(V.2) How To: Upload and Stream Your MP3s Through Your Wordpress.com Blog

(V.2) How To: Upload and Stream Your MP3s Through Your Wordpress.com Blog — For Free

January 27th, 2007 | (V.2) How To: Upload and Stream Your mp3s For Free, TECHNOLOGY, TUTORIALS |

[This is the second version of this tutorial. It might look familiar, but is quite different (in that it should work for everyone). A big shout-out to Juan for finding an amicable file host.]

For those interested in taking advantage of Wordpress.com’s great new audio player, but are not sure how — and/or don’t want to pay to do so — here’s one way that’s both free and easy.

Afterwards you’ll be able to do this with any .mp3 on your computer (click play):

Artist: The Can Kickers | Song: Froggy Went a Courtin’

1.) Sign up at WebMusicTown. I’m not affiliated with this site in any way. Nor do I know much about them — other than they host audio files for free (1o gigs!) and allow remote access without any shenanigans. (That we’ve seen yet.)

2.) Click on create new playlist.

3.) Fill out your music genre etc., and make sure you check the box to allow public access to your file. Then click the ’save and upload mp3s’ button at the bottom.

4.) Click browse and choose the file you want to upload. Click ‘Add MP3,’ and be patient as the transfer process has no graphic to track its process.

5.) Once the file is up, right-click on its hypertext. Mac users: select ‘Copy link location.’ PC-ers: choose ‘copy shortcut.’

6.) Final steps. Get into your Wordpress.com dashboard and create a new post or a new page.

7.) Select the code tab, not the visual tab.

8.) Paste the URL into the following template: [audio ]

It should look something like this in your editor:

9.) Make sure there are no spaces anywhere — except one after the word ‘audio’.

10.) Publish and enjoy!

58 responses so far ↓

1 Tutorial: How to Upload and Stream Your Audio Files Through Your Wordpress.com Blog — For Free « the status joe // Jan 27, 2007 at 7:45 pm

[…] January 23rd, 2007 · 15 Comments This post is obsolete. The workable update is here. […]
2 emperorbananaketchup // Jan 28, 2007 at 4:57 am

Thanks…I should consider them!!!
3 paulitics // Jan 28, 2007 at 8:11 am

Thanks for this second tutorial, but the mp3 host site you gave (Music Web Town) doesn’t seem to be working for me either.

I can play the sample file in the WP announcement page, so I know there’s nothing wrong with my wordpress or IE etc., but the audio player doesn’t seem to like the mp3s that I host either here or at esnips or elsewhere and so it still hangs on buffering.

have any suggestions?
4 paulitics // Jan 28, 2007 at 8:12 am

PS. by “here” I meant Music Web Town, not WP.
5 Joe // Jan 28, 2007 at 9:37 am

Thank you for the feedback.

Paul, does the song at the top of this post work for you? Also, I know this was in the tutorial, but just to make sure — in your Music Web Town profile, do you have selected the option to make your files public? That needs to be checked in order for this to work. Also, are you able to play your music at the WMT site?
6 paulitics // Jan 28, 2007 at 7:43 pm

Yeah the file at the top of this page works for me and I’ve also gotten the sample file in the original WP announcement to work on my blog, although for some reason it wasn’t working earlier today. My problem is just that I can’t seem to get the files I host to work.

I’ve double and triple-checked my Music Web Town folders again, and they’re both set to public (in fact I even created a new one just to make sure).

Any ideas?
7 Joe // Jan 28, 2007 at 8:44 pm

Paul, I’m trying to think of ideas. I have a friend who’s doing this successfully - running IE on Windows. Is your version of Flash up to date?

I’d like to help you figure it out. Could you give me the URL of your MWT page? You could post it in this comment section, or feel free to email me (thestatusjoe at gmail)?

(nice blog, btw. I just subscribed.)
8 Juan // Jan 29, 2007 at 8:43 am

Joe, just wanted to thank you for the shout-out **thumbs up**

Regarding Paul’s problem, I was gonna ask him also if it’d be possible for him to post the URL of one of his files so that I (or you) could try loading it into the player and see if his problem can be replicated.
9 paulitics // Jan 29, 2007 at 2:45 pm

Thanks for the kind words about my blog Joe.

