smith).



Note: With these embedded audio.com LINKS, if you click on the NAME of the poster you will be taken straight to their Page (Channel) on audio.com and be able to listen to any other music they have posted (so long as they have uploaded their tracks as Public and not Unlisted). And if you click the 'down-arrow' showing (top right) you can download the music onto your computer (it'll be either MP3 or WAV). If the poster has not allowed their music to be downloaded then this arrow will not show. Clicking on the last symbol on the right (a LINK) will COPY the URL to that music track to your 'clipboard' for you to PASTE somewhere else.

Hugh

[Ron]

Another well executed text Hugh which shows every detail involved.
A bit too much info as far as I am concerned when comparing it to my iPad version. However, you have a perfect result. Well done

Ron

[barwonfan]

When I go to my song which I have put on audio.com I can see the triangles quite clearly on both the song and on the Edit. But when I click on the triangle icon It always comes up with something like this --

<iframe src="https://audio.com/embed/audio/1761591575042085?theme=image" style="border-radius: 6px; border: none; height: 204px; width: 600px;" ></iframe>

And I think that it is of no value to anyone on the Forum. I know that Dennis knows how to fix this and make it work because he did it for me about 2 weeks ago on a post I did for my entry on the Challenge. But then he has about 40 years of experience with computers, and I am a beginner.

Please don't burn the midnight oil helping me sort this out as I am quite sure that I will get there one day. J.T.

[Hugh-AR]

JT,

But It always comes up with this--

<iframe src="https://audio.com/embed/audio/1761591575042085?theme=image" style="border-radius: 6px; border: none; height: 204px; width: 600px;" ></iframe>

and then you say:

And I think that it is of no value to anyone on the Forum.

Well, this is what you need to get your audio.com file 'embedded'!

Now .. can you see the NUMBERS in the middle of that string?

1761591575042085

These are the numbers you need to put in between the [audiocom] square brackets.

Do you know how to get those numbers inserted between the two audiocom BBCodes in square brackets?

Paste that computer string into the posting box so you can see it.

You can either click and drag with your mouse across those numbers to highlight them (don't include the question mark!), do a right-click and choose Copy .. which will COPY those numbers to your clipboard. Click with your mouse into the posting box where you want your audio.com file to appear, then click on the word audiocom above the posting box (which will insert the two BBCodes for audiocom). Put your mouse cursor in between those two codes (there should already be a flashing line in there); do a right-click with your mouse and choose Paste .. which will put those number in from your clipboard. If you do it this way, once you have got your numbers in between the audiocom square brackets you will have to remove the computer string you were working from.

Or ...

Remove everything else showing in that string .. but leave the numbers. If you do it this way you can click and drag across the numbers with your mouse to highlight them .. and then click on the audiocom BBCode above the posting box, which will 'wrap' around your numbers.

Finally, click on Submit underneath .. and your audio.com image should appear.

Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

John Trevor (barwonfan) has brought up a point with Embedded audio.com tracks .. like this one below.



1. Clicking the white PLAY arrow will play the track as an 'embedded' music track. As such you remain within the Forum Page, so can scroll about and read any other comments that have been put up in that Topic. This is particularly useful when the track is a DEMO as you can read again what was said by way of explanation whilst listening to the DEMO. But if you were to click on the POSTREPLY underneath, the music will immediately stop playing.

2. If you click on the Name of the song (in this case, What A Wonderful World) it will throw you out of the 'Forum Page' and you will be watching/listening in a New Tab. The Forum Page you were looking at is still showing as a Tab at the top, so if you click on that you will go back to the page you were reading .. and still be listening to the music. In this situation, you can do a POSTREPLY .. and the music will keep playing.

3. If you click on the Name of the Poster you will be taken to their Page (Channel) which will show a list of all the songs they have uploaded, so you can listen to any one of them (so long as they were uploaded as Public, and not Unlisted).

Note: In either of the two cases just above (ie. when not listening to the music track within the Forum), if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will see a VOLUME CONTROL.



There is no option for controlling the VOLUME when watching within the Forum.

[Hugh-AR]

On your main Page, which shows all your uploads, this is a summary of the options you have available to you.



The first icon tells you how many VIEWS your upload has had (indicated by the green arrow).
In this example there have been 21 views.
The three little circles in a triangle is the Share audio icon.
Click on this if you want to put your track into eg. Facebook or Twitter; or EMBED your track in a Forum.
The next icon is the pencil, which is the EDIT (indicated by the red arrow).
Clicking on this will give you the Edit Audio page.
Over to the right you will see three little horizontal dots (indicated by the blue arrow).
Click on those and you get a drop-down box.
From here you can Download the track (but only if the uploader has given you permission to do this .. if they haven't, this option won't be showing); Add to collection (if you have set up 'Folders' specifically to make collections of songs of a particular type .. in my case I have three ..Demos .. Yamaha AR80 organ .. and Tyros 4); Replace source (ie. you can replace the music track using this .. maybe put up a better version?); and finally Delete (indicated by the blue arrow).