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Our previews are presented in low sound quality. Purchased sounds have significantly
higher sound quality (192 kbps true cd-quality mp3, with 44khz WAV/AIFF files
available on request). Additionally, we have overlaid the previews with a
voice saying "Shockwave-Sound.Com" to protect our music against
unauthorized use. This voice is obviously not present on purchased sounds.
Previews generally last between 30 and 60 seconds. This does not reflect
the lengths of the purchased music files, where the lengths are as indicated
on the descriptions.
play / mp3
We offer previews in two formats for most of our tracks; Flash
and mp3.
The 'play' link will start a new small "pop-up"
window in your browser and play the preview in Flash format. For this to work,
you must have Flash Player installed on your system. It is already pre-installed
on most systems, but if it's not installed on yours, it can be downloaded
for free here.
Also, our little 'pop-up' window may not work if you have your browser's
security settings set to disable ActiveX controls and plugins. If you click
on the 'play' link and nothing happens, chances are that your internet browser's
security settings are preventing our little pop-up window to appear and play
the Flash preview.
The 'mp3' link points directly to a low-fidelity mp3 file
stored on our server. Depending on the settings in your browser program, when
you click on our preview link, the music will either start playing right away,
or you will be prompted to save the file to your hard disk.
If the file starts playing and you want to save it to your harddisk instead,
try right-click on the link and select "Save target as...".
Or, if you're using a Mac, click and hold the link clicked
for about a second or so, and then select the option to save the file to your
hardisk.
RealPlayer warning
Please DO NOT USE REALPLAYER to play mp3 files. RealPlayer
"takes over" the ownership of the mp3 file format on your system,
and especially on Mac computers, this may actually lead to mp3 files becoming
unusable on your system! If you have a Mac and you can't get our mp3 previews
(or indeed, purchased sound files) to play on your system, chances are that
RealPlayer is to blame for this. Even after you have uninstalled RealPlayer,
once RealPlayer has used your mp3 file, it will become unusable by all other
programs!
This applies to all mp3 files - not only the ones you get from Shockwave-Sound.Com.
When RealPlayer plays an mp3 file for the first time, it changes the file
format from "MPG3" to "PNRA". No other programs will then
be able to use or understand this file.
For this reason, we recommend you avoid RealPlayer like the plague
- for all file formats, and especially on the Mac. Although the PC version
has also been known to change the file extensions of mp3 files without user
authorization.
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