Here’s a link to one of my (well, actually it’s the only) mp3 files.

http://www.musicwebtown.com/paulitics/playlists/17629/137812.mp3

I really appreciate all your help. Thanks again.
10 Joe // Jan 29, 2007 at 3:19 pm

Paul, I’m not sure this is the case, but I tried it and my theory right now is your file’s too big. Try uploading a smaller one (less than 10MB?) and let me know if it works?

also see if this works (through a Wordpress player):

http://www.musicwebtown.com/joebird/playlists/17187/134940.mp3

- Joe
11 Juan // Jan 29, 2007 at 3:37 pm

Paul,

Have you tried deleting the file and re-uploading it again?

Your .mp3 is buffering on my end too… it seems to load since I see the loading bar filling up but it won’t play. Perhaps re-uploading the file will fix this issue?
12 Joe // Jan 29, 2007 at 3:48 pm

Good idea, Juan.

If anyone else is reading this, for whom the player IS working, could you chime in real quick? I’d like to get an idea whether Paul’s fritzy experience is isolated or not, since it’s been working great otherwise according to everyone else I’ve heard from. Thanks.
13 volaticus // Jan 29, 2007 at 4:50 pm

suhweet, thanks for the tutorial.
14 Joe // Jan 29, 2007 at 4:59 pm

sure thing, volaticus. lemme know how it goes?
15 paulitics // Jan 29, 2007 at 5:03 pm

Joe & Juan - my file is under 10MB, it’s actually less than 5MB.

Also, while I haven’t tried deleting the file, I have made two different folders and I’ve uploaded it (successfully) on two occasions, once for each folder, and can get it to play on MWT in either folder.

Also, Joe, the file that you wanted me to try in my WP works just fine on my blog.
16 domingoz // Jan 29, 2007 at 5:12 pm

Thanks for yet another hint… I was wondering if I could add “podcasts” into WP, and this seems like a nice way to go around it. You’re the man of the hints joe
17 Juan // Jan 29, 2007 at 8:29 pm

Paul and Joe,

I went to Paul’s MWT site and tried both his playlists Blog and Blog2 and none of his players would play the .mp3 file. I tried this in Firefox on both Mac and Windows XP.

So, I took the liberty of downloading Paul’s file and re-encoded it (Paul, I apologize for not asking your authorization first). It works now, and you can see it here:
http://devlog.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/testing-mp3/

Paul, you can download the re-encoded file here:

http://www.musicwebtown.com/tayuyo/playlists/17176/141855.mp3

Once you’ve downloaded the file, please let me know so that I can delete it from both my blog and my MWT site.

I think the problem was how the file was encoded. If you see the properties of the file Paul is currently using, it has a bit rate of 0 kbps. I think that’s weird. The re-encoded version has a bit rate of 56 kbps and is 1MB bigger.

HTH
18 Joe // Jan 29, 2007 at 8:52 pm

::stands and applauds::
19 paulitics // Jan 30, 2007 at 11:46 am

Juan and Joe: I just wanted to say thanks a million. The file worked beautifully and Juan, you can now delete it if you like.

Again, a million thanks.
20 Chelsea // Jan 30, 2007 at 1:03 pm

Thank you so much for all the work you’ve put into this, Im going to try this new way right now. Thanks again for keeping me posted.
21 My voice on voice…an experiment « voice // Feb 1, 2007 at 11:26 am

[…] of songs I recorded on my 4 track in the basement. I am excited to see how it works. Thanks to The Status Joe for posting the instructions on making this functional. If you choose to listen to the songs, I […]
22 elelespaciodemartha // Feb 1, 2007 at 9:10 pm

Joe:

My english isn´t good too… But, I try explain my wrong.

I would like put songs in my blog, but I try following the indications of your post, but I don´t know what I make wrong, because when I put the code of the song, only appears text, don´t recognize the code and I try with goear, castpost, etc… but my result is always the same …

Thanks for your help!!!
23 Joe // Feb 1, 2007 at 9:48 pm

paul, so glad it worked out!

chelsea, let me know how it goes?

elelespaciodemartha, i’d love to help. i hope my english and your spanish does not make bad communication for us. maybe chatting would be good? you can chat with me if you look at the right (not left) side of my page.

[this goes for everyone.]
24 Juan // Feb 2, 2007 at 2:48 pm

Joe, if she hasn’t contacted you yet, perhaps I may be of assistance. Let’s see…

Martha, el editor donde escribís tu artículo tiene dos pestañas: “Visual” y “Code”. Me imagino que cuando metes el código, lo haces en el modo “Visual”. Si es asi, lo que ha de pasar es que el programa convierte los corchetes ‘[]’ a su representación HTML y por eso solo te sale texto.

