Descant (soprano) Recorders.

Treble (alto) Recorders.

Tenor Recorders.

Various other recordings that may be of interest.

January 2023

I have removed a few features (like comparison pages) and inhibited autoplay. There will not be any new recordings. As before, the pages will change slowly and adopt the new style used for this page and the rest of my site (eventually). Now that I am using style sheets there may be 'global' changes ahead, when all my pages use the same style sheet.

I'm leaving the text that accompanied this page in situ (below). An up to date browser and HTML5 solves all the issues addressed. When I started this site and page I was using Windows 98 and there were many problems trying to make pages with embeded sound work with Windows XP as well. They will still work with Windows XP and Linux. I now use Linux by preference but my shop software is on a Windows 10 PC that I activate when I need it and I have Windows XP as an option in a dual boot computer. I have left my 'out of date browsers' solution. If you need it the audio will play automatically, there is no viable way of preventing it. (You could of course change the preferences in your browser.)

November 2016 latest progress...

Click on your choice. You will be taken to an information page and the some recorder examples will play automatically. Now that browsers have increased security features you may be confronted by a blank patch. If this happens you will probably find that your screen is showing an extra bar requesting your permission to enable an 'add-on'. When you have authorised its use all will be well. Otherwise, take one of the download options.

I am still working on my sound pages. Those for descants have now received a second revision. On those not yet revised the player has been replaced by a 'PLAY' button. I thought that this would be a long term solution to HTML5 compatibility, modern browsers and their installation in 'legacy' operating systems like Windows XP that are in common use. Firefox 49 in particular is a problem, and in Linux too. But I discovered a way of accommodating both old and new browsers while re-coding everything. The remaining 'PLAY' buttons will eventually be replaced, probably one at a time. I'm also changing file names so as to make things easier to understand and manipulate if I ever have to go through this sort of procedure again. It is exceedingly tedious work, very time consuming to carry out and check. There are endless opportunities to completely wreck the system! Please let me know if you find anything that does not work.

I think it was the 'illegal' coding I used (you will notice that many of my pages including sound that plays automatically are not validated) that made two sounds on the same page play at the same time. It used to be ok! (If you land on one of these, pause one of the players, they are independent. There are other issues as well.) Sound will now play, in a new tab, when you hit 'PLAY'. You can navigate back and check the text without stopping it, if you wish.

The comments below relate to the history of my efforts and are no longer very relevant. Modern browsers will play mp3 files without an 'add on'. If your system needs an 'add on' you probably have it already installed. For Linux I prefer Audacious on account of its simplicity. 'Quick Time' is now considered to be a security risk and should be avoided if at all possible.

Originally Internet Explorer was the only browser which played the mp3 files automatically. I used the 'bgsound tag' as it did not support the 'embed' tag. Now that all browsers support the 'embed' tag (previously only FireFox and other browsers did) I have changed to it and you should now get a little player in the middle of the page. QuickTime is probably best if you are presented with a choice. There are a few problems though. The pages work but they will not validate properly. The 'embed' element is not part of the HTML4 specification. At some stage I will rewrite the pages with a CSS and leave out the deprecated elements.

The files only play once through but you can 'escape' by pressing the pause button on the player or 'back' button to stop the sound at any time. If they don't play, you must make a choice as follows.

Click DOWNLOAD to open the file in Media Player or your chosen default application. This may not work either! If it doesn't, read on.

Recent addition...
Right click DOWNLOAD to save the file and then open it. (The best option for a dial up connection to the internet.) The left hand choice '.mp3' is most likely to be successful. The '.ogg' encoding was forced on me by modern systems and I thought that I may as well offer it. (The .ogg files are produced by converting my originals, and cannot be handled by 'legacy' systems.) If you have it, 'Open in a new tab' is probably the best option for browsers other than Internet Explorer. (This choice enables you to hear the music while continuing the view the page of text.)

The options may vary according to the way your computer is set up and your choice of internet browser and player. If you (like me) find the Microsoft Media Player too much of a good thing, try Winamp. It will even administer an iPod. Unfortunately, Winamp is no longer available or supported from the original source. However, a search will find it and you can download it from a site specialising in 'Old Apps'. It will work in Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. However, it is not happy playing CD's in Windows 10 and the sound gets broken when Windows busies itself with 'housekeeping' tasks. VLC is a good option. Since having to change my sound pages I have dug out my 20 year old Win98 laptop. It does the business perfectly! IE6 utilises Windows Media Player and Firefox 1.5 is using Quicktime 6. (Neither will decode .ogg files.)

Please be patient. You may monitor progress in your application's window. The files may be saved from the dropdown File Menu, or right clicking.

You can navigate with your tool bar arrows or return to the home page by clicking the link buttons.

How the sound files were produced.

Some of these recordings were produced in my spare bedroom / computer room / recording studio. You may be aware of the whine of a hard drive in the background of the older recordings. Others were made in the shop with a very high quality Sony quartz locked and 'Dolby' featured cassette recorder and played back on the same machine. You may hear a 'real' clock and traffic noises in the background. The pitch of my original recordings is not altered either accidentally or intentionally.

The analogue audio is then played via the 'line input' into an audio utility. (I have a microphone pre-amp for direct recording to the computer. The 'mic' input gives mono only.) I prefer the simple functionality of 'LP Recorder'. Later recordings have been 'doctored' with some reverberation, part of the effects available in the 'Wave Editor' that is packaged with 'Nero'. (When editing the recording one must leave a second or two at the end for the decay, and allow sufficient 'headroom' for the additional amplitude resulting from the reverberation.) I have now have a Zoom H2 digital recorder, and I am very pleased with it. The quality of the recordings I produce should improve!

I am now experimenting with direct comparison recordings. I have made the first by changing the instrument in the middle of a 'take'. All the subsequent processing has been done to the complete track. The examples were then edited out and converted to mp3 format. In this way the microphone position and dynamic levels are unchanged.

Conversion to mp3 format is done with 'Simple Mp3'. In order to keep the file size down I originally used heavy compression. With the simple sounds of a recorder I could get away with 48kBs, 'high fi' really needs 128kBs. It took some time to work all this out and there are various rates used in my examples. Because of the present near universal use of broadband internet connections I am now using the 'near hi-fi quality' 128kBs bit rate.