Many new webmasters want to try everything. You've built your first Website, you've loaded it with photos, graphics, icons, text, colors and links, and now you want to cater to the ears, and not just the eyes. "Time to add some noise", you say.

Before you go too crazy, there are a few things to think about before you load up your homepage with your favorite melodies. The first thing you need to think about is personal taste. Unless you are just building the site for your own personal viewing, then be sure to think about whether all of your site visitors will want to hear what you are essentially forcing on them when they arrive.

But if you decide that you do want to add sound to your site, this article should help you out. But first, let's do a quick review of the types of sound files on the 'Net.

Midi - .mid

Midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the smallest file size for “tunes” that you can put on your website. And because they are small, they do load rather fast. I equate midis to the sounds a toy synthesizer would make. Some like that, others don't. (Sample .mid file: click)

Wave - .wav

Wave files are high quality, uncompressed audio format that has become a standard file format (supported by PC and Mac) for everything from game and system sounds to high-quality audio. Wave files are large, and if you have a long tune, they will take a long time to load. If you want to use Wave files, make sure they are short. (Sample .wav file: click)

Audio File - .au

Audio files are another commonly used sound format. Audio files are larger, and will take a long time to load if you choose a sound that is over a few seconds long. The quality of sounds is very good, but the trade off is that the file size is bigger. In my opinion, the best use for audio files is for very short sounds (hence small file sizes) that are sounded when a person pops a window, click a button, or performs some kind of action. (Sample .au file: click)

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