How to Record Audio for the Web

Recording audio isn’t rocket science, but you do need to pay attention to where you are choosing to record. If at all possible, record in a sound studio using high-quality microphones. Usually, this isn’t possible, and you will often be recording interviews in someone’s office or on the street.

Digitizing Audio

Digital sound is created by a process called "sampling." Most digital sounds, whether on a CD or from the Web, were created by recording hundreds of very small snapshots of sounds as they were played. These snapshots build the waveform that is a digital sound. A 44.1 kHz file for example, uses more than 44,100 samples, or snapshots, per second. The quality, as you might expect, is fairly high – CD-quality, in fact. Four or five minutes of 44 KHz-sampled music creates a file of about 50MBs. 

Editing Audio

If you’re worried about making mistakes, save a backup of the original file so that you can revert to it if needed. It is often a good idea to save a couple of copies of your file. One should be the original digitized file, untouched in case you destroy the sound in later versions. You might also save a version of your edit. You can throw away these versions later, but they’ll save you time if you mess up your file and need to go back and try again.

Delivering Audio Online

Upload audio files in the same way you upload any other file using an FTP (file transfer protocol) program. You may find it useful to create a folder on your Web server to store all audio files. This keeps your media organized on the server.