Lo que debes hacer es, pulsa sobre la pestaña “Code” (si esta tu interfaz en español, pueda que diga Codigo), ya que hayas pulsado en esa pestaña, entoces ingresa el código como Joe lo indica arriba.

Por cierto, ¿cuál es la dirección de tu blog? tu nombre de usuario enlaza a un blog que esta borrado.

Espero esto te ayude.
25 Joe // Feb 2, 2007 at 3:03 pm

Sweet. Juan, thanks again.
26 rosachalkho // Feb 4, 2007 at 9:07 am

Thanks for the tutorial. It works very good in my blog.
http://espaciosfabianacapriotti.wordpress.com/
Rosa
27 elelespaciodemartha // Feb 4, 2007 at 8:57 pm

Juan:

Si pongo el codigo en la pestaña de “Code”, pero aun asi, al actualizar el blog me sigue apareciendo el mismo texto que introduje, no se porque razon, y como te comento, lo he intentado varias veces sin ningun resultado.

El link de mi blog es: http://paginassueltasydecolores.wordpress.com
28 lacelia // Feb 5, 2007 at 2:23 am

Thanks dude!
it works great!!!
29 Joe // Feb 6, 2007 at 5:35 pm

Rosa, lacelia: I’m glad!
30 kwanstudio // Feb 9, 2007 at 9:00 am

ฺBig Thanks !!!
31 Valentine Video « everything @ once // Feb 15, 2007 at 11:42 am

[…] Then we did a small gift/card exchange and watched a slide-show I made (see above), which sampled from the billions of wonderful moments we’ve shared together. The music is: first, an edit of Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark“, and, second, a song I wrote on New Year’s Day, on my flight back to San Diego after spending the holidays in Vermont. It’s obviously a rough, one-take wonder (plus a little harmony to cover the sound of construction in our building.) I had to lay it down quick and sloppy so Joe couldn’t catch me and spoil the surprise, but now that I’ve unveiled it, we’re going to record a real version with him on the drums. When we do, I’ll surely post it here to share as a belated Valentine to you all, courtesy of my sweetheart’s own tutorial. […]
32 Russell // Feb 17, 2007 at 5:43 pm

So at this point the link can only be put in a post or on a page? Has anyone had success with applying this to sidebar widgets?
33 Después del fracaso que consideré mi victoria. « Sixtopia. // Feb 18, 2007 at 10:37 pm

[…] dejaron de sonar en mi blog, así que como soy un necio me puse a buscar hasta que encontré en otro blog de Wordpress la solución (espero que ahora si […]
34 frozenpoetry // Mar 16, 2007 at 7:24 pm

thank you so much for the help finaly, ive got music on my site/blog and yeah, it works. but it stops up a lot through the first play, though… but thats probably just because of the buffering thing…
for those of you that have some problems: if youre editing the post with the player in it, make sure you do so in the code version, like he stressed, `cus it definately didn`t work (for me) as i was unlucky once and forgot to change it from visual. just a little reminder
bye Frozenpoetry
35 Your Star « Frozenpoetry // Mar 16, 2007 at 7:36 pm

[…] you want a free mp3 streamer in your blog too, check out http://thestatusjoe.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/how-to-upload-and-stream-your-mp3s-through-your-wordpre… like I did. the status joe has got a good tutorial for it right there […]
36 MP3 στο μπλογκ « wordpress.com tips & tricks // Mar 18, 2007 at 3:20 am

[…] -αναλυτικές- οδηγίες τις βρήκα σε έναν μπλόγκερ εδώ, ο οποίος χρησιμοποιεί ως χώρο αποθήκευσης το […]
37 stshores24 // Mar 23, 2007 at 5:23 am

Perfect! I was trying esnips, but it doesn’t work. This looks like it will work. Thank you.
38 stshores24 // Mar 23, 2007 at 5:45 am

Well, I THOUGHT it would work. It just went down–or I can’t access it any more. I’ll try again this afternoon.
39 'Foreign' and Local « regeneration // Mar 23, 2007 at 6:07 am

[…] Thanks to this guy, I found another great site called MusicWebTown that allows me to upload/download for free without […]
40 Andrea // Mar 30, 2007 at 10:19 am

Thanks for the tutorial! One question: why your song is so fast to get buffered and my uploads take so much time?!?
What can be the reason for such a different speed?
With the same browser, the same computer, and the same connection! I hate to wait so long, and to have my friends to do so. Can you help me? please!
41 Judy Abbott // Apr 13, 2007 at 12:44 am

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you you’re my saviour
42 mdobbing // Apr 22, 2007 at 3:42 am

thanks for that, after reading many threads, you had the answer in one place for me!
43 Maajkel // Apr 25, 2007 at 1:01 am

Joe,

Thanks for posting this. Ass you see it’s something a lot off people have troubles with.

