MP3 Player for posts?

Like you, am looking for a good MP3 player. If you do not need a podcast solution, read on (and then I am going to suggest you look for a podcast solution at the end of this). I am testing a web site for a friend who wants to showcase his radio shows. Been at it for days and encountered a lot of problems. Here is what I learned so far:

* Currently I am using Audio player version 1.2.3 (1 Bit Audio Player did not work – probably incompatible with current version of WordPress 2.7.1).

* This Audio player expects audio uploads to go into root folder called “audio” (did not work for me but I had to come up with work around).

* My web host company has not allowed me to create that folder in the blog root.

* Go to WordPress Settings > Miscellaneous and look at the “Store uploads in this folder” setting. This is typically “wp-content/uploads” (yes I tried to change it to “audio” but it did not work). The reason is you want to check to see where WordPress is sending your audio uploads. Do not change the setting if it is “wp-content/uploads”. We are going to hack this.

* While still viewing Settings > Miscellaneous, UNCHECK “Organize my uploads into month – and year – and year based folders” (my customer is not computer savvy and I did not want him to keep changing settings each month as to where the audio files were to be found).

* I opened my host cPanel and looked for the audio files after they were uploaded. I recorded the path. (my path is “wp-content/uploads/2009/02”). This procedure is not totally necessary, just mildly recommended. I just want to confirm where the audio files were ACTUALLY going. I think they went into “/2009/02” because I uploaded the files in February and AFTER I unchecked (previous bullet point) the organization feature.

* Go to WordPress Settings > Audio Player and where it says “Audio files directory:” enter the same path as the c-panel location for your files. This is how I found out that the audio went into the “/2009/02” location instead of “wp-content/uploads”

* The radio shows were half hour long. They would not go up to the host site. There was a PHP restriction. I had to send the host technical support a request to have the PHP configuration limit raised to 40 MB (the shows were about 37 MB for mp3).

* Add a new test post to your web site to see if this works or not. Add the audio by mouse clicking on the music notation ikon when in “Edit Post” mode. You have three options for inserting the audio.
1 From computer.
2 From URL.
3 Media Library

You can also upload one audio file after another by using Media > Add New.

* You might have to mouse click “Insert Into Post”. and “Save all changes”. Then mouse click “Publish” and view the results on a browser. Just remember to refresh your browser every time you make a change in WordPress settings or you might not see it work properly.

* To get the audio to play, I had to insert the html address for the audio and that was the trick that made this Audio player work. For example, here is the html code for one of my test posts:

“Test of third post. To play the test audio, click on this link: j-m-cc-show-intro”

* Results were disappointing. When the customer clicks on the link inside or at the end of the post to listen to the audio, I got a new blank screen with a simple audio player in the middle, ugly, simple, drab, uninspired. That is the reason I think your idea of a podcast might be better for some customers. Good luck.

Jim– my understanding of your issue is that you want to attach an mp3 file w/ embedded player in a post. Using the Podcasting plugin, this is actually very simple. I will use your post with audio attached as an example:
[podcast]http://jimseybert.com/beta_1/audio/Congalton_Feb_18_09.mp3[/podcast]

Enjoy…

Hi Jim,

I assure you, you are still sane 😛

If you have the podcasting plugin installed and active, that is the syntax to use to embed a player for the mp3 in question in your post. Did you try it?

PS – on my own blog, I have noted that if I try to view the post in a list (say, sorting by category, tag, etc.), I won’t see the player. However, if I view the post itself, it appears and functions correctly.

I use these to
http://wpaudioplayer.com/
This is simple but effective.

I also use
Flash MP3 Player Widget
(Do a search in wordpress plugins).
This adds a cool sidebar widget.

ShadowboxJS also will do a pop-up mp3 player.

I prefer WPaudio player and all work with the latest, greatest WordPress 2.7.+.

I’ve found the simplest player to use is the Yahoo! Media Player. The instructions are here: http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/ and an example of what the player looks like is near the bottom left of the screen. Just click the arrow and it pulls the player open. Just drop the code on each page that has audio and that’s it! You can see it in use on my page: http://bantermm.com. Scroll down to one of the songs and click the small play icon and it loads right up!

I’m running 2.7.1 and although I’m a beginner at all this, I now know enough from trial and error to know that it’s really NOT what I’m doing wrong and Jim, I bet you’re not doing anything wrong either.

*Forgive the rant that follows – it’s not directed at anyone posting in this thread, but at everyone who can code a page with one hand tied behind their back and who doesn’t even try to understand why not everyone can. *

One of my main motivations for going over to hosted WordPress was audio and podcasting. I really really want audio on two of my blogs and I want to run a community podcast on another.

Well, I installed the audio player and the podcasting plug-ins and I’m damned if I can a) understand them or b) make them work. I doubted myself completely for many hours/days then I realised that I wasn’t ‘doing it wrong’, but that the process was inadequately explained, instructions were often given for a different version of WordPress from what I’m running (and how would I know that?) and there was an assumption that we all speak code. Well, I speak English. I’m not stupid if I don’t understand geeky language, I am just still learning a new language and so need things explained in simple terms as I go along. Putting ‘it’s really easy, man’ in front of a paragraph of pure jargon and code does NOT make it easy.

I applaud dmclaren’s use of (almost) Plain English which is rare on these forums. If someone asks a question in plain english, it’s a fair bet they’re not a code junkie so why must people reply in geek language? The questioner wants an answer in plain english, people! My own profession had plenty of jargon but it would have been rude of me to use it when I talked to those outside the business. That should be true for web folk too.

As to the audio player issue, good lord I wish I had an answer – to put me out my misery and to put all those others out their misery who just want it to be SIMPLE. SIMPLE for ordinary people speaking ordinary English.