What do I use to play audio files?

You can use a multitude of programs to play audio files. Windows Media Player comes with Windows and is an excellent program for playing audio files. It is also used, by default, by the Internet Explorer web browser to play most sound files.

However, if you use Netscape Navigator and you want to listen to sound files on web pages you will need to install a special 'audio plug-in'. One of the most popular Audio Plugins for Netscape is:

Crescendo Audio Plugin
True MP3 and MIDI streaming, Crescendo can play music within seconds from any website. For Windows 95/98/2000/NT, Netscape, and IE


Other Audio Software:

Sound Shuffler
Allows you to randomize the windows event sounds every time you boot up your computer.

Awave
Reads and exports over 90 audio file formats from different platforms.

MIDI Gate
Midi Gate is a great little MIDI player and Web browser-helper application. It will start playing one or more files as soon as they are chosen. Unlimited queuing is automatic; looping; can show ASCII contents.

MIDI plus
A well-featured midi player that can play Midi, Wav, Avi and MP3 (Requires Media Player 5.2. You can drag and drop files onto it to open, or add to a play list, and much more (very configurable).

vanbasco's MIDI Player
vanBasco's Midi Player is a high-end midi player with a very attractive graphical interface that enables you to have such options as scan, shuffle, autoplay, and more. This program also has a separate window which displays a piano keyboard and shows you exactly what keys are being pressed.


Can I make my own audio files?

Yes, you sure can! You need a special program called an audio editor for that though. Here are a couple of the better available audio editors:

Anvil Studio
Anvil Studio lets you multi-track record, compose, edit, and mix MIDI and digital audio program. It has delay, pitch change, pan, filter, reverse, and VU meters. It also has cut/copy/paste audio and punch-in tore-record over mistakes. The rhythm tracks include sampled audio percussions. Also included is remote control record/play/stop. With the free version, create an unlimited number of arbitrarily long MIDI tracks, and a one-minute audio track.

Cool Edit
Audio recording, editing, and mixing for Windows 95, 98, 2000, and NT. Records and plays through any sound card, offers more than 20 DSP effects, supports 24/96, scripting and batch processing, and reads and writes more than 20 file formatsluding MP3 encode and decode.