Audio In

by Francine Gair
Fall 2001

Whether you use the Web for audio entertainment, nostalgia or sonic art, you'll find a site targeted to your interest. You can listen to music from around the world, hear old-time radio programs, sample experimental sound projects and create and share playlists of your favorite tunes. Here is a fresh sampling of sites that offer interesting sounds for smart audio enthusiasts:

Shadow Radio
Category: Radio Drama
[www.shadowradio.org]
At one time, The Shadow seemed poised to become a pulp icon as famous as Superman, but today he is all but forgotten -- except by old-time radio fans. The Shadow's radio show started in 1936, with a young Orson Welles playing the hero with the power of invisibility (handy for a radio show), and lasted until 1954. Download a different episode of The Shadow each week at The Shadow RealAudio Theater.

Uplister
Category: Playlists
[www.uplister.com]
Calling their site "organized music anarchy," Uplister has developed an online community of music fans and wanna-be DJs who share their personal listening experiences in the form of playlists unbundling CD packages and reassembling individual songs. Users compile a playlist of songs (a text list, not actual digital files) representing an artist, a genre, an era, a mood or sheer randomness, replete with commentary. In this way, fellow users find those with shared tastes in music, writing style and sense of humor.

Canadian Broadcasting
Category: On-air Radio
[cbc.ca/onair]
Is it really so different over the Canadian border? Check it out on the Canadian Broadcasting Channel. From Calgary Eyeopener to Culture Shock (Winnipeg), you'll discover arts updates, radio personalities, comedy and drama, jazz beat, the Canadian view of world news, radio plays and everyone's favorite, Ullumi Tusaqsauqaujut.

Partners in Rhyme
Category: Sound Effects
[www.partnersinrhyme.com]
Partners in Rhyme offers free sound effects and music loops, links to public domain sound archives, a production music library and CD-ROM collections for sale. The Sound Resource is a free e-mail with URLs of hard-to-find sound effects, weird vocal samples and cool music bytes, along with company news and discount URLs to their products. Message boards and audio tutorials help you get your audio questions answered.

wavsearch.com
Category: Sound Archives
[www.wavsearch.com]
Want your computer to say "Houston, we have a problem" whenever it encounters an error? Using wavsearch.com, you can find a favorite line from a movie or TV, download it and set it to play automatically during any specific Windows event. There's even a tutorial to tell you how to do it. Wavsearch.com claims to have the Web's largest database of .wav sounds from movies, TV shows and personalities.

Jack Straw
Category: Audio Art
[www.jackstraw.org]
Seattle's Jack Straw Foundation (named for a leader of the 1381 English Peasant Revolt) is dedicated to all forms of audio art. Check out the wide variety of projects by sonic artists, including oral histories, radio plays, quadraphonic "soundescapes," folk music, virtual concerts, sound experiments and Sonic World sound mapping. The site's Sonarchy Archives feature pure nature sounds, urban noise and the "small, minute unheard sounds of everyday life," from incidental sounds of the Nile to a subway serenade at Clark Street Station, Brooklyn.

The WAV Place
Category: Sound Archives
[thewavplace.com]
Kim and Don Harrington from Maine have been collecting sounds and building this site for four years. Use their sounds for free on your Web site, in your e-mail, for stationery you make, etc. For commercial use, contact them and they will "work something out." You are welcome to donate sound files to the site.