Posting Music And Video

Many of the sites created for Clients of iKarra.com will be for Musicians and Artists of some form or another and that means Music and Video files.

They’re great but they’re huuuuuuuuuge!

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Embedding v Uploading?

You can upload your Music and Videos to your site but due to their size they can eat up your Bandwidth very quickly.

If you’re selling your Music or giving it away then I’d recommend creating a 20 or 30 second taster file of the track(s) and upload that to the Post where you’re discussing it accompanied by a Download Link.

For Example:

WordPress handles mp3‘s comfortably but you can only upload one track per instance of the Player. This is OK for the Tasters and Teasers.

When uploading mp3s you’ll see this dialogue:

Uploading mp3’s To Your Posts and Pages

You can see from this that you have access to a couple of linking options:

• Embed Media Player
• Link To Media File
• Link To Attachment Page

You only really need to use or worry about the first two options. Embed Music Player is pretty obvious and produces the result above. Option two will open the Music Player full screen (not too sure why you’d want to do that but it’s an option!).

If you’re providing a Download Link you need to compress the file or files into a .zip file for them to be Downloadable like this (and then you only get the Media Link and Attachment Page options; leave it as Media Link):

Carl_Martin-Farewell_To_You_Baby.mp3

Click it to get a quality free Blues choon.

More Complex Needs

However if you’re looking to give your Fans or Visitors a more robust demonstration of your work then I wholeheartedly recommend using a dedicated Service and Embed their Players in your Posts and Pages.

Soundcloud and Reverbnation

There are two main players in the game for Music Serving: Soundcloud and Reverbnation. Both of these offer really great, customisable Music Players and Embeddable Widgets for you and your Fans to use wherever you like.

These Players are simple to use on your site:

• Soundcloud – Click Share and either
  • Copy and Paste the highlighted URL or
  • Use the Embed feature and grab iframe code and paste it into your Post
• Reverbnation –
  • Copy and Paste the Direct Link (not ideal)
  • Click Get Widgets and choose your weapon. Click Get Code and then Paste it into your Post or Page

Reverbnation Embed:

Soundcloud Embed:

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Video Embedding

The same is true for Embedding Video into your site (I can’t stress this enough, use a Dedicated Video Hosting Service for your Videos, their servers are optimised for Video Streaming and you use THEIR Bandwidth not your own!)

So, how to Embed the Videos:

Youtube Embed:

Just Copy and Paste the URL in to the Post or Page. (this is a possible Tool scoop, maybe a new riff they jammed out recently!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSsoUsCcLRA

(There are various Plugins available to offer you more functionality and control over the way Youtube and other Videos are handled and displayed by your site but WordPress is pretty good on it’s own. These other Plugins can either be installed at the time of your Build or once you’re running your site you can add them in if you need to.)

Vimeo

You can use the URL itself or you can click the Share icon (little paper plane on the right of the video) and this opens the Sharing dialogue. You can use the Embed code and make some Customisation to how t will look once you grab the code. Then just head back to your Post or Page and Paste the code in there.

Pantera-5 Minutes Alone from cagdas on Vimeo.

Dailymotion Embed:

You can grab the URL and Paste it into your Post or Page (this gives quite a large result so you might want to use the other option…) or you can click on the Embed link and get a choice of Sizes and Colours. This generates the iframe Embed Code which you Copy and Paste into your Post or Page and it produces the Player below.

MACHINE HEAD – The blood , The sweat , The… by neurosien

There are other Video Hosting sites out there but these are the go-to ones really. Check their Terms and Conditions regarding Copyright in your work and if you can live with them go for it!

They also have the added value to you of Rights deals with most of the major Labels and Artist’s representatives out there so you can post cover versions, mash-ups and songs with samples in that you’d otherwise have to secure the rights for yourself.

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