AudioSwap for YouTube – Legal music for videos
Now that my book “Comic Artist’s Photo Reference: Men and Boys” is on the stands, I am looking for new ways to promote it.
Using my trusty Mac, I created a video showing key images. The video looked great, but I had no audio. Well, no legal audio, at least.
In the past, I might have just slapped a song on it and posted it. But there’s an increased awareness about using copyrighted music. Plus, as someone who creates copyrighted images, I wouldnt want someone using my work without permission.
Creative Commons music was too restrictive for what I wanted to do.
Then I discovered a cool little feature in YouTube called “AudioSwap.”
Basically, I uploaded my video without an audio track. Then, YouTube found songs of the approximate length of my video (1 min 31 sec). YouTube allowed me to “Preview” my video with several different audio tracks.
When I finally found something I liked, I clicked “Publish,” and waited. (And waited and waited.) A few agonizing hours later, my video appeared with a fantastic audio track.
It wasn’t perfect, since the music just cuts off when the video starts. A better feature would be to give the option to fade out the audio.
But all things considered, it’s a fantastic solution for video producers like me. Hopefully YouTube continues to support this effort. And keep it free.
The final video is posted below:
Converging on Convergence
As interesting new web technologies become available, I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of sites I need to visit….just to keep them fresh. (There are some feeds and whatnot to streamline these services, but that just becomes another site to visit.)
Recently, I’ve been trying to leverage these services by incorporating features into my personal website. As web technologies pendulate toward the middle, I am one step closer to converging on convergence.
My goal is to make my personal website a little more compelling for people who come to check it out.
Examples:
- This weekend, I added my Twitter feed to my personal website. It’s just a little piece of Flash code that I was able to drop right into my web template. Very easy and elegant. (Note: I tried to use the Javascript code, but it just kept breaking.)
- I also added a Facebook “badge” to my homepage. It’s really basic, but it looks kind of nice.
- Then I synched my Facebook with my Twitter. Sort of sounds dirty, doesn’t it? Anyway, now, when I post to Twitter, it automatically feeds into my Facebook “current status.” Nice.
You can check out my handiwork at: http://www.buddyscalera.com. Feel free to look at the code and see how it’s done. Very simple and easy to do, even for an HTML novice.
Eventually this blog will probably migrate over to my website too. I really like blogging here on WordPress, but I get frustrated when I can’t control my widgets or outbound links better. So, we’ll see.
Now, I am off to find new convergence tricks.
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