Audio files are important for band and musician websites, radio stations, and other sites that wish to host podcasts. There are multiple ways to share audio files on a WordPress site.
The first way is is to use the Add Audio feature. Click on the musical note icon above the edit window, choose the file you want to upload and click Open. Next you type a title, caption and description of the file, and click insert into post. WordPress does not embed an actual audio player into the post. Visitors click the link and a new page will open where the audio file can be played. Aloe Blacc – I’m Beautiful
Now, if you want the audio file to be able to be played directly on the page, you will need to use a WordPress plugin. Audio Player by Martin Laine is very easy to use. It adds an Audio Player option to the media library file, which inserts your uploaded mp3 file into the Audio Player. Here a few examples:
Aloe Blacc-I’m Beautiful
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Mexican Institute of Sound – El Microfono
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
There are many more plugins. I asked a WordPress Experts group on LinkedIn for recommendations and here are a few of their responses:
Roy Sivan • There are a few good mp3 players, some are more advanced then others, although flash my favorite has been http://sexywp.com/fmp. It allows playlist and customized skin creation, its pretty nifty, and if you know xml you can create using xml for quicker creation of design and playlists.
Nicolas Bouliane • Blubrry is an excellent plugin if you intend to include audio often. I used it on the site linked below, and it was really easy to use. http://lesbabineux.com/
Garrett Grimm • I like the XSPF mp3 player in a popup so that the music will continue playing even if the user changes pages on the site. I wrote a tutorial on how to do this a while back: http://www.grimmdude.com/how-to-create-a-popup-music-player-using-the-simple-popup-plugin-for-wordpress/