I have a problem too: I signed up at musicwebtown and uploaded music. It all worked fine. The problem I have is that I can’t find the url I should use. The url I find looks like this:

http://www.musicwebtown.com/maajkel/50900

As you see it doesn’t end with “mp3″ and it doesn’t work with the WP-player. Any hints?

I’ve been trying to get music on my blog several times. I would be ecstatic if I could get it too work
44 Madartollam // May 4, 2007 at 12:23 am

It is good that everyone made it with success. But I dont know why it was not working on my blog. I put the [audio http://www.musicwebtown.com/username/65659 in my code tab but when i click to see it in visual i can see the code not the player. Could You help me! Thank You!
45 Madartollam // May 4, 2007 at 12:32 am

[audio:http://www.musicwebtown.com/username/playlists/45365/757789.mp3] OK. I made a mistake before, but now I put this code and the same. I really dont understand..
46 wonderfully.unpredictable // May 18, 2007 at 1:29 am

Thanks for the very helpful post. I would like to add a few comments that may prove helpful for others too. I use a Mac Powerbook G4. In Safari I write html code, everythings goes smoothly, it then loads the file but doesn’t play it. In Firefox and Flock listening is no problem, although there are problems with the Greek fonts.
47 john // Sep 17, 2007 at 8:17 am

guys,i am doing it wrong and wrong :(.can someone tell me step by step the player thing?i put the link with [audio ….] at the code and not at the visual,but the only thing i get is text.why?
48 Joe // Sep 17, 2007 at 12:17 pm

John, you didn’t leave a link to your website. That would be helpful. Do you blog at Wordpress.com? This tutorial is only for those users. Did you have any trouble uploading the mp3 and getting the permalink for the file?
49 john // Sep 17, 2007 at 1:18 pm

http://blog.kamenoi.gr/eidolo21/ is my blog.No,i uploaded the mp3 with no problems,and got the link for the mp3 is http://www.musicwebtown.com/eidolo/116484.
i put the audio at the start and evereything,but….
50 john // Sep 17, 2007 at 1:24 pm

http://www.musicwebtown.com/eidolo/playlists/116484/899661.mp3
to be honest.
51 Joe // Sep 17, 2007 at 1:43 pm

John, your blog is not hosted on Wordpress.com. You are running a self-hosted blog with Wordpress.org software (like this blog). Accordingly, the above tutorial is not for you.

I suggest downloading the audio plugin found at the link below. I use it on this site and has worked great for me so far.

http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/

Good luck!

- Joe
52 john // Sep 17, 2007 at 2:04 pm

ok,now i am panicked.how do i install the plugin?
53 Joe // Sep 19, 2007 at 9:20 pm

John, the directions are on the same page further down:

http://www.1pixelout.net/code/audio-player-wordpress-plugin/#installation
54 john // Sep 22, 2007 at 3:30 pm

oh,i think that because my blog is hosted by a site,i can’t do it.i haven’t installed anything!maybe i shall talk to the admin.thx for everything.
55 For songs… « It was so sudden, like a storm ♥ // Dec 31, 2007 at 12:56 am

[…] here is he help for music tha’s how I did mine. Enjoy! […]
56 soundscape « edelyne // Sep 25, 2008 at 4:05 am

[…] How to stream mp3’s through WordPress Posted by edelyne Filed in Time Based 1 […]
57 annie // Oct 22, 2008 at 12:45 am

can’t get the steps between 8 and 9, where is the url found?

great site though thanks.
58 Broadcasting Your Message: Posting Online « // open church // // Nov 17, 2008 at 10:22 am

[…] 1: A Hosting Service The Status Joe has a good tutorial to cover how to add audio to your blog if you don’t have your own hosting. I followed the steps he posted and was able to get it working. Some of the directions for the […]