Helpful Guide to Playing mp3s

The audio clips on the Recordings page were encoded in the MP3 format. This format is extremely popular for downloading music from the Internet, due to the relatively small size of the files and the high quality of the audio playback. Extensive trials with both Quicktime and RealAudio encoders produced unacceptable results for this web page (very audible artifacts and unreliable behaviour.)

If your web browser is properly configured, you should be able to hear these mp3's automatically when you click on the link. If you don't hear anything, or get an error message, here are some suggestions:

• Make sure you have a reasonably current version of your browser. You can download a free update for Netscape or Internet Explorer by clicking on these links.
  
• You need a player that will handle MP3 files. There are many available, especially in the Windows world. A good choice that will work for Macs and PCs is Apple's QuickTime.
  
• Make sure your browser is set up to work with your chosen mp3 player. As mp3s become more and more popular support will likely be built into most browsers, however you may need to manually configure your browser to automatically play MP3's.
  
• Your browser and/or operating system "Preferences" menu is a good place to start whenever you are unable to play something properly. If you don't have the proper application you will often be given a choice of downloading one; this new application will hopefully configure itself properly to your browser so that you don't have to do this manually. Good luck!